William Thompson, left, and mentor Rex Gerald.
Argonne's Mentor-Inventor
February / March 06
Volume 4 Number 1
For Argonne researcher Rex Gerald, being an inventor means never really having to grow up. "I consider this a playground, and my lab is like a big sandbox," Gerald says. "I'm always like a kid going in five different directions."
While Gerald's actual title is chemical physicist, he considers himself an inventor first. "It really speaks to what we're doing here," Gerald says. "It's so curiosity driven. You get an idea and you're captivated by it. The idea must have an element of the unknown that drives you to try it out."
And Gerald's ideas have been plentiful. He holds nine patents and currently has six more pending. Most of his patents are for devices related to Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. NMR is one of the most powerful tools available for studying electrode materials, electrolytes, and chemical oxidation/reduction reactions in advanced rechargeable batteries like the coin cell batteries in watches and hearing aids. But if a battery is placed inside a commercial NMR detector and studied under test conditions, severe distortions in the NMR spectra occur. These distortions occur because the probing radio frequency field and the externally applied magnetic field are affected by the presence of the metallic electrodes.
Gerald and his colleagues have invented a device that integrates the flat, circular disk electrodes of a coin cell battery with the detector element of an NMR probe. Because the NMR inductor also serves as a metal electrode, the battery does not distort the radiofrequency signals. Thus, the coin cell NMR detector can simultaneously analyze all of the components of a coin cell battery in place in a device, under test conditions. Argonne is working to commercialize this invention with industry.
Previously, test batteries were assembled in a conventional coin cell, identical to the button-size batteries used for watches and hearing aids, then cycled under different conditions of power drain and temperature. Each component (anode, cathode, electrolyte, separator) was then extracted from the cell and analyzed independently. These tasks were time-consuming and, more important, precluded analysis of the battery materials under real test conditions.
Gerald finds the process of patenting his inventions both challenging and fulfilling. "The patent process is a very rich field to plow," he says. "It's raw creation, doing something that's never been done before." Then, when it's time to apply for a patent, the inventor must do his homework to be sure it's never been done before and decide how to explain the invention and what name to give it. "When you're going to an extreme of creativity and novelty," Gerald says, "you have to work hard to explain it correctly."
Gerald has worked at Argonne since 1994, but his scientific interests go back to childhood. "I'm still the same as when I was in the fifth or sixth grade," he said. "The only thing that's changed is how much I'm making."
Before coming to Argonne as a full-fledged scientist, Gerald spent time at the lab as a student through Argonne's Summer Research Program. He says the experience was a formative one. The internship was his first experience with a national laboratory. "When I saw Argonne, I knew this was it," he said. "Argonne has this nice niche. It takes the best qualities of academia and industry and makes a unique blend."
Perhaps because of his own student experience at the lab, Gerald has developed a flair for mentoring students, and teaching them about the invention and patent process early in their academic and research careers. "I like teaching and understanding invention. There is an enormous amount of creativity that I think is inherent in the human spirit. Tapping it doesn't require a Ph.D," Gerald says.
By showing these young researchers that it's possible for them to pursue a patent or invention, even at this early point in their careers, helps give them a sense of control and a sense that they can overcome obstacles.
Gerald said he has several criteria for his students. He promises not to give them a "cookie-cutter" or "boxed" project, and expects them to present at an international conference, write a peer-reviewed manuscript and produce an invention and patent application.
While writing an invention report and a patent application might seem a bit unusual at the student level, the push to create an invention often takes students in directions they might not otherwise go, and leads to some surprising discoveries. But there is a practical aspect to Gerald's approach as well.
"Not every great idea is a true invention, and not all inventions are patentable," says Gerald. "And even if an invention makes it through all the patenting process, there's no guarantee it will actually find use." Patenting is costly, and the ability to produce and patent meaningful and practical inventions effectively is a highly valuable skill.
Gerald's students respond to his enthusiasm and belief in them in kind. In 2004 Gerald received an Illuminator award from energy company ComEd for his outstanding mentorship of high school student William Thompson. Helping these young men and women come into their own as researchers and people, "that's far more meaningful than a new widget," says Gerald. "Don't get me wrong, widgets are fun, but people are so much more complex." He tells new students their time at Argonne will be a personal journey as well as a scientific one and that "science is the vehicle to help them grow spiritually and emotionally." Gerald says he wants his students to learn how to be leaders and to gain a strong sense of who they are in terms of innate value. "And while we're doing that," he says, "we're doing science."
"The evolution of the spirit, the development of the person, that trumps science every day."
Donna Jones Pelkie is a writer in Argonne's Communications and Public Affairs Division.
Copyright © 2012 | Innovation America