Award Data

Commercial-scale marine aquaculture has the potential to balance the increasing demand for high-quality seafood products with the limited harvest capacity of our nations oceans. However, water reuse in recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) is limited by the accumulation of nitrate, which can be toxic to many species, especially marine species. Thus, nitrate removal by denitrification presents a ...

Millions of dollars are lost worldwide due to insect and fungi caused spoilage in stored grain. We propose to develop new technology for early detection that takes advantage of the fact that small amounts of spoilage cause significant increases in CO2 concentration throughout the grain mass and storage structure. The new sensor will be designed for placement in stored grain structures to continuou ...

The goal of this project is to develop an integrated fermentation-ultrafiltration process for economical production of xanthan gum from glucose and galactose present in a waste sugar stream from a galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS) production process. There are -80 billion lbs of cheese whey generated annually in the dairy industry and much of this byproduct has no economical use at the present time a ...

Consumers and an ever growing segment of the pork industry know that more optimal levels of marbling must be put back into the high-value pork cuts. Biotronics, Inc. is developing technology to solve this problem by using real-time ultrasound to measure the percent of intramuscular (% IMF) fat in live pigs and hot carcasses. The premise of the project is that swine breeders can be rewarded financi ...

More than 60% of U.S. highway-railroad crossing accident fatalities occur at passive rural railroad crossings. Federal and State highway authorities are searching for effective, safe and low-cost active signal devices for these crossings. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) estimates that it would cost more than $14 billion to upgrade all passive grade crossings with conventional active rail ...

Production of ethanol derived from starch crops and biomass is forecast to grow considerably in the next decade. There exist opportunities for significant reductions in ethanol production costs and associated energy usage via employment of innovative process operations. Many of these processes involve membranes, which provide cost savings due primarily to reduced energy consumption. Recently, new ...

Farm equipment and other industries use biodegradable hydraulic fluids (BHF), esters based on agricultural raw materials, that provide rapid decomposition and reduced environmental problems associated with spills. Hydrolytic stability is major problem, since BHFs react with dissolved water creating alcohols and acids accelerating degradation. This program introduces a membrane system to remove wat ...

An important aquaculture industry is developing in the Great Lakes region for yellow perch (Perca flavescens). The primary problem constraining the expansion of this industry is the high cost of fingerlings, which represents more than 35% of total operating costs for growout producers. Yellow perch normally spawn only once each year and fingerling ponds are only used for 6-8 weeks in the spring to ...

Illnesses due to waterborne pathogens are a substantial health risk, as seen in the E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks of 2006 that were traced to fecal contamination of fresh produce irrigation water. Additionally, there is the possibility of deliberate contamination of our water, and hence our food supply, by terrorists. However, water samples are not analyzed directly and rapidly, because sample matrice ...

Plasticulture describes the use of plastics in agriculture, and encompasses a variety of materials including agricultural mulch film. Plasticulture enables farmers to extend both the growing season and the land area that can be used for profitable crop production. The disadvantage is that removal and disposal of polyolefin plastics is required after harvest. The objective of this project is to dev ...