Award Data

Septic systems, widely used by >25% of U.S. households, represent a 6-billion-dollar market with a 5-7% projected growth rate. There is growing interest in non-potable reuse of septic tank effluent, yet existing disinfection methods are either costly (e.g., UV) or require households to handle hazardous chemicals (e.g., chlorine tablets). This project will validate a promising septic tank technolog ...

Microplastics are environmental pollutants ubiquitous in marine and freshwater environments and have been established to have deleterious impacts on aquatic life and human health. Preventing Microplastics from getting into waterways or removing it once it is there, is the mission of EPA’s Trash Free Waters program and, as the production of plastics continues to grow, EPA is looking for innovativ ...

CleanRobotics has developed a robotic, artificial intelligence (AI) powered system, called TrashBot, for sorting and auditing recycling, landfill, and compost from facilities with transient populations. Our system has the unique capability of ensuring proper waste sorting of up to four waste streams with the added cost reduction of eliminating user intervention. Discarding waste becomes an educati ...

Additive manufacturing (AM) processes such as laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) have received a great deal of attention due to their unique capability in producing parts with complex geometries. However, a major challenge limiting the application of LPBF today is the high variability in the quality of finished components. To address this challenge, HIDENN-AI, LLC and Northwestern University (NU) prop ...

TDA proposes to develop a multi-physics-based model to simulate and optimize the microwave curing process of thick fiber reinforced composites. The primary objective is to improve the manufacturing speed and cost of high-quality carbon fiber reinforced composites by quickly identifying the right processing parameters for a given part during microwave processing. The model will account for the inte ...

Graphite is one of the most important materials used in our everyday life.  It is used in brake linings, lubricants, powdered metals, refractory applications, steelmaking, and batteries. In recent years, the graphite demand in the U.S. has been driven by the high growth rate of electric vehicle production. Approximately 7.8 million electric vehicles were sold in the U.S. in 2022, a 68% increase f ...

The 1.5 MHz to 35 MHz HF band supports a variety of functions (including ionospheric characterization and over-the-horizon communications) with relatively little infrastructure. The large antenna sizes required present a significant challenge that has prevented the adaptation of HF systems on small platforms. Small, low free-board maritime craft have an extremely small footprint and require a mini ...

There is a critical need for a high purity commercial source of calcium lanthanum sulfide (CaL2S4; CLS).  Ceramics made from CLS have an unusually broad range of transmittance in the infrared (IR), as well as high mechanical strength and environmental durability.  For these reasons, CLS is an ideal material for IR windows used in applications such as multispectral imaging.  CLS ceramics are not ...

Through this proposed SBIR effort, QuesTek Innovations LLC will develop a physics-enhanced machine learning (ML) software to reduce exhaustive typical on-destructive testing or enable feed forward control methodologies for fabrication of high-quality additive manufacturing (AM) component. Process induced defects like keyholing and lack of fusion porosity are shown to be strongly correlated with AM ...

Rebreathers are scuba gear that allow the diver to breath underwater without producing bubbles. They have many benefits including light-weight, reduced risk of decompression (lack of nitrogen in the system allows the divers to stay submerged longer) and stealth (since they produce no bubbles, they don’t reveal the diver’s location).  In this closed-circuit operation, the CO2 is removed from t ...