Two Pittsburgh-area companies received $508,238 in funding Tuesday through the Pennsylvania NanoMaterials Commercialization Center, a Pittsburgh-based organization founded to promote research into super-small materials, called nanomaterials.

NanoLambda Inc.,a Harmar-based, University of Pittsburgh spinoff that commercializes advanced sensor technology, received $258,238 in Ben Franklin Technology Development Authority funding. The state funds, combined with $151,825 in company matching funds will be used to develop a new sensor chip utilizing nano-imprint lithography.

Plextronics, also based at the former Gulf Oil Laboratories, now known as UPARC, was awarded $250,000 in U.S. Air Force Research Laboratories funding to develop a processing technology for organic photovoltaic devices. Plextronics, a Carnegie Mellon University spinoff, is providing $250,000 in matching funds.

A third in-state firm, Philadelphia-based Y-Carbon Inc. was awarded $243,835 in Ben Franklin funds to develop and commercialize electrical supercapacitors using nanoporous carbon electrodes. The company is providing $78,000 in matching funds.

Thus far, the center has funded nine projects using federal and state funds totaling more than $2 million. The nine recipients have added more than $1.2 million in their own funding.

The NanoMaterials Center was founded in 2006 under the auspices of the Pittsburgh Technology Council by a consortium of four Western Pennsylvania companies: Alcoa, Bayer, PPG Industries and U.S. Steel.

source...
www.pittsburghlive.com