Award Data

Biomass heating/cooking stoves in developing countries do not efficiently cook food or heat houses, while consuming too much fuel and emitting pollution resulting in respiratory illnesses, premature death, and climate change. Affordable technologies found in 1.) EPA approved heating stoves, 2.) DOE funded cooking stoves, and 3.) TEG (thermoelectric generation) lighting devices, improve heating, co ...

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 ...

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 ...

A team at EP Purification has performed research for the development and commercialization of low-cost microchannel plasma reactor modules capable of efficiently producing ozone for water treatment and other environmental applications in a slim form factor and size. The conservation of water resources for human consumption is a growing national priority. Ozone is a unique purification agent as it ...

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 ...

Organophosphates cannot currently be analyzed in the field using existing technologies, due to insufficient sensitivity of currently fielded instruments. This inability reduces the number of analyses that a government agency can perform on a water supply to ensure its safety to humans and the environment. The objective of this Phase I effort is to design a novel strategy that preconcentrates org ...

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 ...