Award Data

U.S. and world petroleum supplies are limited, causing substantial increases and fluctuations in the cost of liquid fuels and national energy insecurity. If the vast western oil shale reserves could be economically and cleanly recovered, the country¿s transportation fuel problems would be alleviated. Earlier shale surface processes used complicated and costly equipment, released substantial CO2 ...

Among current challenges in fusion science is the ability to generate increased power levels at a reasonable cost for pulsed magnets, arc plasma sources, radio frequency (RF) heating, and current drive schemes, using current generation solid state devices. However, power supplies based on continuous wave (CW) tubes are typically large and expensive, making them prohibitive for smaller experimenta ...

Size reduction, or comminution, is a necessary, but energy intensive, processing step in the conversion of lingo-cellulosic biomass feedstocks into biofuels, including ethanol, bio-oil, and other products. Comminution ¿ by chippers, grinders, hammer mills, and the like ¿ not only consumes excessive energy but also produces a wide particle size distribution and often requires costly dust control ...

Researchers are currently hindered from observing dynamic liquid-liquid and liquid-solid interactions in transmission electron microscopes (TEMs) and scanning transmission electron microscopes (STEMs). Yet, solid-state materials and fluids interact in many important ways. For example, solid-state nanoparticles are formed via solution-based synthesis, and biological cells exist live only in a flu ...

The Department of Energy supports the microcharacterization of materials via Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) as a core research area. This project will expand the utility of TEM by developing an environmental holder for liquid and gaseous environments. While the proposed effort will focus on gas delivery, existing proven technology will be leveraged for liquid delivery. Thus, the result ...

The DOE is seeking a capability that will allow samples in electron microscopes to be subjected to high magnetic fields. Some of the most exciting scientific developments are being made in the field of nanoscale magnetic materials, for example the discovery of the giant magneto resistance (GMR) and tunnel magneto resistance effects, which are still not fully understood. The behavior of multiferr ...

Alternative energy sources must be sought to meet the energy demand of our growing economy and to improve energy security while reducing environmental impacts. The conversion of bio-oil from non-food-based biomass to hydrogen for fuel cells would allow significant increases in the use of renewable feedstocks for energy production. This project will develop a non-food-biomass-based power plant wi ...

As petroleum and natural gas supplies decrease and costs increase, there is great interest in producing clean fuels from biomass and from coal, the nation¿s lowest-cost and most abundant fossil fuel resource, while sequestering carbon. The separation of hydrogen from syngas is an enabling technology for both clean coal and biomass energy systems. This project will develop a water-gas-shift (WGS ...

This project supports the advancement of electroforming capabilities to produce ultra-pure copper and provides opportunities for further progress in material growth science. Ultra high purity copper is a fundamental material used for a range of current and future fundamental nuclear physics programs such asMAJORANA. The capabilities that are expected to be developed under this project will address ...

Numerous ongoing and planned efforts in remote sensing seek to understand the earth¿s climate and predict how it may change due to natural and anthropogenic influences. An important challenge in this regard is to determine the three-dimensional (3D) structure of clouds and aerosols, and to account for the effects of this structure on radiative transfer. However, current methods are not suitable ...