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A clear glass toaster; a pane of glass that can heat a living room; a device that helps relieve arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome pain; a less-damaging, more energy-efficient hair dryer — these have all been created by Impression Technology, a nanotechnology startup in Frederick.

The company has perfected a new green technology it calls Pure Heat, which offers, among other benefits, a way to generate evenly distributed heat using 70 percent less electricity than conventional heating methods. The kicker is the technology can be applied to essentially any non-flexible surface, and it is entirely transparent.

Now all it needs is some venture capital — an increasingly scarce commodity for startups in a collapsing economy.

"We're a total turnkey solution," managing director August A. Wright said. "If we had the cash injection, we're ready to run. We just need gas in the gas tank."

The lack of capital hasn't dampened Wright's enthusiasm for the technology, or the company, however.

"All the stuff you see on ‘Star Trek' you can now do," Wright said. "It's like the next Microsoft … We feel that this technology is as exciting as the next light bulb in its impact on energy and heating solutions, and on our environmental problems."

Pure Heat technology came to life during a recent demonstration when Wright, president Trevor L. Combs and special projects coordinator Dara Rodola demonstrated the company's transparent toaster.

Though the appliance is just a rough prototype, the technology's potential revealed itself through its sheer simplicity. The toaster is essentially just four panes of glass — the inner two have been sprayed with the clear Pure Heat coating — sticking straight up out of a piece of metal that plugs into a wall socket. It looks more like an electric picture frame than a toaster.

But sure enough, a minute or two after a slice of bread was placed between the two inner panes, it was toast.

"If you think about a standard toaster, and its wire coil, it's easy to see how it draws 70 percent less electricity," Combs said of the company's technology, explaining that coil heat is uneven and primitive compared with Pure Heat, and drains much more energy.

"There are so many things we can do," Combs said. "We can use windowpanes as heating elements, we could integrate tube heaters into staircases, walkways, handrails, we could heat roads. There are not many limits to the possibilities."

Impression Technology has slowly evolved as an international company, with offices or leased factory space in Japan, China and Hong Kong, in addition to its headquarters in Frederick. Wright said he located the company in Frederick because it is between business centers such as Philadelphia, Baltimore and New York, and because of its proximity to Washington.

The choice of locale puts the startup in the company of other technology businesses such as BP Solar and Integrated Communication Solutions. According to the Department of Labor, Licensing and Registration, Frederick County ranked second in Maryland in the number of new information-technology jobs created per capita from 2002 to 2005.

"Because we do have a business incubator and also because of our geographical location on the northern end of the I-270 tech corridor, we do see more technology-related businesses than other areas," said Jessica Hibbard, communications director at the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce.

Wright met Pure Heat's inventor, David Wu, while working in manufacturing in Asia, and formed a close professional relationship. Wu had started the company in 1997 and by 2006 had invested close to $2 million in it. But he was "at a lock," according to Wright, about how to get the product into mass production.

So Wright, Combs and Rodola, with their manufacturing, industrial design and logistics expertise, respectively, partnered with Wu in a push to get the product into production in North America and Europe. The team returned to the U.S. in January and started Impression Technology America in Frederick.

All was proceeding smoothly and investment was lined up for one of the final steps of getting to mass production — outfitting the Impression Technology factory in Asia — when the economy tanked this fall. Despite having secured multimillion-dollar work orders for Pure Heat products from a few companies interested in the technology, the money dried up, and now the venture is stuck, like many other companies, trying to recover from the recession.

"We had almost-guaranteed investment, and then the economic markets crashed and everyone changed their minds and was too scared to invest in anything," Rodola said. "We're looking for private or institutional investors who are interested in an innovative and revolutionary green technology that can be almost immediately deployed."

Renée Winsky, president and executive director of the Maryland Technology Development Corp., agreed that it has become increasingly difficult for tech companies to land private investment.

"Private investors are not readily opening up their checkbooks like they might have a year or so ago," Winsky said. "So, yes, there is some extra scrutiny on behalf of angel investors and the venture investor community. I think everyone's being cautious and approaching things with a little bit of skepticism because of the marketplace."