Award Data

Better permanent magnets are needed to improve the performance of advanced motors for hybrid electric vehicles. In response to this need, this project will develop high performance permanent magnets with improved magnetic properties at temperatures up to 240 degrees C, high electrical resistivity to reduce eddy current losses in advanced motor applications, and low cost. In Phase I, feasibility ...

Compared with conventional processes used to produce many oxygenated chemicals, processes based on the selective catalytic oxidation of alkanes to produce oxygenates could yield enormous economic, energy, and environmental benefits. However, commercial development of such processes has been hindered, in part, because the excessive heat released by alkane oxidation causes over-oxidation (burning) ...

Due to the economics, politics and environmental impacts of petroleum use, there is growing interest in the use of biomass to partially replace petroleum as an energy source. However, in order to utilize biomass as a feedstock for the production of fuel or chemical products, its structure needs to be significantly altered to facilitate the efficient completion of downstream steps. This alteration ...

It is now an accepted fact that global warming due to greenhouse gases is occurring and could have a devastating effect for future life on earth. The need for the United States to plan, develop, and implement alternative, clean energy technologies is critical. In particular, the photovoltaic generation of electricity from the sun is a sustainable, elegant, clean, and practical source of usable e ...

Improvements to the superconducting magnets used in high energy physics experiments will depend on increasing the critical current density and stability of Nb3Sn superconductor wire. Major improvements in the performance of Nb3Sn wire can be achieved by reducing the effective filament size, deff, in order to reduce flux jumping and magnet instability. The deff can be reduced by increasing the numb ...

While lithium-ion batteries are rapidly penetrating the laptop and cell-phone markets because of their high specific energy, safety is one of the key challenges to be addressed before lithium-ion batteries can replace the nickel-metal-hydride batteries that are commonly used in today¿s Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs). The major safety concern is the possibility of an internal short-circuit, due t ...

Biodiesel production using supercritical alcohols not only is fast and clean but also allows the treatment of fats and oils that are lower in quality than those used in the usual method of base catalysis. However, the supercritical method has not been considered practical because of economic and safety issues associated with the high temperatures, high pressures, and amount of excess alcohol requi ...

75554-Due to the inherent inefficiencies of Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell stacks, a coolant must be used to remove the waste heat produced by the fuel cell. Deionized (DI) water or glycol/water solutions with a deionizing filter are commonly used as a fuel cell system coolant. Although these fluids are non-flammable and thermophysically efficient, the electrical conductivity increases ...

75824-Induction cores, used to accelerate the heavy ion beams in inertial fusion, are built around the outer diameter of the cryostat that houses the superconducting quadrupole array. A compact cryostat would be highly desirable for reducing the cost of the induction cores. Recent experience with the fabrication of a cryostat for single beam transport revealed that the spacing in the cryostat va ...

75879-Hydrogen storage materials with a large capacity are needed to store, transport, and utilize hydrogen for fuel cells. This project will employ a unique combinatorial technique for rapidly screening a number of nanocrystalline alloys and intermetallics, in order to identify prospective compositions with hydrogen storage capacities of approximately 5 to 6 wt%. These compositions will be tail ...