Award Data

Patterns of electricity generation and consumption in the United States have rapidly changed over the past decade and are forecasted to continue doing so in coming decades. On the supply side, increasing generation from renewable sources has raised concerns about the ability of the electrical grid to stay stable given renewables’ intermittent and distributed nature, and has increased calls for n ...

Precision Combustion, Inc. (PCI) is developing a regenerable high efficiency filter technology for direct removal of gaseous pollutants such as VOCs and CO2 from indoor air. In addition to controllably improving indoor air quality (IAQ), the direct removal of these pollutants will reduce the requirement for building ventilation with outdoor make-up air currently used to dilute the concentration of ...

The overall goal of this Project is to develop an innovative inexpensive optical technology and rugged and portable instrumentation for highly sensitive, selective, continuous measurement of atmospheric ammonia for air pollution monitoring. Environmental studies have proven that ammonia presents a significant environmental hazard; therefore, accurate monitoring and control of NH3 concentration is ...

Project Summary. Industrial Microbes is developing a green fermentation platform to replace carbon-emitting petrochemical processes with new methods that build chemicals out of carbon dioxide and methane. By using these raw materials and a new process, the company will be able to produce valuable chemicals for half the current production cost. This advantage means that Industrial Microbes’ techn ...

Atmospheric aerosols, also known as particulate matter (PM), play important roles in weather, climate and human health. Aerosol number, size and chemistry can all exhibit high degrees of spatial and temporal variability, thereby increasing the need for highly time-resolved analyses obtained over extensive time periods (weeks to years). Instrumentation for monitoring the physical characteristics of ...

Toxic air pollutants, also known as hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), are those pollutants that are known or suspected to cause cancer or other serious health effects, such as reproductive effects or birth defects, or adverse environmental effects. In today's environment, there are continuing problems associated with the environmental effects of multiple pollutant gas released to the air. This conc ...

Precision Combustion, Inc. proposes to develop functionalized nanocarbons as an improved high capacity, regenerable filter for VOCs and other gaseous contaminants, tailored to the purpose of sorption of a broad array of air contaminants from indoor or industrial sources. The company’s sorbent offers to overcome limitations to air purification inherent to other commercial sorbents, including loss ...

Polyurethanes (PUs) are made by reacting two components, one of which has two or more hydroxyl (OH) groups (diol or polyol) while the second has two or more isocyanate (NCO) groups. Unfortunately, not only is the isocyanate component a powerful irritant, but sensitized subjects can suffer severe asthma attacks and even death when exposed to trace quantities that are well below permissible exposure ...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Water (OW) is seeking innovative technologies to improve the performance and reliability of small drinking water systems. In response, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop a novel Regenerative Capacitive Electro-Desalination System (RECED) to enable the use of reduced-quality water sources, such as weakly saline brackish wat ...

Small drinking water systems consistently provide safe, reliable drinking water to their customers. However, challenges of such systems include lack of financial resources, aging infrastructure, cost of scale, and technical/logistical challenges associated with regulation compliance. The deployment of new cost-effective monitoring technologies, such as improved, low cost, in-line, in situ, and rem ...