Award Data

Septic systems, widely used by >25% of U.S. households, represent a 6-billion-dollar market with a 5-7% projected growth rate. There is growing interest in non-potable reuse of septic tank effluent, yet existing disinfection methods are either costly (e.g., UV) or require households to handle hazardous chemicals (e.g., chlorine tablets). This project will validate a promising septic tank technolog ...

Microplastics are environmental pollutants ubiquitous in marine and freshwater environments and have been established to have deleterious impacts on aquatic life and human health. Preventing Microplastics from getting into waterways or removing it once it is there, is the mission of EPA’s Trash Free Waters program and, as the production of plastics continues to grow, EPA is looking for innovativ ...

In today’s world of accelerating climate change effects, a community's capacity to plan for and build resilience to disasters, homeland security threats, and extreme weather is of increasing importance. The ability of public safety organizations and local governments to effectively communicate with community members in emergency situations is critical, especially in the immediate aftermath of la ...

According to the USDA, 25% of the US fresh fruit supply at the consumer level is wasted, which equates to 9.5 billion pounds. To address consumer food waste, Imvela Corp. proposes to develop a novel, natural ingredient that reduces microbial spoilage and extends shelf life, when applied to berries after they are harvested. Our approach is innovative because we collect experimental data from a larg ...

CleanRobotics has developed a robotic, artificial intelligence (AI) powered system, called TrashBot, for sorting and auditing recycling, landfill, and compost from facilities with transient populations. Our system has the unique capability of ensuring proper waste sorting of up to four waste streams with the added cost reduction of eliminating user intervention. Discarding waste becomes an educati ...

How Glass SCMs Solve the Market Need. The process of producing cement has remained unchanged since the industrial revolution. Concrete producers need a new high performing cement alternative to lower their concrete products' cost and embodied carbon. Otherwise, we will be building our future communities using a process with the environmental and financial costs of 1820s technology. This project wi ...

Exposure to radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States, resulting in about 21,000 deaths annually. This exposure is due to accumulation of radon in the soils below homes and subsequent diffusion or convection into our living spaces. TDA Research, Inc., (TDA) proposes to develop a novel low‐cost radon mitigation system, using a state‐of‐the‐art metal‐organic fra ...

Treating the air in common, high traffic areas to eliminate biological contaminants (e.g., virus, bacteria, fungus) could reduce the transmission of airborne diseases. UV germicidal irradiation has been shown to inactivate all types of microorganisms including drug‐sensitive and multi‐drug‐resistant bacteria and different viral strains. TDA Research, in collaboration with Arizona State Unive ...

Specific Need for the Technology: This research enables development of a new microbial culture that will produce the world’s first natural microbial bioprotectant product. Retail/consumer/service sees losses (spoilage) of >$162 billion/year, or ~30% of all food, of which around ~20% is dairy6. Chemical preservatives are a principal approach to mitigating spoilage, however because of evolving con ...

CleanRobotics seeks to improve the US recycling system by using robotic sorting, powered by object detection, artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) to sort up between 2-4 streams (recycling, compost, landfill, etc) at the point of collection. This will improve the collection and sortation of recyclables in the US, where total collection rates are 35% and successful sortation rates a ...