Award Data

75859 Absorption refrigeration is the only currently available method that utilizes low-temperature waste heat to provide cooling. Unfortunately, absorption cooling systems for commercial and small industrial applications are relatively large and expensive, require costly-to-maintain cooling towers, and are difficult to interface with conventional vapor-compression refrigeration equipment. This ...

76321-Predictions of global warming caused by human activities rely on complex models, which include time variable sources and sinks of atmospheric gases such as carbon dioxide. Reliable modeling depends on the existence of accurate and frequently-taken atmospheric profiles of these greenhouse gases. As of now, no readily deployable carbon dioxide sensor exists for this task. This project will ...

75422-The increase of atmospheric CO2 from fossil fuel combustion is a major contributor to global warming and climate change. Improved measurement technology for directly determining the exchange fluxes of the stable isotopes of CO2 is crucial to understanding the natural carbon cycle, which transforms atmospheric CO2 into biological carbon, and to develop strategies to mitigate the problem. Ba ...

75716-Aerosol particles in the atmosphere have important effects on visibility, acid deposition, climate, and human health. A significant part of anthropogenic aerosols is generated from energy-related activities, and organic compounds are known to constitute a significant fraction of ambient aerosol mass in many locations. However the measurement of the chemical composition of organic aerosols ...

75169-There is a need to monitor the efficiency of phytoremediation, in which green plants are used to extract and remove metals, radionuclides, and other contaminants from soil, subsurface sediments, or ground water. In particular, the concentration and partitioning of the contaminants in plant roots, shoots, stems, and leaves must be determined. This project will develop a hand-held Laser Indu ...

75905-Solid state lighting based on organic light emitting diodes (OLED) offers significant gains in power efficiency, color quality, and lifetime, with less cost and environmental impact than traditional incandescent and fluorescent lights. However, currently available OLED devices do not meet the power efficiency and lifetime requirements for general lighting. Among several limiting factors, t ...

72743-In the past, power converter/inverter designs (such as those used in electric or hybrid electric vehicles) tended to be application-specific engineering projects, which limited their utility because the low-volume production of specialized power conversion equipment significantly increased design risk and development cost. On the other hand, todays power electronics technologies lend themse ...

75530-Positron emission tomography (PET) is a powerful imaging tool that can provide diagnosis for symptoms of diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's disease, head trauma and stroke. However, the performance of current clinical PET systems is limited by available detector technology, and there is an urgent need for improvement in PET instrumentation, in order to exploit the full potential of this p ...

75096-Despite excellent scintillator properties and its use in a wide variety of applications, CsI(Tl) has not been used for radionuclide imaging in medical applications. The primary reason is the presence of a strong afterglow component in its scintillation decay, which reduces the energy resolution. Another reason is the absence of thick, pixelated scintillator structures, which are needed to ...

75170-X-ray detectors with high energy resolution, high sensitivity, and high count-rate performance are required in electron beam systems for materials science research. In many X-ray detection studies conducted with electron beam systems, system performance is limited by the characteristics of available X-ray detectors. This project will develop novel low-capacitance, high-purity silicon detec ...