Drumroll please. And the winner is: Mark Leiby?
The Center County inventor and lead technologist for Aerokinetic Systems was selected on Tuesday as the winner of the New Energy Idea Contest, sponsored by Ben Franklin Technology Partners and the Pennsylvania Technical Assistance Program (PennTAP). The award comes with a $35,000 prize and assistance from some of the most successful business development professionals in the nation. But with the world at his doorstep, Leiby seems to be asking one seemingly simple question: now what?
Leiby’s successful invention started in a humble basement in Central Pa, where he had begun researching military technologies. His start-up firm Aerokinetic Systems was examining fuel efficiency and how to create a less wasteful combustion engine when they discovered a way to use less fuel by converting hydrocarbons into vapor, increasing fuel efficiency by up to 25 percent. But Aerokinetic Systems is still working on a patent and is a bit unsure which direction to pursue. With this award, the company now has 35,000 reasons to figure it all out.
“Military, commercial engines, generators, perhaps licensing the technology to a large corporation,” Leiby says. “We are still going through the patent process so we know that we can vaporize hydrocarbon fuel, which allows us to burn less overall. We want to take it national and this money should help us finalize the patent process.”
Created through a partnership between Ben Franklin Technology Partners and PennTAP, the New Energy Idea Contest was designed to draw inventors like Leiby out of the basement and into the spotlight, showcasing new energy innovations that might create industry for Pennsylvania. As Pennsylvania strives to become an energy leader through wind, solar and natural gas projects, technology developers are seeking the next wave. And while some environmentalists may balk at a project that burns oil being chosen as the technology of the future, Leiby believes his invention defines sustainability by using what we have in a new way.
“Someday down the road, who knows when this will be, you are going to have very cost-effective solar cells or hydrogen fuel cells or something to that effect but that’s not right around the corner,” says Leiby. “In the meantime, you’re going to have to use what you’ve got. We are desperately searching the world for more fuel oil, why not use what we’ve got more efficiently?”
Source: Mark Leiby, Aerokinetic Systems
Writer: John Steele