Chemistry Professor Jimmy Mays received a $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation’s Partnerships for Innovation program, to see his new innovation, superelastomers, taken to market. The Knoxville News Sentinel interview Mays about his innovation which could replace rubber and has the benefit of strength and the ability to be reused. “The big advantage of our material is that you can stretch the material a lot further before it breaks,” Mays said. “Two or three times as much as compared to the best material on the market now. Together with the College of Business Administration’s Anderson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Mays is working on commercializing the product, using the NSF grant.