Award Data

The overall goal of this SBIR is to increase the accessibility and range of emerging all-fiber quantum networks by significantly advancing the state-of-the-art in optical quantum networks using fully integrated, single-pass, quantum frequency conversion (QFC). Fiber-based quantum networks, to take advantage of low losses and the wide range of existing network components and infrastructure, are exp ...

Water vapor plays a key role in Earth’s climate and weather patterns. Accurate, high resolution measurements of the water vapor vertical profiles in a region have been found to significantly improve the numerical weather prediction models’ short-term forecasts, precipitation forecasts, as well as severe weather forecasts. However, current measurement techniques provide very coarse resolution i ...

Automobiles (cars and trucks for instance) are the predominant mode of transportation in the United States. These vehicles are powered by internal combustion engines that consume fossil fuels such as gasoline. Improving the efficiency of internal combustion engines is an ongoing challenge of enormous impact to energy consumption in the world. In order to improve engine efficiency and thus fuel eco ...

Rural areas in the United States have under-developed solar power capabilities relative to urban areas due to challenges matching energy demand centers with underutilized land and consequent cost challenges related to smaller installations that lack economies of scale. This project addresses these problems by proposing solar installations that operate synergistically with livestock production oper ...

Phase I analysis results show that in order to potentially meet the round trip and exergetic efficiencies as required by the Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technology Office, for thermal energy storage in concentrated solar plants, a composite of porous silicon carbide and molten salt phase change material is needed.For a 100 megawatt (electrical) concentrated solar power plant with 12 hour ...

The primary challenges for creating renewable fuels are the ability to process inexpensive non-food feedstocks into biofuels that meet all quality specification, perform indistinguishably from petroleum-based fuels and are compatible with current infrastructure.Our Phase I project demonstrated the feasibility of producing biofuels from waste greases using a novel hydrothermal, continuous-flow cata ...

In topic 11.b, Dispatchable Geothermal Operations, DOE seeks to enable more widespread deployment of geothermal as a dispatchable energy source.TerraCOH’s CO2 Plume Geothermal (CPG™) and Earth Battery™ technologies are ideally suited to meet DOE’s needs.Conventional geothermal power technology has generally been limited to use as a baseload power source, but with increasing penetration of ...

pathogens in marine aquaculture waters. Phase II research will look to improve sample concentration, cell lysis, and DNA purification techniques that were developed in Phase I. More specifically, optimization of the prototype lysis/elution fluid will be further developed for cell lysis using BSL-1 organisms, Vibrio harveyi, a surrogate for pathogenic Vibrio ssp. Techniques will be developed to ove ...

Friction and wear are energy-robbing processes that represent a tremendous burden to the national economy, especially in this time of record oil/fuel prices. Unfortunately, the field of tribology (the science of friction, lubrication, and wear of interacting surfaces in relative motion) lags many other disciplines in terms of fundamental knowledge. What is needed is a new tool that enables tribol ...

In situ tensile testing in the transmission electron microscope (TEM) has been a powerful tool for revealing underlying physical mechanisms at the nano or even atomic scale when materials are subjected to an applied stress. However, all commercially available in situ TEM tensile holders suffer from the absence of quantitative ability and require complex sample preparation. This project will deve ...