Hot ideas for a winter nemesis
Valeri Kozliouk's office is kept pretty cool -- 20 degrees Fahrenheit -- but Kozliouk never complains.
For one, he's originally from Siberia. Also, Kozliouk's walk-in freezer of a workspace is located within Dartmouth College's Ice Research Lab. The lab is developing new technology that could change the way we experience winter. (Not surprisingly, when Kozliouk vacations, he goes to Florida.)
Kozliouk gives a quick demo in his subzero, subbasement office: A large chunk of ice is frozen to a sheet of glass, simulating the situation New England drivers confront on many winter mornings. This is special glass, though, coated with a layer of tin oxide, which is transparent but capable of carrying an electrical current. When Kozliouk flips the switch on a small box, a current runs through the surface layer of tin oxide, and the ice literally pops off the windshield.
Kozliouk, lab director Victor Petrenko, and several colleagues at Dartmouth have a special relationship with frozen water. The crew could rightly be called the wizards of winter. They've produced technology that can not only de-ice car windshields, but airplane wings, windmills, bridges, and power lines, too. And they've made battery-powered cross-country skis and special shoes that afford the wearer an extra-strong grip on ice and snow.
But traction is something that has so far eluded two companies trying to commercialize technology developed at the lab. One is Petrenko's own start-up, Ice Engineering LLC, founded in 2001 and currently looking for its first round of venture capital funding. Another is Ice Surface Development Inc., of Hudson. The latter is majority-owned by Torvec, a New York company whose stock is traded on the OTC Bulletin Board.
Goodrich Corp., the aerospace and defense company, is also working on an airplane de-icing system based on technology licensed from Petrenko's Ice Research Lab, but that's still several years from market.
Transferring breakthroughs from the lab into the real world is rarely easy -- even when it involves technology that can be applied in many different industries.
The demos in the Ice Research Lab are impressive, although it helps to don a down parka before you enter. By applying precisely calibrated pulses of electricity, the researchers can get ice to fall off windshields, drop from power lines, and fly off wings. They call it ''molecular melting." Rather than trying to melt all of the ice, which requires a lot of time and heat, Petrenko and his researchers have figured out how to use electricity to melt only the thin layer of ice that's affixed to a surface.
''Our unique intellectual property involves the voltage, and the frequency, and the timing -- how you apply these pulses of electricity," says John Chen, vice president of business development for Ice Engineering, and a visiting scientist at Dartmouth. ''It requires much less energy than trying to heat something."
When the pulses are timed properly, they can also quickly melt and refreeze the ice or packed snow underneath a ski. (''It happens very quickly, sort of like antilock braking," Chen explains.) That gives cross-country skis a better grip, enabling their wearers to push harder against the snow and thus travel faster. The technology might also help novice skiers or snowboarders limit their downhill speed.
Eventually, Chen says the company will also develop technology to enhance a snowboard or ski's ability to glide, effectively giving it both a brake and an accelerator. He imagines that the controls would be handheld, or integrated into a ski pole.
Right now, Ice Engineering is working with a ski industry partner to integrate its technology into a cross-country ski. (The company can't reveal exactly who, but I sure did notice a lot of Fischer brand skis sitting around.) The technology could add about $100 to the price of a pair of cross-country skis. But Ice Engineering CEO Tim Durant believes that giving skiers more control and power could help revive sagging sales of cross-country skis. This year, Ice Engineering and its partner will produce several thousand pairs of skis with the electronic traction controllers inside, to see how skiers and ski distributors respond.
If there's demand for the product, the skis could go on sale to the public as early as next year. Getting a first product into the market would be a major step for Ice Engineering. But the company will need to raise money if it hopes to survive to that point, according to Durant. Since he joined the company last September, he has been making the rounds, looking for an investment of $1.5 million to $3 million. ''The challenge is that this company is a little bit off-center for a lot of venture capitalists," he says. ''It's not your normal IT/infrastructure/wireless deal."
Out in central Massachusetts, Ice Surface Development Inc. is hunting for a corporate partner to help bring a windshield de-icing system, also based on Petrenko's research, to market. ''We are currently building prototypes within the automotive space," says Dave Marshall, vice president of manufacturing at ISDI. ''Ultimately, we're trying to find a development partner to take it to full production." The three-person company originally licensed the technology from Petrenko's lab at Dartmouth in 2000.
Gaining more control over all kinds of ice would certainly make winter a less trying season. But when, exactly, will that happen?
Petrenko takes the long view. He first became interested in the physics of ice in 1978. And he remains optimistic that his lab's research will soon have a very big impact. ''I have no doubt that some of these products will come onto the market soon," he says. ''And the more products we bring to the market, the more demand that will create. We will be very, very busy."
Scott Kirsner is a contributing editor at Fast Company. He can be reached at skirsner@verizon.net. 