DOE awards second round of lab vouchers to small business research ventures

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) announced on Thursday that two small business will receive more than $350,000 in funds from the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Small Business Voucher (SBV) pilot, enabling them to further their work with the assistance of LLNL resources.

Scientists James Kelly and Jeff Haslam and Annemarie Meike from LLNL’s Industrial Partnerships Office will provide assistance to Renaissance Services Incorporated (RSI) in their development of improved thermal process analysis for additively manufactured ceramic cores, elements necessary for the production of the company’s high-efficiency turbine engine components.

GreenFire Energy will receive help from LLNL scientists Joe Morris and Rick Ryerson, developing an innovative method of harvesting geothermal energy by means of carbon dioxide circulation in deep well bores.

The DOE launched the first round of its SBV pilot in fall 2015. During that first series, the technology-to-market lab impact program distributed vouchers with a total value of $6.7 million to 33 small businesses that typically would have had no means of accessing the expertise and resources of a national lab.

Last week, the DOE awarded more than $8 million in lab vouchers to 43 projects, bringing the totals for the SBV pilot to $15 million in vouchers.