Award Data

Polymer composites are widely used for automotive body panels to save weight, increase fuel efficiency, and eliminate corrosion. However, unlike metals, structural polymers are not electrically conductive; thus, they are not amenable to the industry standard technique of electrostatic spray painting (ESP). Current methods for adapting polymers to ESP pose serious environmental and economic chall ...

This proposal addresses environmental problems associated with indoor air quality (IAQ) and energy consumption in residential buildings. As building envelopes become increasingly tight to satisfy energy efficiency requirements, health conditions that are correlated with indoor air quality - such as asthma and allergic diseases - are on the rise. The most effective strategy to improve IAQ is vent ...

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

A large number of potentially harmful chemicals and pollutants in the environment make comprehensive experimental chemical testing cost prohibitive and unrealistic. Methods that can decrease the required experimental work and aid in the streamlining of this process would provide a valuable tool in this area. Computational cellular modeling can provide a significant improvement in linking exposur ...

This project¿s intent is to enhance the Green Building Studio web service to incorporate various data and analyses that enable architects and other building designers to design sustainable buildings much more cost effectively. Today¿s building designers are struggling to design sustainable buildings and this solution is designed to make that task much easier. This enhanced service will be call ...

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project is designed to develop and optimize a prototype environmentally friendly isocyanate-free solvent-free UV curable hybrid resin system demonstrated in EPA SBIR Phase I research to have properties suitable for commercial industrial applications such as automobile refinishing, floor coatings, and aircraft coatings. Properties of the proprietary ...

The proposed sorbents will have potential applications in i) industrial wastewater treatment plants, ii) municipal wastewater treatment plants, iii) nuclear waste treatment plants, iv) drinking water treatment plants, v) several types of existing point-of-use and point-of-entry water purifying systems, and vi) for remediation of various mercury contaminated sites using permeable reactive barrier ( ...

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) occur in aquatic environments when conditions trigger an increase in the abundance of organisms that produce toxins. The toxins are transferred through the food web where they affect and even kill zooplankton, shellfish, fish, birds, marine mammals, and possibly humans. HABs have been estimated to cost the U.S. economy as much as $50 million per year due to the closure ...

The sensitivity of low-cost, portable volatile organic compound (VOC) detectors currently is use is low, which limits their application in many situations. More sensitive detectors are more expensive and less robust and not suitable for field use. This proposal describes the development of a membrane-based preconcentrator able to concentrate trace amounts of VOC contaminants to levels that can b ...

Picarro will build a trace gas sensor based on Cavity Ringdown Spectroscopy (CRDS) targeting the acrolein absorption band in 1623 nm for environmental monitoring. Acrolein is a ubiquitous airborn pollutant the sources of which include burning vegetation (e.g., forest fires), waste incinerators, furnaces, fireplace, gasoline-and diesel-engine emissions, power plants, polyethelene combustion, cigar ...