Award Data

The new purity requirements SAE J7219, ISO 14687-2 and ISO 14687 (Table I and Figure 1 below) place a three orders of magnitude increase on the accuracy of the instrumentation that is necessary to detect these extremely low levels of several critical contaminants. The design and verification of the conceptual approach of a cost-effective and reliable instrument that can sample the hydrogen at the ...

State of the art yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) based thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) are typically limited to maximum use temperatures of 1200-1300C. A thermal barrier coating (TBC) with a 1500C temperature capability would be a major gas turbine materials breakthrough. New coatings with a 200C temperature advantage can be used by the gas turbine industry to significantly increase turbine effi ...

Problem Statement: Real-time analysis and monitoring of networks is crucial for threat detection. Networks are ubiquitous in todays world and can appear in many formats and to name a few we have: communication networks, social networks, and power networks. In many instances it is important to know who the key players are in the network these can be people, computers, or relay stations. One of the ...

Statement of the problem or situation that is being addressed - typically, one to three sentences. Solid state lighting (SSL) is a fast growing technology, which is starting to replace conventional lighting products such as fluorescent and incandescent bulbs. While the current efficiency of some commercial SSL products has surpassed those of most traditional lighting, it is still far below what th ...

Statement of the problem or situation that is being addressed: A major challenge in successful development of unitized regenerative fuel cells (URFCs) is the bifunctional air/oxygen electrode. In proton exchange membrane-based systems, the number of stable elements at electrolysis potentials is extremely limited, restricting the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) / oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) cat ...

Statement of the Problem or Situation that is Being Addressed - Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) offer exceptional promise for electrical power generation with reduced carbon footprint, but SOFC reliability must be improved for the technology to be widely commercialized. Strontium based ceramic cathodes e.g. lanthanum strontium iron cobalt oxide (LSFC) enable good performance, but cathode degradatio ...

A central tenet of U.S. energy policy is the achievement of high gasoline mileage which would substantially advance the U.S. and DOE missions of improved energy efficiency, increased energy independence, and mitigation of climate change. One promising path forward for increasing mileage is to use reformed fuel to improve engine combustion stability for greater efficiency and lower emissions, inclu ...

For future progress in high energy physics, a multi-TeV linear accelerator is desired to explore the energy frontier. But RF breakdown is a major hurdle preventing accelerator structures from reaching high gradients. The successful completion of the project proposed here will allow development of a novel high gradient accelerator structure with low RF breakdown rate and high RF-to-beam efficiency. ...

The potential longevity and number of dry storage systems employed for storage of used nuclear fuel necessitate a deliberate consideration of long-term data management approaches. Necessary considerations include approaches to ensure archival of data over multiple centuries and data fusion methods to facilitate decision making based on multiple streams of information. Also important is establishin ...

Direct conversion of shale gas to useful chemicals or fuels has faced the central challenge that reaction rates and product yields high enough to be economic are accompanied by overreaction to full combustion products in either conventional or unconventional approaches. We are developing an integrated process combining alkane activation via oxidative coupling to form ethylene or higher alkene olig ...