Lightweight metal startup looks at auto efficiency (Boston)
Steve Derezinski has his eye on 2016, the year the nation’s combined fuel economy average for new vehicles will rise to 35.5 miles per gallon.
Derezinski and his Natick-based startup, Metal Oxygen Separation Technologies Inc., are working to produce a light magnesium metal that can be used to replace heavier metals in automobiles. If the project succeeds, a reduction of 1.5 miles per gallon to 2 mpg will be achievable in vehicles through the company’s technology, he said.
“We have a year-long program in place to get (the production process) out of the university and get it proven in the industrial setting,” Derezinski, CEO of the company, said in an interview with Mass High Tech. The project officially kicked off in April.
Derezinski, who holds an MBA from MIT, and Adam Powell, who holds a doctorate in engineering from MIT, co-founded the company in 2008 after reviewing hundreds of university technologies. They found a research partner in Uday Pal, head of the division of materials science and engineering at Boston University, who is working with the company’s four-person team.
The National Science Foundation provided startup funding of $100,000 to the company in June 2009, and the company has received $1.1 million in grants this year from the U.S. Department of Energy, including a $260,000 award earlier this month.
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