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Lab to Market Video Series Features Professor’s Revolutionary Anti-Icing Material
Lab to Market Video Series

UH mechanical engineer Hadi Ghasemi invented a new adaptive anti-icing material inspired by wood frogs, an animal that can freeze without dying, and now he’s ready to take his revolutionary invention out of the laboratory and into the consumer marketplace.

“Our goal is to put this material on the shelves of stores like Home Depot so every consumer can buy and apply it themselves,” says Ghasemi, who founded the start-up company SurfEllent at the UH Cullen College of Engineering based on his technology.

SurfEllent’s better than state-of-the-art coatings are able to repel ice for at least two years and can withstand critically low temperatures. Cullen College alumni Peyman Irajizad and Abdullah AlBayati, both former students working in Ghasemi’s NanoTherm Lab, serve as the company’s co-founders.

Anti-icing surfaces play a critical role in a wide range of industries, from transportation to energy. Planes skid off runways, cars slide across freeways and frozen power lines cause power failures – all potentially catastrophic events caused by ice.

“We have a solution that can address all of these problems and more,” says Ghasemi.

Ghasemi and his team are seeking funding to grow SurfEllent and its ability to manufacture the icephobic material.

Learn more about SurfEllent in the video, “Lab to Market: Next-Generation Anti-Icing Coatings,” below!

 

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