Award Data

This research aims to develop decision support tools for better maintenance and planning of renewable energy generation and storage assets using atmospheric, local weather, and on-ground environmental data blended with site-, regional- and national-generation data. The study will use a combination of these data to understand the relationship between non-cloud cover based atmospheric conditions and ...

We propose to use Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) measurements as an early warning system, to cue on-site validation of the soiling station and any available meteorological (MET) station data to validate if a work order to clean deposited particulate matter is necessary. This would move from reactive maintenance – often weeks delayed, to proactive maintenance – getting ahead of the weather impact ...

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) are known to have a variety of unique functional properties with utility in applications including optical sensing, electronics, pharmaceuticals, and water filtration. However, when manufactured, SWCNT occur as a heterogenous, polydisperse material that exhibits a range of properties that diminish performance. Purification of SWCNT by aqueous two-phase (ATP) ...

Aqueous two phase (ATP) systems have been developed and patented by NIST for separation of chiral pure single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT). These methods have been successfully deployed at bench-scale in many laboratories around the world but have yet to be demonstrated in an automated, scalable manufacturing method. It is the intent of this Phase I project to license this IP from NIST and comp ...

This SBIR Phase II project proposes to integrate an easy to use, inexpensive, and portable bacterial concentrator with a handheld pathogen detection system to enable ultra-low cholera pathogen (Vibrio cholerae) detection. Cholera affects communities across 41 countries, including in Yemen, where in the first 5 months of 2020 has had 110,000 suspected cases. Current methods used to detect the chole ...

This SBIR Phase I project proposes to develop an easy to use, inexpensive, and portable bacterial concentrator to enable more sensitive cholera pathogen (Vibrio cholerae) detection. Cholera affects communities across 41 countries, including Mozambique in 2019 after Cyclone Idai and Yemen in 2017. Current methods used to detect the cholera pathogen in water involves a 3 to 5-day procedure due to th ...

This Phase II SBIR project will continue the development of an optical sorter that will be used to estimate drop sizes in sprays. The optical sorter will determine the size of drops in the 0.1 to 10 microns range. Drops in this size range are prevalent in the automobile industry, where the fuel injection pressures have increased tremendously over the past two decades. These newer injectors provide ...

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase 1 project will evaluate the feasibility of an innovative optical sizer for estimating drop sizes in sprays that have very small drops. The technique is based on the NIST provisional patent (application number 62/358,264). The NIST invention sorts particles by size over the range of 10nm to 10μm. Drop sizing is achieved in these sprays using an intense ...

This Phase II project will continue the prototype development of a pharmaceutical spray quality audit system. The spray quality audit system will estimate the planar mass distribution, mass flux, and drop size of pharmaceutical sprays that are used in functional coating applications and inhalers. A prototype tomography system will be designed and fabricated and evaluated using various fluorophore.

This Phase I project will evaluate the feasibility of a pharmaceutical spray quality audit system. The spray quality audit system will estimate the mass distribution of active ingredients and droplet sizes in pharmaceutical sprays using combined fluorescence absorption and light extinction tomography. En’Urga will modify an existing instrument to simultaneously obtain full volume fluorescence ab ...