Award Data

This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I project will undertake innovative heat transfer research involving dropwise condensation on a wettability gradient. Dropwise condensation alone has shown the ability to increase condensation heat transfer coefficients by an order of magnitude over film condensation, typical of vertical thermosyphons. Droplets condensing on a gradient surface experien ...

Intellectual Merit: This STTR project will develop novel engineered Clostridia strains for fermentation to economically produce butanol as a biofuel from sugars derived from starchy and lignocellulosic biomass. Butanol is an important industrial solvent and potentially a better transportation fuel than ethanol. Recent rising oil prices and limited petroleum resources have generated high interest i ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I research project will develop a gas-solid spouted bed bioreactor (SBB) for solid state fermentations (SSF) to produce hydrolytic enzymes (e.g., amylases, phytase, chitinase) and biochemicals (e.g., lactic acid) from solid starch materials. SSF offers higher production rates and easier product recovery compared to submerged fermentation (SmF), ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I research project will develop die-area-efficient tunable magnetically enhanced inductors for use in Radio Frequency (RF) Integrated Circuits (IC). This project is to explore magnetic materials and inductor geometries with the goal of achieving area efficient, tunable, high Q inductors that operate at frequencies up to 6 GigaHertz (GHz) or more. In pa ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project aims to apply the unique property of high-speed jets to adhere to nearby curved surfaces, with a turning radius much larger than the size of the jet - the so-called COANDA effect. The proposed research aims to take advantage of this effect to manipulate thermal spray jet stream and vector the stream such that the hot thermal gas stream ...

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project demonstrates a flexible fuel reformer (FFR) that employs unique mechanical construction and operation to enable extended catalyst life in the presence of sulfur-containing heavy fuels. The FFR utilizes a low-cost heat exchanger that is constructed from metal foil and coated with a dual-function sulfur-tolerant catalyst. Combustion and ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project will investigate the technical and commercial feasibility of coating metal foils with a solid sorbent so that they act as a desulfurizing component for pre-treatment of sulfur-laden liquid fuels. The coated foils will be inserted into a small heat exchanger that acts as a platform unit for conversion of liquid fuels to hydrogen for fue ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) PhaseI project will design, fabricate, and validate a novel low cost (under $40/kW), robust and high-power-density 3 kW fuel cell (FC) power-conditioning system (PCS) suitable for lower voltage FC stacks, comprising a high-frequency inverter (HFI) followed by a forced cyclo-converter, which yields the following features: (1) 300 kHz switching frequen ...

The Small Business Technology Transfer Research (STTR) Phase I project addresses the scale-up to kilogram quantities of a novel university laboratory solid-state method of synthesizing metal oxide and metal nanoparticles by mixing common chemical starting materials and baking the resulting precursor material at modest temperatures; and the dispersment of the loosely agglomerated particles for comm ...

The Small Business Technology Transfer Research (STTR) Phase I project will develop a new deposition technology to enable the production of novel Thermal Barrier Coating (TBC) compositions having increased performance. TBC coatings are widely used in jet aircraft engines to increase the durability and temperature tolerance of hot-section engine components such as turbine blades, thereby improving ...