TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER 24 Idaho Genius Awards INL received honors at the Idaho Genius Awards, ranking in the top five Idaho companies by number of patents issued. Battelle Energy Alliance, which operates INL on behalf of the DOE, ranked fourth in the state for over two dozen issued patents. Joining BEA in the top five were Micron, Hewlett-Packard Development, Semiconductor Components and the Intel Corporation. Idaho Innovation Awards A newly developed method for detecting battery self-discharge was a finalist for the Early-Stage Innovation of theYear award at the Idaho Innovation Awards.This method provides researchers with a noninvasive way to identify manufacturing flaws and short circuits within batteries before they reach critical levels and enables faster detection than was previously possible.The patent-pending method was developed by Sergiy Sazhin, Eric Dufek and Kevin Gering. The APR Phosphate Sponge was a finalist for the Early-Stage Innovation of theYear award at the Idaho Innovation Awards. It is a composite product that can be used to treat water sources suffering from toxic algae blooms by removing excess levels of phosphates. Developed by INL’sTroy Garn, Jack Law and Mitch Greenhalgh in collaboration with Rocky Mountain Scientific, the product has the potential to help solve a quickly growing environmental blight. Federal Laboratory Consortium Far West Awards INL won three Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) Far West Regional Awards in 2017 for excellence in technology development and deployment. Gary Smith was namedTechnologyTransfer Professional of theYear.Troy Garn, Mitchell Greenhalgh and Jack Law, along with Rocky Mountain Scientific Corporation employees, won the Outstanding Technology Development award for developing the APR Phosphate Sponge, an innovative solution to decrease toxic algae blooms. INL also won the Outstanding Partnership Award for its ongoing collaboration with MontanaTech on the commercialization of the jointly developed Impedance Measurement Box technology. R&D 100 Awards The General Line Ampacity State Solver (GLASS) software package was selected as a 2017 R&D 100 Award finalist. GLASS is designed to help power line operators manage transmission for maximum efficiency and savings by calculating weather effects on lines. GLASS allows system planners and grid operators to better direct current over lines without the risk of overheating and enables utility companies to adjust power production and manage fluctuations in load more effectively. Awards & Recognition The GLASS development team includes (from left)Timothy McJunkin, Alexander Abboud, Jake Gentle and Jacob Lehmer.