Award Data

A DNA sequencer for biometric applications will be developed. The system will enable rapid and low-cost identification of individuals and kinship verification using a self-contained and portable device. All process steps from DNA extraction to DNA sequencing will be automatically performed within the disposable single-use cartridge. This high-level of functional integration is made possible by Adv ...

Wind blades are a significant part of the installation and operating costs of wind turbines used for electricity generation. In the manufacture of wind blades, several composite elements must be joined; the joints between these elements present one of the most difficult aspects of their construction. Current practices are hand-labor intensive and result in thick bond lines. In turn, these pract ...

A heat exchanger must balance an ability to transfer heat to a fluid with the amount of power required to move the fluid through the heat exchanger. For most systems, heat transfer is largely driven by the material¿s thermal conductivity and the structure¿s surface-area-to-volume ratio. Increasing the latter factor increases the heat exchanger¿s capacity or reduces the exchanger¿s size. A ...

The recent emergence of the Silicon Drift detector (SDD), for use in energy dispersive x-ray spectrometry (EDS), has made possible x-ray event streams with count rates as high as 1-10 Mcps. A problem with existing digital signal processing, as applied to SDDs, is the significant presence of coincidence peaks above the x-ray background. These coincidence peaks occur with amplitudes comparable to lo ...

Several hundred beam lines are used around the world at today¿s third-generation synchrotron facilities. These facilities must deal with monochromator-based performance problems due to high heat load. Many have resorted to the use of costly, complicated, high maintenance cryogenic cooling of silicon crystals. Single crystal diamond monochromators present an advantage over the silicon crystals ...

We propose to run 3 experiments to refine and utilize measures of oculomotor activity and pupil diameter change to assess an individual's malicious or deceptive intent. We also propose to concurrently develop the software and determine the hardware necessary for online, real-time assessment of malintent based on prior research results and the results of the proposed experiments. In addition to ocu ...

Membrane reactors have the potential to improve reactivity and productivity of various chemical syntheses including enzymatic water sensitive reactions. To be of value, higher use temperature, improved chemical resistance and better mass transfer systems are desired. Using membrane systems with improved mass transfer, Compact Membrane Systems will evaluate enhancing enzyme reactivity. Working w ...

Higher gas transport membranes would enhance membrane separations, especially those associated with energy savings (e.g., oxygen or nitrogen enriched air). In these systems, gas transport is inversely proportional to the thickness of the membrane¿s active layer. This project will explore a novel route for preparing ultrathin (100-1000 angstroms) membranes with very high selectivity. First, memb ...

Biomass fast pyrolysis fuel (BioOil) is a liquid fuel made from wood chips and the low-grade wood byproducts of timber harvesting. However, when BioOil is stored, its chemicals polymerize, aided by the oxygen present in the BioOil. As a consequence, the viscosity of the BioOil increases over time, and, under extreme conditions, it can become a solid. In addition, the presence of water results i ...

Natural gas offers cost and environmental benefits over other conventional energy sources and decreases our dependence on oil imports. However, many sources of natural gas also contain large amounts of non-hydrocarbon gases, which make them uneconomical to market. Removal of these non-hydrocarbon impurities, in order to raise low quality raw gas to pipeline quality, could have significant econom ...