Award Data

Many activities and technological systems prevalent in today’s society – air traffic control and air travel, the power grids, communications, deep-water drilling operations, human spaceflight – are vulnerable to the effects of sudden flares from our Sun. Because the propagation speed for flare emission is the speed of light, it is necessary to forecast these events in order to mitigate thei ...

In the proposed effort, we will leverage this extensive experience and capabilities to realize a frequency agile mmW radiometer that can cover the range of DC-110 GHz and can be scaled to DC-200 GHz under Phase II. Ours is a photonic system that multiplies and up-coverts a low-frequency reference signal onto an optical carrier (laser) using EO modulation, then uses the modulation sidebands to inj ...

The release of chemical and biological agents on a large scale urban environment would be devastating. The amount of waste generated during such an event would be comparable to a tornado ripping through a town. Building materials, furniture, office materials, building insulation, wood structures could become contaminated to a level that they could not be decontaminated without their destruction. ...

Solvents are a valuable processing tool in the chemical and related industries. Solvent are used to enhance mass transfer, heat transfer and in most cases are a processing aid and eventually are not used in the final product but to enhance the fabrication of the final product. While solvents are very valuable, they also cause a significant problem with their volatility and associated emissions. ...

Drinking water filtration plants nationwide are failing to adequately reduce the public health risk due to exposure to sometimes lethal Cryptosporidium and other microbial particle levels. New regulations also will require reduction of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) to minimize the risk from potentially carcinogenic reaction by-products resulting from disinfection. Particle and DBP precursors ar ...

Ozone treatment of wastewater to destroy organic contaminants prior to discharge into the environment is an extremely effective advanced oxidation technology. To date the use of this powerful technology has been limited in part by the relatively high capital costs of an efficient ozone to water, gas-liquid, mass transfer system. Existing ozone injection devices must overcome the inherently low m ...

Lean burn spark engines are a promising technique to further reduce both NOx and hydrocarbon/carbon monoxide (HC/CO) engine emissions. Higher lean burn levels improve HC/CO oxidation while simultaneously reducing NOx formation. The NOx reduction is due to cooler flame temperatures. While the lean burn limit (beyond which combustion is poor) restricts further emission reductions, the use of oxyg ...

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The U.S. demand for chlorinated hydrocarbons exceeds 15 million tons annually. The production of these chemicals requires chlorine (Cl2) and produces HCl as an unavoidable by-product. Stringent environmental regulations limit the shipment of hazardous wastes like HCl, and the disposal of HCl by neutralization is costly. A consortium of 15 companies is developing an in-process recycling system t ...