Award Data

The injection of activated carbon into the flue gas has been shown to mitigate the emission of mercury in all coal-fired power plants, even those with wet and dry scrubbers. This is a low-capital-cost technology in which the largest cost element is the cost of the activated carbon sorbent. Therefore, the obvious approach to further cost reductions is to reduce the amount of sorbent needed or to ...

A need exists for inexpensive, disposable, broadcast capable chemical / explosive-compound sensors that also provide site weather conditions. The state-of-the-art does not meet the need described both in terms of CWA sensor cost/size and lack of a low-cost deployment system. ADA proposes under this three-phased SBIR program to develop a system comprised of a suite of covert, modular, lightweight ...

Higher Field Magnets, used in high energy physics (HEP) research, demand higher field materials such as Bi2212 round superconducting wire. The Bi2212 wire-manufacturing process depends on the coil-fabrication method and wire-insulation material. For example, the wind-and-react method requires the coil to be uniformly heated to the melt temperature and uniformly cooled to the solidification tempe ...

Commercially available sorbents for controlling mercury emissions from coal-fired utility boilers are affected detrimentally by the presence of SO2 and SO3 in the gas stream. These contaminants present a significant challenge to a large portion of utility boilers, which will need to meet upcoming mercury emissions standards in an economic fashion. However, recent testing has indicated that costs ...

A wide range of practical instruments is needed for monitoring carbon dioxide concentrations of the land, air, and sea. Moderate accuracy of order 1 ppm (dry mole fraction) and temporal response of a few seconds will suffice. Expense, weight, size, and electrical power must be kept low to make the instrumentation applicable to a large number (~10,000) of one-way deployments per year. Accessible ...

Tower-based observatories monitor terrestrial ecosystems from a single spot; however, it is not known if the observations are applicable to the entire ecosystem. A vertically-integrated suite of technologies could be used to evaluate ecosystem-atmospheric interactions and determine the actual utility of tower-based systems; however, for reasons of safety and expense, piloted aircraft cannot be us ...

Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas, and improved in situ instruments are needed to track its flow throughout the global carbon cycle. Such instruments must be cost effective with regard to both hardware and operations; require little maintenance for deployments to the air, land, and sea; and provide accurate and precise measurements with negligible artifacts. This project will develop a s ...

Downhole heaters capable of long-term high-temperature operation are needed to assist in oil shale recovery. However, currently available, mineral insulated (MI) cables are not capable of surviving the temperature or other downhole environmental conditions encountered in this application. This project will develop high-performance downhole heater cables, based on high-performance composite insul ...

High-field accelerator magnets based on niobium-tin superconductor technology are planned for use in several U.S. high energy physics programs. The use of these materials requires a high-temperature process to complete the production of the coil. As part of the process, a ceramic insulating layer is added to the superconductor. However, the currently available ceramic insulation is produced in ...

High-field magnets, used in particle accelerators for high energy physics research, require insulation materials that can be processed at elevated temperatures (600 to 900 C) and withstand exposure to high levels of radiation during operation. This project will develop and demonstrate a ceramic-based insulation system that can be directly applied to superconducting wires prior to heat treatment. ...