Award Data

Grid-tied energy storage systems provide stabilization to the electric grid that is necessary to accommodate the growing percentage of electricity generated by intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. Existing conversion systems between the storage media and the utility lines are large, costly and only 95%-98% energy efficient. In this ARPA-E project, Opcondys, Inc. will build ...

Advances in materials and automation are rapidly reshaping the American manufacturing economy, and must be embraced to sustain a strong manufacturing sector in the United States. Additive manufacturing is possibly the fastest growing example of this trend, growing at an astonishing compound annual growth rate of 25.7%. The plastic materials market for additive manufacturing, valued at $700M in 202 ...

Polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are used in food packaging, as coatings for cloth (e.g. Scotchgard), firefighting foams, electronics, and industrial and automotive components. Being perfluorinated species, they are engineered to breakdown slowly (half-life >92 years in water), and thus persist for very long times. Their high water-solubility makes them especially dangerous, and much like perchlo ...

Current petroleum-derived-plastics contain additives such as phthalates or bisphenolA that are harmful to human health and the environment. Thus, it’s critical to replace such toxic non-biodegradable plastics with biodegradable bioplastics. To meet bioplastics production need, Altex, and Texas A&M University (TAMU) have teamed up to utilize renewable biomass, such as forest residue, agricultural ...

The broader/commercial impact of this SBIR Phase I project will commercialize a new technology for accurate, portable, and inexpensive measurement of blood clotting tests routinely performed on patients who suffer from conditions such as atrial fibrillation, deep vein thrombosis, or have a mechanical heart valve replacement. These conditions affect millions of patients in the US alone in an annual ...

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to democratize mass timber systems, rendering them accessible across the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. Buildings account for 40% of all greenhouse gas emissions, indicating an urgent need for energy-intelligent building prototypes. Mass timber buildings require ...

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will enhance both public safety and public health by addressing two problems: 1) Approximately 3,500 letters containing white powders and over 5,500 explosive threats are received by private and public offices each year; these may be hoaxes that result in temporary shut-down and lost productivity; or more critical ...

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is providing faster, cheaper and lower power alternatives to central processing units (CPUs) and graphic processing units (GPUs), making machine learning more accessible to students, engineers and scientists. In general, this will lead to faster product development and shorter time-to-market in the artificial inte ...

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will result from the ability to deploy Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enable rapid and automated detection of breast cancers in mammograms, with the added benefit of greater training of the systems of models on data across a range of demographics, where variability could potentially cause inc ...

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to open new frontiers in medical imaging by introducing an innovative architecture for ultrasound systems. Ultrasonography is a widely used approach to perform clinical diagnosis and guide therapeutic procedures. However, technological bottlenecks in ultrasound engines currently prevent data intensive applicati ...