Award Data

Modern agriculture is highly dependent on nitrogen (N) fertilization to maintain high yields and profitability. In organic agriculture, cover crops and bulky organic amendments supply N; transport costs can be prohibitive, and energy used in transport is substantial. In conventional agriculture, industrial N fixation uses natural gas, high temperatures, and high pressures to convert atmospheric N ...

Food safety is a global problem, which costs the world billions of dollars and over a million lives annually. Access Sensor Technologies proposes to develop a rapid, low-cost, easy to use system for the measurement of food borne pathogens. The proposed kit builds off of patent-pending technology that will deliver exceptional ease-of-use as well as performance metrics (time, cost, labor) exceeding ...

The respiration of fresh fruits and vegetables (FF & amp;V) converts oxygen from the surrounding air into carbon dioxide, moisture and ethylene. While ethylene is used under controlled conditions as a ripening agent, the presence of even small amounts of ethylene gas in shipping and storage containers causes most fresh produce to deteriorate much faster, potentially spoiling it before it reaches t ...

This project will develop a catalytic process to manufacture a new renewable and degradable bio-plastic that could be used to replace polyethylene in many applications, including those that constitute a large part of land and ocean litter such as bags, food packaging and disposable tableware.

We propose an innovative robotic technology to tap slash pine trees and collect their oleoresinfor processing using an unmanned fully autonomous long-range robotic forest rover as part ofthe strategy to revive the dormant turpentine industry in the Southeastern United States. Thisintegrated system will replace the labor-intensive work of collecting slash pine oleoresin.The objectives of this Phase ...

The production of turpentine in the U.S. exceeded 301,000 tons in 2004 (Romney 2004) and the production of resin acids exceeded 800,000 ton in 2003 (Romney 2004), which also includes the production from directly tapping trees (e.g., gum turpentine, gum rosin). There is growing demand for bio-plastics (non-petroleum derived polymers); for example Pepsi announced it will be using bio-plastic bottles ...

Crude Sulfated Turpentine (CST) is a by-product of the Kraft wood pulping process, and its derivatives (e.g., terpenes such as alpha pinene) are used as fragrances in commercial products ranging from cosmetics to detergents. They can also be, and are, catalytically transformed into valuable chemicals by hydrogenation, oxidation and isomerization reactions. However, turpentine and its derivatives c ...

Assessment of wildland fire smoke exposure is a genuine concern to fire managers public healthofficials air quality regulators and the public. Exposure to vegetation fire smoke products posesacute and chronic health hazards to first line responders firefighters and to communities locateddownwind of their source. Current instrumentation capable of providing reliable air quality data isexpensive and ...

Dizziness is a common complaint, with about one third of the population experiencing dizziness at some point in their life. Vestibular rehabilitation targets vestibular adaptation and substitution for patients with vertigo and dizziness of vestibular orig

This Phase I proposal is aimed toward research and development of novel low cost commercially feasible environmentally-friendly biodegradable polymeric thermosetting materials based on epoxidized triglyceride oils. The inexpensive thermosets based on epoxidized soybean oil ($0.50/lb) and sucrose ($0.10/lb) are especially attractive for commercial production. They should undergo easy, rapid, and ...