Partnering with Argonne: Opening new possibilities
Industrial partnerships, licensing and consortia exchange are some
of the channels through which Argonne works with its industrial partners.
Industrial partnerships involve close collaborations with
industry under a range of joint research agreements that match Argonne's R&D participation to industry's specific needs at every step
of the R&D process, including basic research, applied research,
proof-of-principle demon stration, prototype development and testing,
and technology deploy ment. These partnerships typically involve both
government and industry funding. The contractual vehicles possible
include simple technical services agreements, contracts to perform
specific R&D tasks, and more complex multi-party cooperative research
agreements with several funding sources.
Argonne can license its patents exclusively to an individual
company and, if requested, can work with the company to perform the
basic and applied R&D needed to help shape the technology into
a marketable product. Industry typically pays a negotiated licensing
fee.
Industrial consortia provide yet another means through
which Argonne conducts R&D for a group of organizations that have
common scientific and engineering needs. An example of such a consortium
is the United
States Council for Automotive Research, an umbrella organization
for collaborative research among DaimlerChrysler Corporation, Ford
Motor Company and General
Motors Corporation. In these cases, the results
flow through the consortia members to their suppliers, who shape them
into new and improved parts and components for the marketplace. Funding
for pre-competitive research under these consortia typically comes
from the U.S. Department of Energy or other government agencies.
Eichrom Technologies: a successful high-tech startup
According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, about 60 percent
of new companies fail within six years. One that has succeeded and
grown is Eichrom
Technologies, founded in 1990 to commercialize chemical
separation technology developed in the Chemistry Division at Argonne.
Eichrom's initial products — chromato graphic resins—grew out of
the need to find a faster way to perform urine and fecal analysis for
employees who worked with actinides, the heaviest metallic elements.
Since its founding, Eichrom has opened offices in Europe, established
its own development and testing laboratory, and moved to the forefront
of new product develop ment and commercialization in the areas of radiochemistry,
geochemistry, hazardous metals analysis and environmental screening
for dioxins and related compounds. The initial Argonne-developed resins
remain Eichrom's flagship products, accounting for about half the company's
annual revenues. (Read more about Eichrom.)
Meretec ® Dezincing Process: clean scrap for steelmaking
The Meretec ® Dezincing
Process converts galvanized steel scrap
into clean scrap for steelmaking and recovers zinc for resale. Development
of the process began in 1987, as a basic experimental program set up
by Argonne National Laboratory and Metal Recovery Industries,
a Canadian de-tinning company, with funding from the U.S. Department
of Energy. The technical and economic feasibility of the process was
demonstrated through a series of integrated steps from laboratory bench
scale through pilot plant processing test batches. The later development
and demonstration stages involved the American Iron and Steel Institute
and General Motors and resulted in the establishment of Metal Recovery
Industries U.S., based in East Chicago, Ind. The process is patented
in the United States, Europe and Japan and is now being licensed in
the United States and abroad.
Want to partner with Argonne? Contact Argonne's Office
of Technology Transfer at
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