Akita Innovations is pleased to announce it was awarded a contract/s for the Missile Defense Agency Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract with a ceiling of $151B. This contract encompasses a broad range of work areas that allows for the rapid delivery of innovative capabilities to the warfighter with increased speed… Continue Reading →

Akita Innovations was awarded an SBIR Phase II contract by Naval Sea Systems Command for the development of “AM of Textured Piezoelectric Ceramics” under Topic # N241-040.  This award follows the successful completion of a Phase I SBIR contract which demonstrated the feasibility of fabrication of textured piezoceramics by additive manufacture (AM).  In Phase II… Continue Reading →

Akita Innovations was awarded a SBIR Phase I contract by Strategic Systems Programs for the development of “High Sensitivity Piezo-Ceramic Materials for Hydrophone Devices” under Topic # N252-118.  In this Project, Akita will team with the Penn State Applied Research Laboratory to advance emerging highly sensitive piezoelectric ceramics for Navy applications.

In another project, Akita is working for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) to optimize the formulation of and scale to pilot production levels a non-aqueous fluid that can be sprayed on chemically or biologically contaminated surfaces, such as vehicles, that will stick to the surfaces and accomplish a significant decontamination of the hazard, reducing… Continue Reading →

Akita Innovations was awarded a SBIR Phase II contract by Program Executive Office Ships for the development of “Permanent RF Transparent AN/SPY-1 Array Cover” under Topic #N231-033.  This award follows the successful completion of a Phase I SBIR contract and is intended to provide a prototype of an RF-transmissive, removable, and environmentally and mechanically protective… Continue Reading →

The goal of this 18-month project is to mature and advance a printable, low-loss dielectric ink that was invented at a university partner.  In this project, Akita is working with industry and university partners to refine the ink’s printability (viscosity and pot life) for use by several current printing technologies, to demonstrate printability using commercial… Continue Reading →

Akita Innovations was awarded a SBIR Phase I contract by the naval Sea Systems Command for the “Additive Manufacture of Texturized Piezoelectric Ceramics.” In this project Akita teams with an industry partner to develop a low-cost, flexible additive manufacturing technique to produce textured piezoelectric ceramics for undersea sensor applications. 

Akita chemists co-author new ACS journal article are among the authors of a recent publication in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces on MOF composites for chemical agent neutralization:  https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.3c19446 Hierarchically Structured Metal–Organic Framework Polymer Composites for Chemical Warfare Agent Degradation Sachini D. Perera, Rebecca M. Johnson, Robert Pawle, John Elliott, Tien M. Tran, Jasmine Gonzalez,… Continue Reading →

Akita Innovations was awarded an STTR contract by Army Contracting Command – Aberdeen Proving Ground (ACC-APG) for the “Additive Manufacture of MOF Elastomers.” Akita leads a team including university and industry partners.  The project develops a compressible filter cartridge for air purifying respirators using additive manufacture.

Akita Innovations was awarded a SBIR Phase II contract by Army Contracting Command – Aberdeen Proving Ground (ACC-APG) for the development of “Personally-Fitted Half-Mask Respirators.” Akita leads a team including three subcontractors. Our technical solution uses imaging technology to generate half-mask respirator design files that are fitted to an individual and additive manufacture to fabricate… Continue Reading →

Akita Innovations is producing a variety of acetone-soluble polyimides.  Traditional polyimides are not soluble in non-toxic, non-VOC organic solvents, and are typically prepared as the polyamic acid precursors requiring a high-temperature thermal step to produce the polyimides.  The Akita polyimides allow users to work directly with polyimides without thermal processing and using common solvents, facilitating… Continue Reading →

Akita Innovations is producing polymer-encapsulated iodate microparticles for use as oxidants in biocidal thermites.  These iodine-generating oxidants are superior to conventional oxidants since they are non-hygroscopic, showing improved shelf stability, flow, and mixing, as well as excellent combustion performance.  We can control the particle size to optimize combustion rates.  We can economically scale the manufacture… Continue Reading →

Akita chemists co-author paper in Photochemistry and Photobiology journal are among the authors of a paper in Photochemistry and Photobiology on photoacoustic dye conjugates for cancer imaging and treatment: Saad, M. A., Xavierselvan, M., Sharif, H. A., Selfridge, S., Pawle, R., Varvares, M., Mallidi, S., & Hasan, T. (2022). Dual Function Antibody Conjugates for Multimodal… Continue Reading →

Akita received a two year Sequential Phase II SBIR contract from the U.S. Army to increase the technical readiness level (TRL) of its antifog coating for ballistic protective eyewear. This coating is designed to provide superior antifog performance and increased lifetime while reducing manufacturing costs by using a process-friendly UV curing method. The coatings will… Continue Reading →

Akita Innovations received a SBIR Phase II award from the Department of Defense Chemical and Biological Defense (CBD) program to develop materials technologies for the scan-to-manufacture of respirator face pieces.  For the award, Akita will partner with Adaptive3D Technologies. Adaptive3D is based in Plano TX and offers additive manufacturing polymer resins and specialty polymers to… Continue Reading →

Lawrence F. Hancock, CEO of Akita Innovations, received the 2020 R.E. Tressler Award from the Materials Science and Engineering Department of Pennsylvania State University on February 27, 2020.  The Tressler award honors the work and contributions of Richard E. Tressler, who was an international leader in the development of high temperature materials and served as… Continue Reading →

Akita Innovations has been awarded an Express Grant from the Commonwealth Corporation to advance Akita’s marketing capabilities.  This grant, which is funded by the State of Massachusetts and is cost-matched by Akita, concentrates on digital marketing. It is funded by The Workforce Training Fund, a program of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce… Continue Reading →