Philip Vidal Streich is an American scientist and nano entrepreneur.[1] He won the Intel Foundation Young Scientist 2007 Award for his research contradicting a general assumption that carbon nanotubes were insoluble. For his scientific achievements, Streich was also named a 2008 Davidson Fellow Laureate and a 2008 WiSys Innovative Scholar of the Year. He earned third place in the 2009 Intel Science Talent Search and was selected by his fellow finalists to represent them as the Glenn T. Seaborg Award Speaker. He also received the 2009 Legacy Award from the Creativity Foundation.[2]
In 2011, Streich founded a solar technology company, Streich Solar Industries, to market and sell his green ideas and technologies.[3]
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Born in Princeton, New Jersey, Streich lived on a farm in rural southwest Wisconsin, where he was home schooled by his parents, retired J.P Morgan executives [4], after quitting public school at the age of 12. When he was 14, Streich began taking courses at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, where he was introduced to scientific research. Since then, he has taken undergraduate and graduate courses in science, math, history and German, and currently attends Harvard University.
Streich has been active in politics since he was 13.
Streich demonstrated that carbon nanotubes, among the strongest and most conductive materials in the world, are thermodynamically soluble, contradicting the generally held assumption that they were universally insoluble. Using the Debye light-scattering theory, Streich determined the Flory-Huggins parameter to calculate solubility. To accurately detect the light scattered, he designed and custom built, out of spare parts in the lab, a unique photon-counting spectrometer, more sensitive and precise than any commercially available.
His research has been published in Advanced Materials and written about in the “Editor’s Choice” section of Science. His work has broad applications in the field of nanoscience. Recently, Streich co-founded Graphene Solutions to sell the instrument and solvents he discovered.
Streich co-founded and co-owns Xolve, Inc., originally founded as Graphene Solutions, Inc,[5] which won the 2008 Wisconsin Governor's Business Plan Grand Award. The company, a spin out of research at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville chemistry laboratories, under the direction of Dr. James P. Hamilton, has a "patent-pending technology that dissolves carbon nanotubes, graphene nanosheets and other materials so they can be purified and spread in a layer one atom thick. That could pave the way for electronic components, like computer chips, that are dramatically smaller with much greater capacity."[4]
In 2011, Streich founded Streich Solar industries, Inc.
Streich has won scholarships and monetary awards totaling over $250,000. He was one of three students to win the top prize of a $50,000 scholarship at the 2007 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). The competition involves three to five million students participating at local levels and over 1,500 projects from 52 nations proceeding to the International Fair. Streich also won 11 special awards from government organizations and private companies, including a trip to China. At the 2008 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair Philip won seven awards for his continued research on solubility, including the second place grand award.
A member of the U.S. Physics Olympiad team in 2007, Streich also won the National Physics Bowl two consecutive years and was a 2006 U.S. Chemistry Olympiad finalist.
A Minor Planet 23116 Streich was named after him, in honor of his research achievements and future potential to help solve the energy crisis.