Award Data

This Phase I Small Business Innovation Research Project develops methods of recycling rare earth alloys from used nickel metal hydride batteries. Alloys of rare earth metal, nickel and other metals provide functional hydride storage materials that are critical to the operation of nickel metal hydride batteries and their applications. The current fleet of hybrid electric vehicles relies upon nick ...

Current anaerobic digester systems are designed for capturing energy from waste from large heads of farm animals. GHD, Inc., a leading manufacturer of anaerobic digesters, has stated that a minimum dairy heard size for economical implementation of a biogas system as 800 cows. These require turbine or diesel generator sets of 100 Kilowatt size and larger, a limiting factor in economically scaling ...

New pollution control technologies are needed for small oil- and coal-fired industrial boiler located throughout the United States. Although each unit is relatively small, the vast number of these units creates a significant air pollution source, especially in heavily populated areas, that emits particulate matter (PM) and other air pollutants. In the EPA boiler MACT regulations, it was estimate ...

There is growing concern about the particulate pollution emitted by outdoor wood-fired boilers (0WBs) and their related health effects. These systems are also referred to as outdoor wood-fired hydronic heaters or outdoor wood-fired furnaces. There are currently over 500,000 OWBs installed, primarily in the northern US. During the Phase I SBIR project, a catalytic combustor system that can be retro ...

In this proposed Phase I program, we will develop a fiber optic scintillator system with a radionuclide-selective cladding for use in the detection of radionuclide contamination in water supplies or wastewater streams. The current terrorist threat requires that vigilance be maintained on all avenues of attack to the United States, including the potential for attack on the countrys food or water s ...

Under current Hazardous Waste Combustor Maximum Achievable Control Technology rule, heavy metal emissions from the nations thermal hazardous waste combustion facilities are estimated using control efficiencies determined during performance testing and estimated metal feed rates during normal operation. The error in estimates of metal emissions from this approach can be on the order of 100% or mor ...

Lead in household paint and dust is a serious health hazard, as low level lead exposure can result in a number of adverse health effects, especially in children. Onsite and real time detection and quantification of lead in paint/dust are very important to homeowners and certified lead based paint removal professionals. Toward this end, both field-portable equipment (such as X ray fluorescence ins ...

Reduction in dependency of imported petroleum and the quest to identify renewable energy sources has lead to a search for innovative biofuels derived from renewable biomass, that promise long-term reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Butanol is one possible biofuel. It is an industrial fuel that can be produced from crops using acetone-butanol (AB) fermentation by butanolagenic microbes, such ...

We hypothesize that infrared (IR) cameras mounted on unmanned tethered helium balloons accessed via a wireless network can remotely sense water quality in mixing zones at site scales. Mixing zones are limited regions in water bodies where the initial dilution of point-source wastewater discharge occurs. Mixing zones are an important component of the National Pollution Discharge Elimination Syste ...

Under the current Hazardous Waste Combustor Maximum Achievable Control Technology rule, heavy metal emissions from the nation’s thermal hazardous waste combustion facilities are estimated using control efficiencies determined during performance testing and estimated metal feed rates during normal operation. The error in estimates of metal emissions from this approach can be on the order of 100 ...