SBIR Phase II: Bio-based polymers for optical applications

SBIR二期项目的更广泛的影响和商业潜力是提供一种生物基和功能改进的光学聚合物，可以制成透镜。这种镜片产品在快速增长的大众市场上有商业应用，比如处方眼镜，由于近视的冲击而大幅增长。利用科学数据，与聚碳酸酯（美国最受欢迎的眼镜材料）相比，该提案展示了一种改进的近视商业产品。第二阶段提出的工作重点是大规模开发聚合物，并使用低成本的一步成型工艺将其转化为透镜，这也可以减少目前工业浪费估计高达90%。为了确定产品对商业应用的适用性，第二阶段的目标包括在实验室进行产品测试，以及用真实的受试者来生成可销售的数据。成品处方镜片的市场价值约为300多亿美元，其中约70%的镜片销售服务于近视患者，他们将从使用我们的超清晰镜片中获益良多。这项技术提议的更广泛影响是，与目前的高成本相比，眼镜的价格将大幅降低。陆逊梯卡（Luxottica）和依视路（Essilor）等市场垄断企业对成品镜片实施的价格控制，对金字塔市场的基础构成了巨大障碍。我们易于制造的镜片技术简化了眼镜供应链，使这些非常规市场受益，并可以大大降低全球数十亿人的成本，他们通过一副眼镜与失明分开。这个SBIR二期项目提出利用糖的特性来构建一种光学清晰、透明的聚合物，具有良好的折射率、低色散和低密度。在这种聚合物作为处方镜片的商业应用中，它代表了一种最先进的产品，它将各种现有眼镜材料的最佳性能结合在一起。这个SBIR项目的一个关键的智力优势是实现了一种具有类似玻璃光学性能的塑料，这是光学材料的黄金标准。我们的化学平台90%是基于生物的，这在处方镜片行业是一个独特的价值主张，在这个行业中使用剧毒和危险的化学品是常见的。第一阶段的工作还导致了镜片制造新路线的发展，这可以降低建立光学实验室的成本壁垒，加快生产处方镜片的过程，并减少当前处方行业的浪费。在第二阶段，我们的目标是有条不紊地开发使用Novol的聚合物制造镜片的过程，并获得数据，将拟议的技术转化为商业首选的镜片产品，对近视患者有特殊的好处。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this SBIR Phase II project is to deliver a bio-based and functionally improved optical polymer that can be made into a lens. The lens product has commercial applications in rapidly growing mass-markets like Prescription eyewear that is growing significantly due to onslaught of myopia. Using scientific data, this proposal demonstrates an improved commercial product for myopia when compared to Polycarbonate, the most popular eyewear material in US. Work proposed in Phase II focuses on development of the polymer at large scale and its conversion to lenses using a lower-cost, one-step molding process that can also reduce current industry wastages by as much as an estimated 90%. For establishing suitability of the product towards commercial applications, the Phase II goals include product testing in lab as well as with real subjects to generate marketable data. Finished prescription lenses are a ~$30 billion plus market, with ~70% of lens sales serving myopic patients, who will see a tremendous benefit from using our ultra-clear lens. Broader impact of this technology proposal is to make eyeglasses exponentially more affordable in contrast to today's high costs. Price controls exerted by market monopolies like Luxottica and Essilor on finished lenses pose a huge barrier to base of pyramid markets. Our easy-to-make lens technology simplifies the eyewear supply chain for benefit of these unconventional markets and can lower costs dramatically for billions of people around the world, who are separated by a pair of glasses from otherwise blindness.This SBIR Phase II project proposes to leverage properties of sugars to build an optically clear, transparent polymer of good refractive index, low dispersion and low density. In commercial applications of this polymer as a prescription lens, it thus represents a state-of-the-art product that combines the best properties of various incumbent eyewear materials into one. A key intellectual merit of this SBIR project is to achieve a plastic with optical properties similar to glass, a gold standard in optical materials. Our chemistry platform is 90% bio-based, a unique value proposition in prescription lens industry, where use of extremely toxic and hazardous chemicals is common. Phase I work has also led to the development of a novel route of manufacturing lenses which can lower cost barriers for setting up optical labs, expedite the process for making prescription lenses and cut wastages in current prescription industry. In Phase II, our goal is to methodically develop the process for making lenses using Novol's polymers and obtain data to translate the proposed technology to a commercially preferred lens product with special benefits to myopic patients.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.