Award Data

A semi-active suspension upgrade kit for the SOCOM up-armored HMWWV will be developed that will achieve comparable performance for the entire weight range of a GMV: 8300lbs curb weight to 14,500lbs combat loaded. The baseline performance requirement is equivalent handling, stability and ride quality as an M1113 HMMWV at rated GVW. A dynamic model that incorporates the semi-active suspension into ...

The conversion of corn and other biomass to fuel grade ethanol not only would reduce U.S. dependence on foreign energy sources but also would be a major industrial application for agricultural products. However, the process of drying the ethanol to fuel grade consumes significant amounts of energy, incurring costs that continue to increase as cost of natural gas increases. This project will deve ...

The need for natural gas continues to grow, and recent increases in petroleum prices have been paralleled by large increases in the price of natural gas. However, natural gas at the source often has high concentrations of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, which must be removed. Although existing commercial polymeric membranes (e.g. cellulose acetate and polysulfone) do a good job of sweetenin ...

Distillation is a major chemical unit operation and consumer of significant energy. Often, water or another intermediate boiling component can become trapped within the distillation column and accumulate. This causes various operating difficulties such as flooding, slugging, cycling, instability, and an off-spec product. This project will develop a chemically resistant, non-porous water-venting ...

Catalysis plays a substantial role in the synthesis of the most U.S. commodity chemicals, with huge implications for energy usage. Membrane reactors have been proposed for a number of these syntheses. However, to be competitive with conventional technologies, membrane reactors must demonstrate better selectivity, permeability, and/or stability. This project will develop a novel platform with ke ...

The use of ethanol as a fuel would impact U.S. reliance on foreign oil. However, among the economic obstacles to it widespread use are the costs of shipping fuel-grade ethanol by truck. Shipping ethanol by pipeline would be significantly less expensive, but, unfortunately, pipeline ethanol is hydroscopic, which causes too much water to be present in the fuel. This project will develop a simple, ...

¿Clean energy¿ is attracting more and more interest, which in turn exerts cost pressure on photovoltaic (PV) manufacturers for more efficient solar panel production. This project will develop a cost-effective technology to produce PV-grade silicon wafers. In Phase I, a non-oxide-based reuseable crucible was developed for the production of high purity, low oxygen content crystalline silicon ing ...

The treatment of waste water consumes a significant amount of energy, in order to reduce the organic matter to levels safe for environmental discharge. This project will develop a novel microbial-based approach to convert the organic matter in waste water into a valuable commodity, namely hydrogen. This approach would simultaneously clean the waste water and produce a fuel that can be sold to he ...

Natural gas provides a clean and environmentally friendly fuel for electric power generation; however, the distribution network, and especially the storage system, is ill-suited for the projected gowth of natural gas for use in electical energy generation. This project will develop a natural gas (methane) storage system based on an innovative, high-bulk-density activated carbon that is especially ...

Human biometric recognition systems are essential in the automated personal identification and verification applications market. This market spans the commercial and military sectors to include a myriad of identification applications from secure entrance, to time card clocks, to bio-certified delivery systems, to automobiles that recognize their drivers, to money transaction systems, to weapons th ...