24 Student Teams Selected as Finalists
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC, formerly OTT) has announced the 24 student finalist teams selected to compete in the Energy Technology University Prize (EnergyTech UP) 2025 National Pitch Event this summer at the Colorado School of Mines.
“The 24 finalist teams have shown great potential,” said DOE Chief Commercialization Officer and Director of OTC, Anthony Pugliese. “By offering mentorship, learning resources, and a cash prize pool of over $430,000, EnergyTech UP is propelling the commercialization of high-potential energy technologies and empowering the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs with skills in market analysis and business.”
The following teams were awarded $5,000 each and will now advance through the final phases of the competition: the Refine and Pitch Phases. Each team will leverage tailored mentorship over the next few weeks to refine their market analyses and business opportunities in preparation for their final pitches in front of a panel of industry stakeholders and OTC leadership on June 30, 2025.
Regional Finalists
- Bay State Energy (Boston University) — a cost-effective fission power system that relies solely on thermoelectric generators for energy conversion, potentially decreasing costs and improving reliability.
- Carmine Minerals (California State University San Bernardino) — selective extraction of lithium from low concentration solutions, with over 95% selectivity while consuming 75% less energy and water.
- Ciaran Fitzgerald's Team (The University of Notre Dame) — a heating solution that captures waste heat from hyperscale data centers and delivers it to nearby buildings using high-efficiency thermal storage systems.
- CSU Vikes 4 Energy (Cleveland State University)— electrolyte technology that addresses the need for batteries that can perform in freezing temperatures, which is important for industries and arctic energy production.
- GaaS Station (Duke University) — driving adoption of Geothermal Energy Hubs that can power co-located data centers.
- HydroCore (University of Central Florida) — a system that enables local utility providers to create merchant hydrogen fueling stations using purple bacteria and carbon nanotubes to prevent sewage overflow by converting waste into hydrogen for greater cost benefit.
- Lamino (University of Hawaii at Manoa) — a passive cooling technology that helps data centers, mining farms, and other heat-intensive operations save 20% of their energy usage and 80% of the water compared to traditional cooling techniques.
- Nanoborne (University of Texas at Austin) — a nanoparticle-surfactant technology designed to improve the control of subsurface fluid flow.
- New Mexico Tech Power Rangers (New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology) — a safe and efficient thorium-based Molten Salt Reactor System with increased fuel efficiency for grids, industries, and remote sites.
- Project Solstice (Cornell Tech) — a unified data platform with a no-code interface that standardizes fragmented information from grid operators and utilities, providing interconnection risk modeling, feasibility assessments, and predictive analytics for data center site selection.
- Pittsburgh Coastal Energy (University of Pittsburgh) — an onboard wave energy converter for charging underwater vehicle batteries at sea.
- RadonLock Innovations (Hampton University, University of Puerto Rico) — a noble gas trapping mechanism that can be used for radon mitigation and measurement.
- ReAsh (University of Virginia) — a process to extract rare earth elements from coal ash.
- Transfinity (Mississippi State University) — a power take-off system to provide a more consistent and efficient tidal energy production.
Bonus Prize Finalists
- Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office Bonus Prize: AlchemII (University of Tennessee, Knoxville) — combination of pyrolysis and electrolysis techniques to efficiently produce hydrogen and graphite in one pot.
- Arctic Energy Office Bonus Prize: Graystone (University of Alaska Fairbanks) — utilization of carbon dioxide in its supercritical state (where it behaves as both a liquid and a gas) allowing it to penetrate solids and dissolve target materials with very high efficiency.
- Solar Energy Technologies Office Bonus prize: Ideal PV (Harvey Mudd College) — a solar technology that prevents hotspots by continuously monitoring dynamic conductance and intelligently adjusting current in milliseconds, preventing reverse bias before it starts.
- Office of Technology Commercialization - National Lab IP Licensing Bonus Prize: Jeremy Drew’s Team (Carnegie Mellon University) — a cathode recycling technology to advance the Lithium-Ion Battery supply chain.
- Water Power Technologies Office Bonus Prize: Mickey Henson’s Team (Western Carolina University) — AI-driven Unmanned Surface Vehicles with turbines and Wave Energy Converters that harness hydrokinetic energy.
- Office of Electricity – Grid-Scale Power Electronics Bonus Prize: PowerBox Technology, (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) — a scalable, modular power integration device designed to provide 100% electrical uptime for industrial facilities by stabilizing unreliable grids and seamlessly integrating solar power with energy storage.
- Office of Nuclear Energy Bonus Prize: Seal the Deal (Georgia Southern University) — a novel seal design for supercritical carbon dioxide turbomachinery, addressing a critical bottleneck in next-generation nuclear and microreactor technologies.
- Office of Technology Commercialization – Undergraduate Bonus Prize: SoHara (University of Alabama) — a technology that provides fast and accurate State-of-Health estimation and failure prediction for electrochemical batteries retired from electric vehicles for second use in other applications.
- Office of Electricity – Grid-Enhancing Technologies Bonus Prize: SSS Corporation (University of Illinois at Chicago) — a technology that balances supply and demand of local power grids to ensure that EV batteries will be viable when energy is constrained.
- Geothermal Technologies Office Bonus Prize: Stanford Maestro (Stanford University) — a software application based on an innovative GOOML framework from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), designed to deliver agentic optimization for geothermal operations.
At the conclusion of the pitch competition, up to three National Winners will receive a portion of the $110,000 prize pool. Additionally, teams will compete for the National Lab IP Licensing, Undergraduate-Only Team, and technology bonus prizes of $20,000 each from the respective sponsoring DOE program offices.
Thank you to all student teams who submitted to EnergyTech UP 2025!
