Award Data

Manufacturing of Portland cement, the primary binder in concrete, accounts for ~7% of global CO2 emissions, 4% of energy use, and exhaustion of natural resources. Premature aging of concrete in infrastructure systems is another major concern.  A robust binder chemistry has been developed to overcome these drawbacks.  The original approach to production of this binder, however, is not compatible ...

Suspended ceiling tiles are widely used in commercial and residential construction because they offer flexibility and easy access to utilities. Most of the available tiles absorb water, resulting in sagging, staining, and mold/mildew growth. They also contain potentially hazardous chemicals and release airborne fibers when broken or cut. Existing tiles are not durable, requiring frequent replaceme ...

Michigan Aerospace Corporation proposes to develop an underwater analogue to its atmospheric LIDAR systems. This underwater laser-based sensing system, to be named Pequod, will provide depth-resolved measurements of ocean temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll biomass, and dissolved organic matter classification with a common laser and receiver. The aim of the Phase I effort will be ...

Our vision is that of an integrated decision support solution that transforms the current time-consuming and reactive (post-design) sustainability assessment of a product into a proactive approach available in the early design phases. This solution called Sustainability Integrated into Early Design (SIED) will deliver lifecycle sustainability data into early design processes and focus primarily on ...

This Phase II research expands Phase I research on Saccharina latissima and is to design and develop “seed” nursery methodologies for the development of commercial-scale production of juvenile kelp plants including Alaria esculenta and Laminaria digitata. The project objectives include: 1. Isolate and maintain cultures of New England species of Alaria esculenta and laminaria digitata to be use ...

Production of cement (the binder in concrete) is a highly polluting and energy-intensive process, accounting for about 6% of global, anthropogenic C02 emissions and close to 2% of worldwide primary energy use. This project focuses on partial (~20%) replacement of cement in concrete with milled (mixed-color) waste glass to improve the moisture barrier qualities, durability, dimensional stability an ...

In most critical software systems, a state that is partially visible through values passed across interfaces contains information that could determine the health of the software system, and whether a failure is likely in the future. Some of this information behaves in a continuous fashion, e.g., the available memory or disk space is easily interpreted to monitor system health. Other values are nom ...

The objective of this proposal is to establish the feasibility of developing an integrated decision support framework that transforms the current time-consuming and reactive (post completion of final design) sustainability assessment into a proactive CAE approach that enables the ability to revise designs based on performance against selected sustainability targets in the product design process, i ...

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project will develop and ready for commercialization a scalable, low-cost process for purification of water containing Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CECs) using anodic oxidation with boron-doped ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD®) thin films. Resent research demonstrated that there is considerable potential for the development of electrochemica ...

"Removing nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, is an increasingly-important objective of wastewater treatment in order to reduce the impacts of nutrient pollution on waterways. Current technologies to remove these nutrients can be capital intensive, require dangerous chemical inputs and have high operational costs. Our company, Algal Scientific, has developed an innovative nutrient treatm ...