Award Data

Anaerobic digesters are capable of producing methane-rich biogas from animal manure and also offer the advantages of controlling odors, reducing pathogens, and minimizing the environmental impact of the waste. The biogas produced from anaerobic digesters is a renewable, distributed source of energy that can be used to generate electricity to offset power consumption on farms. Unfortunately, biogas ...

Hawaii has year-round growing conditions and abundant agricultural land, yet it still imports more than 85% of its food. More than 2.3 million pounds of Agaricus mushrooms, a mushroom family that includes Portobello and Crimini, were imported each year in 2006 and 2007. Currently, these mushrooms are not produced in Hawaii. Increasing the production of locally grown food products would not only re ...

The current state of the art of soybean processing requires heat processing to eliminate anti-nutrition factors and make the protein available for digestion. The proposed research will investigate the opportunity to process a new soybean variety that has been traditionally bred (not genetically modified) to eliminate and/or significantly reduce these anti-nutrition factors. This research will inve ...

This SBIR project will develop a low cost sensor to obtain rail temperatures from a moving train. The two innovative parts of the proposed sensor are (1) a rugged four wavelength high frequency sensor that accurately measures the natural radiation emitted by the rails, and (2) an advanced algorithm that provides a emissivity compensated temperature from these measurements. The feasibility of the ...

In Phase I, we developed a suite of algorithms for the detection and classification of motorcycle and bicycle using IR LED stereo camera, LWIR thermal camera, and microphone. Test results using real data collected at streets have shown an excellent performance of this system. In Phase II, we will further improve the system developed and focus on the system performance issues in terms of near 100 ...

Despite its clean and green nature when utilized in fuel cells and other devices, most hydrogen is currently produced primarily from non-renewable sources, such as natural gas, oil, and coal. Anaerobic digestion provides a potentially improved alternative to manufacturing hydrogen from petroleum and natural gas. Anaerobic digesters can produce hydrogen from inexpensive and renewable energy sources ...

Certain lanthanide halides have significantly higher light output than NaI:Tl, the comparison standard for scintillators, plus other important properties, including fast decay times and excellent proportionality. Unfortunately, lanthanide halides grown by traditional melt processes have high production costs and limited availability. Crystals are usually limited to about 5 cm x 5 cm, right cylinde ...

The ability to monitor the integrity of a bridge structure and detect damage or condition changes at early stages is of significant importance for bridge operation safety. Currently, the most widely used damage detection methods rely on subjective, incremental visual assessments or localized testing techniques. In this proposal, we propose to develop and test a low cost and efficient bridge stru ...

The SPORL process consists of reacting wood chips with a solution of calcium, magnesium, or sulfite at elevated temperatures for a short time, and then size reducing the resulting material using a disk refiner to generate fibrous substrate for subsequent saccharification and fermentation. The work is a collaborative effort between industry, university, and federal agencies. Forest biomass is a ver ...

Plant virus infections cause tremendous economic losses in agricultural production each year in the U.S. Potential introduction of foreign pathogens which could threaten the safety of American agriculture has accelerated in recent years because of increasing international seed and plant trade. The first line of defense against such devastating viral diseases is the early and sensitive detection of ...