A Medical Device Daily

Strategic Polymer Sciences (SPS; State College, Pennsylvania) has been awarded two new grants, totaling $300,000, to develop capacitors. One grant is from the U.S. Air Force, with military applications; the other is from the Pennsylvania NanoMaterials Commercialization Center (Pittsburgh) to improve medical devices.

"These two grants represent significant steps in the continuing growth and development of Strategic Polymer Sciences," said Ralph Russo, co-founder, president/
CEO. "They reflect the confidence we have earned for applying our technology to an improved standard of living."

SPS received a $100,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase 1 program grant from the Air Force to develop compact, sub-microsecond discharge pulsed power capacitors with a long lifetime of more than 1 million cycles. The new film capacitors will be fabricated using SPS high-energy density dielectric films, combining with the latest metallization technology and robust capacitor design.

These advanced capacitors can have numerous military applications: directed energy systems, high power microwave generators, power modulators, particle accelerators, and advanced radar systems. The capacitors are also critical to many commercial devices such as medical X-ray equipment, defibrillators, utility distribution substations, machining equipment, and hybrid electric and plug-in electric vehicles.

The company also was awarded a $200,000 commercialization grant from the Pennsylvania NanoMaterials Commercialization Center for the development of nanostructured compact capacitors for ICDs. In the one-year program, SPS will work with Penn State University (also State College) to develop prototype ICD capacitors and evaluate them for ICD application.

SPS is an early-stage startup company that develops new materials and device technologies Earlier this year, it closed a Series A funding round of $3 million.