Award Data

Ethylene demand is expected to increase by 50% domestically and worldwide over the next 5 years. Much of this and future growth is likely to be met from shale gas based ethane. Dr. Anne Gaffney of the US-DOE has invented a mixed metal oxide catalyst, M1, for the oxidative dehydrogenation of ethane (C2- ODH) to ethylene at high conversions and very high selectivities. A major hurdle for commercial ...

Synchrotron-based science has had a great scientific impact and will continue to have great impact going forward. In spite of the large investment in the 3rd generation light sources, most beam lines do not preserve the source’s phase profile or brightness all the way to the sample. For these high brightness light sources, errors are almost completely due to distortion ...

Tracking both the extent of the induced fracture and the distribution of the proppant within the fracture are critical in understanding and optimizing the hydraulic fracture processes. Several groups are studying the use of electromagnetic methods and electrically conductive proppants to image the post-fracture proppant distribution. Interpreting these large-scale electromagnetic surveys will like ...

Supported by DOE and NSF SBIR grants for nanomembrane manufacturing and Quality Assurance, Covalent LLC is developing manufacturing methods and materials for a new class of ultra low energy, single atomic layer nanomembranes for Desalination and water purification operating at the lowest possible energy (Topic 15A). The completed membranes are expected to reduce desalination energy requirements b ...

Supported by DOE and NSF SBIR grants for nanomembrane manufacturing and Quality Assurance, Covalent LLC is developing manufacturing methods for a new class of ultra low energy, single atomic layer nanomembranes for Desalination and water Purification operating at the lowest possible energy (Topic 15A). The completed membranes are expected to reduce desalination energy requirements by 66% over cur ...

Several hundred beam lines are used around the world at today¿s third-generation synchrotron facilities. These facilities must deal with monochromator-based performance problems due to high heat load. Many have resorted to the use of costly, complicated, high maintenance cryogenic cooling of silicon crystals. Single crystal diamond monochromators present an advantage over the silicon crystals ...

Higher gas transport membranes would enhance membrane separations, especially those associated with energy savings (e.g., oxygen or nitrogen enriched air). In these systems, gas transport is inversely proportional to the thickness of the membrane¿s active layer. This project will explore a novel route for preparing ultrathin (100-1000 angstroms) membranes with very high selectivity. First, memb ...

Biomass fast pyrolysis fuel (BioOil) is a liquid fuel made from wood chips and the low-grade wood byproducts of timber harvesting. However, when BioOil is stored, its chemicals polymerize, aided by the oxygen present in the BioOil. As a consequence, the viscosity of the BioOil increases over time, and, under extreme conditions, it can become a solid. In addition, the presence of water results i ...

Natural gas offers cost and environmental benefits over other conventional energy sources and decreases our dependence on oil imports. However, many sources of natural gas also contain large amounts of non-hydrocarbon gases, which make them uneconomical to market. Removal of these non-hydrocarbon impurities, in order to raise low quality raw gas to pipeline quality, could have significant econom ...

There continues to be a need to produce fuel-grade ethanol from renewable sources. However, the cost of agricultural-based ethanol is quite severe, despite the fact that existing and new legislation provides significant incentives for its use. This project addresses novel routes to enhance the low-cost production of high-quality dry-fuel-grade ethanol by means of a novel water-ethanol separation ...