Award Data

Fugitive emissions of VOCs from gasoline marketing facilities are an energy, safety and environmental issue. All new vehicles made after the year 2000 must have an Onboard Refueling Vapor Recovery System (ORVR) which increase fugitive emissions of refueling stations because of interface between ORVR vehicles and gasoline station underground storage systems (UST). The increase of VOCs is attributed ...

Vegetable oil is commonly extracted from oil seeds using hexane. Separation of oil and solvent (hexane) from this extracted mixture (known as miscella) is usually carried out by solvent evaporation or distillation. Solvent recovery from miscella consumes about 50% of the total energy required for the edible oil production. Solvent evaporation is an energy intensive operation and explosive vapors i ...

Woody cut branches are portions of trees or shrubs used for floral design or decorative purposes, including foliage, flowering branches, fruit and seeds, and bare stems and branches. Specialty cut flower growers add woody cut branches to their production line in order to diversify their products, expand their markets and extend market season. Within the cut flower market, woody cut branch material ...

The black walnut grows throughout the central and eastern United States. It's rich, tasty flavor is a high-valued food additive. Although 15.4 acres of black walnuts yield approximately 4 billon pounds of raw nuts annually, only about 20 million pounds are commercially processed. With low economic incentives and small processing capacity, growers lack motivation to harvest. However, the growers ca ...

Situation: The U.S. poultry industry annually produces two billion pounds of feathers; considered waste biomaterials, they are converted into low value protein for use in animal feed. Feathers are not utilized for their unique structural properties as strong, lightweight fiber made of the protein keratin, which can be used to enhance the strength of polymers. The USDA Beltsville Agricultural Resea ...

In the United States, annual demand for adhesives and resins exceeds 20 billion pounds. Currently, most adhesives used in the wood industry are petroleum-based, such as phenol-formaldehyde and urea-formaldehyde adhesives. Formaldehyde emissions cause many environmental and health issues. Development of biobased adhesives not only significantly impact a >$100 billion industry sector, but also solve ...

Locally grown foods account for less than one percent of the total $900 billion in retail food sales in the U.S. (18) Therefore, consumers purchase more than ninety percent of their food from supermarkets. In order for local small family farms to grab a greater portion of food sales, they must get their locally grown foods on the mainstream supermarket shelves, as well as partner with stores to ge ...

Well over 50 % of US land area constitutes low wind-speed sites, yet wind turbines are either not effective or only marginally effective in such low winds. To extract significantly more energy from such DOE Class 1 or Class 2 winds requires substantially increasing turbine blade rotor diameter (wind power is proportional to the square of the blade diameter). However, due to limitations on turbine ...

Well over 50 % of US land area constitutes low wind-speed sites, yet wind turbines are either not effective or only marginally effective in such low winds. To extract significantly more energy from such DOE Class 1 or Class 2 winds requires substantially increasing turbine blade rotor diameter (wind power is proportional to the square of the blade diameter). However, due to limitations on turbine ...

Invention House LLC proposes to lower the initial cost of solar energy by minimizing the material used in the reflector of a concentrating trough. Placing the support structure on the front (sun) side and using a thin reflecting membrane will reduce material usage and cost by approximately 66%. The system is capable of producing boiling hot water for use in grain drying, food processing, and steri ...