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Birthing a Brand New Industry, Creating Jobs in the Pacific Northwest and Beyond

In a unique joint venture, OSU Engineering and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have launched a research and educational center called the Microproducts Breakthrough Institute, or MBI. The new institute, to be located in Corvallis, will develop and help market advances in the emerging field of Multi-Scale Materials and Devices (MMD/MECS), which has the potential to spawn an entirely new industry in the Pacific Northwest based on small, lightweight, and more efficient chemical, energy, and biological systems. This emerging industry could pack an economic punch that would rival the microelectronics boom in the Bay Area.

Microproducts Breakthrough Institute (MBI) groundbreaking;Mechanical Engineering associate professor and MBI co-director Kevin Drost.

OSU Engineering and PNNL researchers agree that millions of dollars in research, important scientific discoveries, new start-up companies, and more jobs for residents of the Pacific Northwest may soon emerge from the MBI.

Kevin Drost, OSU associate professor of Mechanical Engineering and co-director of the new MBI, says, “Within five years, this new institute could include a facility with 50- 60 staff and a research budget of $20 million annually.”

Drost’s counterpart at PNNL agrees. “This joint venture links two premier leaders in microsystems technology,” says Landis Kannberg, technical network leader for energy with PNNL and co-director of the new institute. “We’re extremely excited about what the future may hold.”

Some of the projects already under way, or considered at some point in the future, include:

• A biosensor the size of a lapel pin capable of detecting chemical and biological warfare agents, and other environmental toxins like E. coli.
• Chemical reactors the size of a pencil capable of cleaning up underground toxic waste onsite by converting it into inert components.
• Heat-actuated air conditioning units to cool automobiles using waste engine heat.
• Liquid-cooled micro-chips with tiny “veins” etched into the surface to transfer heat and allow for even faster computer chips.
• A lightweight, human-portable cooling system to allow haz-mat and military biowarfare suits to be cooled for hours instead of minutes.
• Tiny devices that produce on-site and on-demand small volumes of hazardous materials needed by industry, eliminating the need to transport the materials and the chance of spills.
• Microprocessing fuel plants sent to Mars to provide astronauts the necessary fuel for a return trip to Earth.
• Small systems to produce hydrogen for fuel cells in automobiles, changing a power plant that now fills the back of a pickup truck into a unit the size of a shoebox.

“These very, very small systems are going to lead to some very, very big changes,” says Walt Apley, associate laboratory director for PNNL. “This partnership is right in line with the goals of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science.”

The partnership is also in line with OSU’s goal of building the College of Engineering into one of the top-25 in the nation.

“This is a tremendously exciting field of science and engineering and it quite literally will change how people live their lives,” says Drost. “But we’re also going to reach out to private industry, bridge the gap between the academic laboratory and the marketplace, and have a concrete impact on the economy of the Pacific Northwest.”

Note: This story appears in the college's 2003 Spring newsletter, "Engineer". Would you like to hear more? Then download the PDF and read the whole thing!