Award Data

This project focuses on the design, integration and optimization of a flexible natural gas combined cycle plant with carbon capture, capable of operating in a highly variable renewable energy environment. Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power offer unique solutions in our quest to reduce global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. However, the increasing penetration of these high variab ...

Food production, and in particular animal-derived meat products, are a major source of green-house gases, compounded by the remarkable inefficiency in biomass conversion (grain to dense muscle tissue in meat), along with growing challenges with food safety, quality and nutrition. To address this growing problem, we propose to exploit the emerging field of cellular agriculture (tissue engineering o ...

The significant growth of renewable energy has resulted in significant challenges for existing power generation facilities coping with the variable nature of said renewables. The variability strains grid management resources and has led to an increased requirement for off-design operation of power generation sources as intermittent or cyclic. This results in increased maintenance costs and loss of ...

Wind and solar electricity are gaining traction in the marketplace, but the electricity available from these sources is out of synch with demand Protonic ceramic electrochemical cells (PCECs) operating at intermediate temperatures (400 - 650°C) have enormous potential for electricity storage and delivery by reversible operation between electrolysis and fuel cell modes and therefore stand to addre ...

In spite of the promise of terahertz frequency range, the maturity of terahertz technologies, such as sources or detectors, remains relatively weak In particular, ultrafast optoelectronic switches are a key component to both sources and detectors, but current versions of them require too much power to be commercially viable, particularly for applications involving detector arrays The overall objec ...

Intense short pulse lasers are playing increasingly important role in high-energy physics research. Laser based electron accelerators are innovative tools to obtain GeV to TeV electron energies for high-energy particle physics experiments. The development of such lasers puts stringent challenges on the very limits of the laser materials themselves. The goal of this project is to develop Ho:sesquio ...

In this Phase I STTR program, we propose to develop a conceptual design of a 40-T, ϕ2-cm-warm- bore superconducting solenoid magnet for use in high energy particle physics experiments, e.g., muon ionization cooling, by combining a Low Temperature Superconducting background magnet and a High Temperature Superconducting insert magnet. High Temperature Superconductors must be employed for very-high- ...

There is significant interest in multi-functional materials enabling gamma-ray spectroscopy, neutron/gamma pulse shape discrimination (PSD), ultra-fast response, and time-of-flight (TOF) neutron detection. These materials would be used in a variety of mission scenarios for the localization and monitoring of special nuclear materials. Commercial inorganic scintillators offer some of these character ...

Adding thermal insulation to existing building envelopes can be an effective way of reducing building energy use. While most thermal insulation materials are affordable, the cost of installing thermal insulation into existing buildings can be expensive. Real facades are also characterized by many unique elements that affect their rated thermal performance, such as corners, windows, d ...

Military operators must identify and catalogue the equipment they find when inspecting laboratory facilities. This information is used to determine the lab’s capabilities, including the lab’s potential for building weapons of mass destruction. Currently, operators use computer vision algorithms to help them classify equipment in pictures of laboratory environments. Unfortunately, current image ...