Award Data

Ethylene demand is expected to increase by 50% domestically and worldwide over the next 5 years with a scramble to increase supply via expansion or grass root facilities. US capacity will remain at about 20% of the world’s supply and exceed 100 BPPY. To meet this challenge, US-DOE has invented a mixed metal oxide catalyst, M1 for the oxidative dehydrogenation of ethane (C2-ODH) to ethylene at hi ...

The proposed program provides a new biomass conversion technology to produce FDCA, 2,5- furandicarboxylic acid, to replace hydrocarbon chemicals for production of plasticizers and polyester polymers. FDCA is currently produced from hexose carbohydrates, such as sucrose or high fructose corn syrup. Recent trends in petroleum pricing have reduced biomass raw material cost advantages for replacement ...

As computational density for high-performance computing and big-data services continues to scale, performance scalability of next generation computing systems is becoming increasingly constrained by limitations in memory access, power dissipation and chip packaging. The processor-memory communication bottleneck, a major challenge in current multicore processors due to limited pin-out and power bud ...

Clouds play leading role in the Earth's global energy and solar radiation balance. Improving cloud models requires information on the cloud microphysical properties, such as particle size distribution and concentration, cloud composition (droplets, ice particles) and also information on ice crystal shapes (habits). New lightweight and low power instruments for characterization of mixed-phase cloud ...

The advent of sensor networks to gather atmospheric data for weather and climate prediction on large spatial and temporal scales is crucial to the advancement of our understanding of many important processes that make up such predictive models. The height of the atmospheric boundary layer, for example, is used to parameterize boundary layer transport in numerical weather prediction models and boun ...

Synchrotron-based science has had a great scientific impact and will continue to have great impact going forward. For high brightness 3rd and 4th generation light sources, errors are almost completely due to distortion in the front-end optics caused by the high heat loads generated by the broadband radiation from the insertion device. Diamond offers a solution because of its low x-ray absorption a ...

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at BNL is the nation’s premier quantum chromodynamics (QCD) research facility. Its future upgrade calls for the implementation of electron cooling strategies, where ultra-cold electron beams will be generated by photoinjectors. The photocathode, where the electron beam is produced, is required to deliver a significantly high average current (~50 mA) to ...

Dry cask storage systems (DCSS) are used to store spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power plants. Without a long term storage solution in place, storage for decades in casks may be required. High burnup fuel rods may become brittle over time presenting problems for eventual transport of the spent fuel from reactor sites to a central storage facility. It is desired to passively determine the structur ...

Improved NDT (non-destructive testing) techniques are needed for inspection of concrete structures in nuclear power plants. Steel reinforcements embedded within concrete can corrode and crack, leading to weakening of the structures, and existing NDT techniques do not provide the full picture. Condition assessment is critical in evaluating these structures in order to ensure safe, long-term operati ...

Substantial improvements to the integrity of residential building envelopes have been realized in recent years with the use of advanced house wraps, fenestration, and air sealing technologies. While tight construction significantly lowers residential energy consumption, the concomitant reduction in natural ventilation results in less frequent air turnover that can adversely impact indoor air quali ...