Making a Safer Battery: Landsdowne Labs CEO Melissa Fensterstock Takes on the Challenge

Making a Safer Battery: Landsdowne Labs CEO Melissa Fensterstock Takes on the Challenge

Melissa Fenterstock gives Senator Richard Blumenthal (CT) a tour of her lab in Bannow Science Center

Melissa Fenterstock gives Senator Richard Blumenthal (CT) a tour of her lab in Bannow Science Center

Those tiny button batteries that power a toy or watch can be deadly to a child if swallowed. A new technology from Landsdowne Labs aims to mitigate the dangers from accidental ingestion…and it’s all happening on the Fairfield campus.

When the team at Landsdowne Labs heard that Connecticut Innovations was offering capital funding for early-stage technology companies working in the state, they made the decision to find lab space in Connecticut.

“I wanted to be in Fairfield County, so I called the deans of the engineering schools in the area,” recalls Melissa Fensterstock, CEO of Landsdowne Labs and a member of the School of Engineering’s Executive Advisory Board. “Former School of Engineering Dean Bruce Berdanier agreed to host the lab in exchange for having Fairfield interns join us. It was a win-win for everyone.”

Fensterstock co-founded Landsdowne Labs with Drs. Bryan Laulicht, Jeffrey Karp, and Robert Langer. She holds an MBA from Harvard, and has a background in the biosciences and consumer products.

Since 2018, Landsdowne Labs has been working out of laboratory space at the School of Engineering, assisted by a rotating group of five engineering student interns. Her mission: to scale up the production of a pressure-sensitive protective coating for batteries that allows them to be activated when put into a device, yet renders the batteries inactive if swallowed. A mineral in the coating causes the batteries to deactivate when wet – in the mouth or esophagus, for example – and thus prevents electrochemical burns.

“Our solution prevents the hydrolysis of water and current formation between the anode and the cathode,” explained Fensterstock, who joined the School of Engineering’s Advisory Board five years ago. As the mother of two small children, she has added incentive to see the technology widely adopted by manufacturers.

There have been more than 90,000 cases of accidental ingestion of button batteries over the past three decades, according to the National Poison Data System, with roughly 400 cases resulting in major damage or death. Unsurprisingly, children under one year of age are most vulnerable. With the miniaturization of so many more devices using small batteries, the need for improved safety features is great.

Student interns perform computer design work and experimentations, create prototypes and test new designs, and help market the campaign to manufacturers. On the research side, they are diving into previous technical reports and patents, to support the necessary development of background understanding for various projects.

“Landsdowne Labs has had the good fortune to work with these smart, engaging, and hardworking Fairfield engineering students. I love how the School of Engineering is at the forefront of innovating with industry by having companies reside on campus and work with students as interns and employees. In so many instances, specific project-related activities that the interns worked on either solely or in a supporting role have helped us scale up our solution and bring it to commercialization,” Fensterstock said.

The technology is now ready for scaling, and Fensterstock and her partners are currently optimizing manufacturing costs and talking with industry leaders

Tags:  School of Engineering and Computing

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