The Syracuse Center of Excellence of Environmental and Energy Systems is holding a competition to further the development of technology in the field of air and water quality.

The competition is funded by a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and will award the winner a total of $550,000, said Sandra Downey, interim associate vice president of the CoE’s Office of Industry Collaboration.

The goal of the competition is to have participating companies from within New York state submit Technology Application and Demonstration projects and work with academic institutions – such as Syracuse University – to test their effectiveness, Downey said.

‘This is really to help companies get along to demonstration stage, if they can prove the product works,’ she said.

The CoE is looking for technologies that monitor air quality and water resources in an urban environment, said Ana Fernandez, environmental scientist at the OIC.

This includes sensors that measure air and water quality and respond to improve conditions, she said. Products should also be energy efficient and reduce pollution.

Participants will be asked to build a prototype, test it and show that it works, Fernandez said.

TAD projects represent the second stage of a three-step process between academic lab research and marketing a product, said Ed Bogucz, executive director of the CoE.

They demonstrate the ‘first proof of principle’ and ‘reduction to practice’ phases of development, Bogucz said.

The first proof of principle must show that an idea does work, he said, such as whether a new material produced in a lab can successfully filter the air.

Reduction to practice then takes that material, places it in a filter or machine and makes it work there, Bogucz said.

‘We’re looking for the ideas that are just coming out of the lab,’ he said. ‘If you already know it works, we’re not interested.’

Applicants will submit written proposals that will be judged by a panel of experts from out of state, Bogucz said. Awards will go to the proposals that seem most promising.

As many as five awards of up to $150,000 each will be given by mid-December, Downey said. Applications are due Oct. 27.

‘What works or not is the final exam, and we won’t know until we get there,’ Bogucz said. ‘It’s likely that some of the ideas will not work in the end.’

U.S. Rep. James Walsh, R-N.Y., helped to secure the grant from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Walsh served as chairman of the Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development and Independent Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee for six years until 2005, said Ron Anderson, appropriations associate at Walsh’s Washington, D.C. office.

In that time, Walsh has secured more than $31 million to the Syracuse CoE from the EPA and the Department of Energy, Anderson said.

An additional $2.5 million is expected to pass legislation in December, he said.

‘Mr. Walsh’s funding in the public sectors has led to private sector investments,’ Anderson said, of the academic and corporate relationships within the CoE.

The job of the OIC is to bridge the gap between industries and academic centers, Downey said.

SU leads and finds funding for the CoE, a group of more than 150 firms and institutions that research and develop human-health and environmental technologies, Bogucz said.

Published on October 10, 2006 at 12:00 pm