Award Data

There is significant opportunity for energy efficiency improvements in the industrial and manufacturing sectors in the U.S., both from the production and consumption perspective. Higher energy density battery materials will play a role in both, through improved storage of electricity from renewable sources, the enabling of electric vehicles, and through the development of longer lasting, higher po ...

Ice crystals can form spontaneously from the freezing of water droplets at temperatures colder than -38

This SBIR/STTR project delivers an ultra-low power structural health monitoring (SHM) system that uses autonomous, wirelessly embedded sensors to monitor and assess structural integrity in wind turbine blades. EASE features impedance-based active SHM, which is highly sensitive to damage like cracks, delimitations, mass variations, fastener failures and stiffness changes. Blades are the only wind t ...

Bright coherent light sources in the soft x-ray region of the spectrum are useful for a variety of applications of interest to DOE in the basic sciences, nanoscience and biology, and for technological applications. At Free-Electron Laser Facilities, peak power output of the x-ray pulses is enhanced by using a mid-infrared laser pulse instead of a near-infrared pulse. The current front end for mid- ...

Concern over CO2 emissions and global greenhouse effects has prompted new uses for reclaimed CO2 effluent from coal fired power plants. Similarly, volatile organic solvent emissions have prompted an initiative to identify cleaner solvents for high performance polymer processing, particularly when such processing requires large volumes of environmentally unfriendly, toxic organic solvents. Furthe ...

This DOE SBIR/STTR program will result in the commercialization of a low-cost anostructured composite thermoelectric device. Such devices represent the next generation solution for an increasingly strained energy market by converting existing waste heat into electrical power. More waste heat is generated by the combination of industry and automobiles than the total contribution of all renewable en ...

Providing a reliable, clean and economical energy source is a priority of the US government. The challenge is to use coal, a secured and economical energy source, to produce clean hydrogen fuel to support domestic and global green economy with near-zero emission. Conventional separation technology and even developmental technology do not satisfy all of the requirements for hydrogen production from ...

Statement of Problem: The US DOE has set a goal to advance photovoltaics (PV) technology to reach installed costs of less than $1/Watt. This requires module costs below $0.50/ Watt. Thin film PV provides the lowest documented production cost per watt ($0.67) of any PV technology. Module reliability has a direct impact on the levalized cost of energy (LCOE), or the cost of the energy produced by ...

Improved ignition methods are needed for advanced vehicle combustion systems, in particular those that allow reliable ignition of lean mixtures in gasoline engines at elevated pressures. Laser ignition is a candidate technology having the potential to address these needs. However, despite more than 40 years of laser ignition research, the technology is not yet in commercial use. A critical proble ...

Formic acid (FA, CH2O2) is the simplest carboxylic acid. It is mainly used as a preservative and antibacterial agent in livestock feed. A significant fraction of FA is used in the leather-processing, textile and rubber industries and a small fraction of formic acid is used as a cleaning agent replacing mineral acids. Aqueous FA is a promising liquid hydrogen-storage carrier with a hydrogen storage ...