Award Data

We propose a novel high efficiency (≈40%) generator system capable of providing 1 kWe along with hot water on-demand. The integration of two novel concepts: 1) an internal combustion engine (ICE) operating on Spark-Assisted Compression Ignition (SACI) combustion of natural gas (NG), and 2) a bottoming Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) with waste energy recovery (WER) from ICE exhaust enables the overa ...

TDAs proposes to develop a novel RF heating process for rewarming cryogenically preserved tissues and organs. TDAs approach is to optimize the RF frequency and power, along with the chemical composition, size and morphology of infused nanoparticles so that they heat tissue samples rapidly and uniformly. In this manner, the cryoprotectant solutions pass from the vitrified state to the liquid stat ...

Carbon fiber production from polyacrylonitrile PAN) feedstock remains an energy-intensive and expensive process, despite tremendous progress during the preceding decades. The process involved multiple high-temperature processing steps and moderately high feedstock costs. TDA proposes to development methods that will lower both the carbon fiber cost and the energy required for their manufacture by ...

A 2008 DOE report [1] indicated that up to 903 terra-btu per year of unrecovered low-level industrial waste heat IWH) in the US is available for conversion to electricity. Converting this heat to electricity at 30% conversion efficiency would produce ~9 GW of electric power, an equivalent to about 4.5 Hoover Dam outputs. Efficient low-cost recovery of low-level IWH at significant scale could displ ...

The industrial sector accounted for ~31 Quads of the ~97.4 Quads of primary U.S. energy used in 2013. More than half of this energy 59.0 Quads) was lost as waste heat, much of it at low temperatures. There is currently no commercially viable technology for capturing low grade heat with temperatures

Renewable energy deployment and the resulting load variability have amplified the need for advanced systems that provide increased energy dispatchability. Additionally, the high operating cost, low efficiency, and high refrigerant leak rates are driving refrigeration equipment research and development. Currently, these two issues are being addressed independently by work focusing on stand-alone e ...

Electricity generation from solar installations continues to grow at a furious rate, with a large share of new solar capacity being installed on residential and commercial buildings. This rise in solar capacity on the distribution grid is beginning to create real challenges for grid planners and operators. Increasing solar generation at the distribution edge can affect power quality and reliabilit ...

While rechargeable lithium-ion batteries have dominated the portable electronics market for nearly a decade, they have failed to gain widespread commercial success in high power and high capacity applications. Despite a slow rate of improvement in battery cost and capacity each year, demand for a battery providing 400 Wh/kg, or double the specific energy of current state-of-the-art lithium-ion bat ...

There is a present and growing emphasis on reducing or maintaining the wateruse footprint in the energy sector. One of the requirements for effectively managing water is monitoring through reliable, realtime, measurementbased data of water quality/composition within treatment systems and bodies of water associated with power generation facilities. Many existing water quality sensor technologies ar ...

The feasibility of fusion as a practical energy source needs to be improved significantly by removing some of the restrictions that low temperature superconductors put on the fusion magnet systems. One method to simplify the magnet system is by using high temperature superconductors that allow for a higher magnet performance and much larger temperature margins. The larger temperature margins allow ...