Five New York companies have been awarded funding through the Cornell Center for Materials Research JumpStart program, which is supported by Empire State Development’s Division of Science, Technology and Innovation.

The program is designed to help New York state small businesses develop and improve their products through university collaborations. JumpStart projects receive up to $5,000 in matching funds for project costs that include faculty and research staff, facilities, services, supplies and materials.

Since the program’s inception in 2005, 82 companies have benefited from the program. The following businesses received funding this semester: 

• Cryomech, based in Syracuse, will collaborate with Meredith Silberstein, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, to improve the lifetime of polymer seals used in their products.
• Millennium Carbon in Old Bethpage will collaborate with Emmanuel Giannelis, vice provost for research and professor of materials science and engineering, to optimize plant operations for the production of activated carbon used in ultracapacitors.
• Paramount Products 1, based in Rye, will collaborate with Jed Sparks, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, to study the movement of a new agricultural adjuvant called Polymer Taxi by applying it to the surface of plant leaves and exposing it to the effects of rain, dew, fog or irrigation.
• Repairogen of Ithaca will collaborate with Brett Fors, assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology, to develop new synthetic methods for large-scale production of two active ingredients currently derived in small quantities from natural plant sources.
• Vergason Technology in Van Etten will collaborate with Christopher Ober, professor of materials science and engineering, to optimize the intermediate layer between the substrate material and the firm’s SuperChrome PVD coating.

The Cornell Center for Materials Research is a National Science Foundation- and New York state-funded interdisciplinary research center whose mission is to advance, explore and exploit the forefront of the science and engineering of advanced materials. Three other complementary functions complete the CCMR’s mission: educational outreach to teachers and students; industrial outreach and knowledge transfer; and operation shared instrumentation in support of materials research on and off campus.