Award Data

The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will employ a staged pyrolysis and combustion process as a method to ""recycle"" mixed solid waste materials (paper and plastic packaging, and food scrap) from restaurants. The hydrogen-rich fuel gases generated from these solid waste streams can then be burned to produce heat and power. The proposed technology can be used for most so ...

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project addresses the development of improved high-performance, low-cost carbon electrodes for ultracapacitors. The proposed innovation is the use of proprietary carbon-preparation techniques to produce high-performance, low-cost carbon electrodes. The first Phase I objective is to demonstrate the feasibility of manufacturing carbon electrodes ...

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project is focused on the development of a unique, high efficiency cold plate technology for application to Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBT) modules. The cold plate is enabled by a dielectric-graphite-metal composite material which serves as the cold plate's lid and provides for electric isolation of the electronic components and circuitry, ...

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is focused on the development of unique, graphite-organic matrix materials for application as a thermal interface material (TIM) for use in high power electronics packaging. The research objective of this project is the development of an understanding of the relationship between the physical design of the proposed graphite-organic TIM ...

The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will develop a hot press die casting technology to be used in the production of graphite-metal materials. In the proposed work, graphite preform and metal will be placed in a multi-chamber graphite die set and loaded into a hot press. Following evacuation of the die set and heating to the desired melt temperature, the die set mold wit ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I Project concerns the development of field-based analytical instrumentation for the determination of carbon content in soil. The instrumentation will employ laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy utilizing detection of atomic carbon ultraviolet emission. The work plan will focus on a proof-of-principle demonstration using standard soil samples as ...

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I research project proposes a breakthrough Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) device that holds the promise of overcoming the drawbacks and limitations in present IR sensors. Based on a novel micro-photomechanical sensor design, the proposed MEMS technology passively transfers thermal infrared radiation into a visible image that can be read ...

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I research project will produce corn with processing traits optimized for ethanol production. The corn will be modified by embedding inactive amylase enzymes into the crop that can be activated during processing steps. The polysaccharide degrading activity of the enzymes can be switched on after harvest, resulting in controllable, accelerated li ...

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I research investigates the feasibility of engineering biomass with processing traits for ethanol production. Biomass will be transformed to produce lignin-degrading enzymes, modified with a biological switch to remain inactive during crop growth. After harvest, the enzymes can be inducibly activated from within the lignin structure to enable mo ...

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I research project proposes the development of new software and curriculum materials utilizing webcams to gather and share data, and test these materials to see if they can benefit groups that have not widely adopted data collection activities in the past. Webcams are ideal data gathering tools for a multitude of investigations. A webcam can tra ...