Bruker Energy, Supercon Technologies to Collaborate with UH

Bruker Energy and Supercon Technologies Inc. (BEST), a division of Bruker Corporation (NASDAQ: BRKR), has entered into a sponsored research agreement with the University of Houston, focusing on the testing and characterization of its second-generation (2G) high-temperature superconductor tapes. 

Serving as principal investigator on behalf of UH, Professor Venkat Selvamanickam (Selva) was vice president and chief technology officer of SuperPower Inc. before joining the UH faculty as the M. D. Anderson Chair Professor in Mechanical Engineering in September 2008.  He will lead and coordinate the testing and characterization efforts of two other UH researchers and provide scientific reports and recommendations to BEST.  The optimized coated conductors (2G tape) will be provided to UH by BEST, a leading developer and manufacturer of both first and second generation high-temperature superconductors (HTS).  Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. 

“Dr. Selvamanickam is very well known and highly respected in the HTS community, and we are delighted to be working together,” said Klaus Schlenga, chief technology officer of BEST.  “We have retained the University of Houston and Selva to analyze and characterize our 2G wire, and we hope this collaboration leads to additional joint projects on HTS conductors and devices in the future.  We expect the characterization and testing to be performed by UH to give us insights into how we can even further improve our 2G tape.” 

The Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston (TcSUH) recently created an Applied Research Hub to enhance industrial collaboration. 

“We are very pleased to have BEST participate as one of the early collaborators with the Hub,” said Selvamanickam.  “TcSUH has excellent facilities for processing and characterization of coated conductors that we expect to be very beneficial for the superconductor industry in general.” 

BEST also announced that it has extended a long-running consulting agreement with Herbert C. Freyhardt, a research professor at TcSUH. 

For more information, visit http://www.advancedsupercon.com/ or http://www.bruker.com/

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