Award Data

The production of oxygen is ranked among the top five commodity chemicals in the U.S. However, low energy efficiencies and high costs are preventing the widespread implementation of traditional oxygen separation technologies. This project will develop and demonstrate a novel, low-cost, high-flux, high-selectivity, highly-efficient oxygen separation membrane. The Phase I effort demonstrated that ...

Compared with conventional processes used to produce many oxygenated chemicals, processes based on the selective catalytic oxidation of alkanes to produce oxygenates could yield enormous economic, energy, and environmental benefits. However, commercial development of such processes has been hindered, in part, because the excessive heat released by alkane oxidation causes over-oxidation (burning) ...

The production of biodiesel around the world is increasing at an astonishing pace. In the U.S., total annual production capacity is expected to be almost 2 billion gallons by the end of 2008. At this production rate, over 660,000 metric tons of glycerol will be produced as a by-product each year ¿ over 2.5 times the current U.S. glycerol production capacity ¿ creating a glycerol glut with few ...

DTRA and other DoD agencies are currently seeking earth penetrators with higher efficiency for reaching deeply buried targets. Current penetrator materials and designs suffer from high levels of frictional drag, unbalanced resistance due to lateral forces and localized melting of the warhead leading to shape change and further instability. General Sciences, Inc. (GSI) has developed a method for en ...

This project will develop a cost-effective analytical technology platform for identifying and measuring concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide and trace greenhouse gas constituents such as carbon monoxide. The proposed analytical platform is based on Penning Ionization Electron Spectroscopy (PIES) in plasma. PIES technology relies on a simple analog ...

In support of the hydrogen economy, the DOE seeks to develop delivery technologies for hydrogen as an energy carrier for transportation and stationary power. However, the 2003 DOE Strategic Initiatives for Hydrogen Delivery Workshop determined that existing hydrogen compressor designs cannot meet the need for a reliable, efficient, and cost-competitive transportation infrastructure. This project ...

Orora Design Technologies proposes to develop electronic design automation (EDA) tools employing minimally invasive circuit design-based methods to mitigate single event effects (SEEs) for next generation Ultra-DSM CMOS (

Recently developed high thermal conductivity aluminum nitride (AlN) based lossy dielectrics can replace the toxic beryllia (BeO) based lossy dielectrics as high order mode (HOM) absorbers in superconductor radio frequency (SRF) cavities in linear accelerators and in microwave tubes. AlN-based lossy dielectrics must be joined metallic copper members in these applications. However, lack of suitable ...

Miniature spherical retroreflectors are an enabling technology for remote laser sensing of chemical, biological and radiological agents in the atmosphere. Prior to this SBIR project, no suitable fabrication technique existed to produce spherical retroreflectors with the required graded index of refraction structure. This project will produce spherical retroreflectors with compositional grading fr ...

Although interest in biodiesel is rapidly increasing, the process by which biodiesel is synthesized has not changed much in the last two decades and is far from efficient. Currently, most biodiesel is made by a homogeneous-catalyst-based transesterification process, wherein soybean oil is reacted with methanol in the presence of sodium methoxide. After transesterification, the homogeneous alkali ...