Award Data

79590B Automobile engines generate significant waste heat, which could be recovered and converted to electricity to meet the growing demand for electric power. Thermionic emission allows waste heat to be converted, but traditional thermionic materials provide very low conversion efficiencies at the moderate temperatures (400-600°C) found in an automobile exhaust system. Thus, there is a need ...

78980B Dielectric wakefield acceleration is presently being studied intensively as a promising technique for advanced high-energy accelerators. Because the reduction of power attenuation is a fundamental issue for the efficiency of any accelerating structure, this project will develop a Multilayer Dielectric Loaded Accelerating (DLA) structure that will have dramatically improved attenuation comp ...

79509B The DOE is seeking new techniques for particle acceleration that are cost effective and efficient. This project will develop and verify one such concept, electron acceleration by a fullerene-based active medium. Phase I will investigate the chemistry of fullerenes in liquid crystal matrices. The composition of the materials will be optimized for maximum stored energy through the use of e ...

78730B The efficient and inexpensive production of hydrogen is essential for the hydrogen economy to become realized in the U.S. For the foreseeable future, most hydrogen will be produced from fossil fuels using a variety of processes. In order to fully utilize the hydrogen, efficient and inexpensive separation methods will be required. This project will develop a highly selective membrane for ...

75004B If hydrogen is to be used as an environmentally-friendly fuel, hydrogen production costs must be lowered and carbon dioxide, a by-product of hydrogen production, must be separated for sequestration. This project will develop a membrane process to recover hydrogen and separate carbon dioxide from steam-methane-reformer pressure-swing-absorption plants. The process should increase hydrogen ...

79629B Cutting-edge applications in high energy electron beam-based physics, such as linear colliders, x-ray free-electron lasers, inverse compton scattering sources, and plasma wakefield accelerators, require beams with sub-picosecond pulses. These beams must be precisely diagnosed to be used for such advanced applications. While methods for the production of such beams are well-developed, the ...

79394B Superconducting radio frequency (SRF) cavities, such as those fabricated at Jefferson Laboratory and used in charged particle linear accelerators, are formed by deep drawing. In this process, a non-uniform or poorly textured microstructure in the starting sheet can cause poor deformation behavior and surface roughness in the formed part. Poor deep drawing behavior is manifested by excess ...

79089B It is estimated that almost 20% of the energy consumed in an average building is used by cooling systems such as air conditioning, refrigerator and freezer. Thus, cooling costs almost $50 billion in electricity bills to American home owners and industry. Any improvement in the efficiency of these cooling systems (heat pumps) will not only reduce energy consumption but also pay dividends ...

79811 Coal-fired power plants are a significant part of the nation¿s power generating capacity, currently accounting for more than 55 percent of the country¿s total electricity production. Efficient and profitable operation of coal-fired power plants requires higher steam temperatures, necessitating the use of advanced alloys such as ferritic and austenitic alloys. A major concern in using the ...

A key application of the technological breakthrough associated with decreased cost of DNA sequencing is metagenomics. Metagenomics is the process of sequencing DNA from whole ecosystems, rather than individuals or cultures. This approach has the potential to allow the dissection of microbial ecosystems in biofuel producing agricultural land, toxic contaminated sites and hydrocarbon recovery enviro ...