Award Data

This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I project aims to develop highly sensitive and inexpensive uncooled microbolometers using ultra-thin films of metals, metal oxides, or semi-metals. These microbolometers will be attractive for use in portable night vision devices and other thermal imaging applications that require a Noise Equivalent Temperature Difference (NETD) of less than 20 mK. We ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project aims to develop a highly-efficient and cost-effective plasma-based method for graphene mass production. The approach is to utilize unique properties of magnetically controlled arc discharge to couple the plasma production of carbon species and the synthesis of graphene. The broader/commercial impact of this project will be the potenti ...

This STTR Phase I project will develop a process to produce silica products from the waste stream of a patent pending activated carbon manufacturing process (carbonxt process). The project focuses on using the silica for Silica-Titania Composites but would also take into account markets that employ precipitated or gel silica which would have differing properties than the silica used in Silica-Tit ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project aims to fabricate anti-reflective coatings (ARC) for solar energy applications. The approach is to use a convective and evaporation-induced assembly to deposit organized nanostructures and create sub-wavelength quasi repeating structures at lower cost than the repeating structures from photolithography. In this project, a Microreacto ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I project will develop a new type of nanostructured substrate for applications in arsenide detection using surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). Arsenic is a well known toxic chemical which exists in both nature and industrial processes, and its detection and monitoring at very low concentration is highly desired. SERS, which relies on Raman sig ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project addresses the unmet analytical needs for monitoring cyanide leaching of gold, a process widely used in the mining industry to refine gold ores. The goal is to establish the feasibility of sensors that permit the selective measurement of free and complexed cyanide in the cyanide leach reactor, detoxification reactor, and in the tailings ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer Program (STTR) Phase I project will create a new salmonella sensor combining two established tools in biodetection: hydrodynamic chromatography and magnetic nanoparticle (MP) conjugation. The proposed sensor will be significantly less expensive and provide faster detection time with equivalent sensitivity compared to current techniques. The project will deve ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project focuses on the growth of high quality Boron Nitride Nanotubes (BNNTs). BNNTs have both high thermal conductance that is an order of magnitude higher than aluminum, and also have an electronic bandgap of about 6 eV that makes them an excellent electrical insulator. These unique properties promise many exciting applications. Unfortunatel ...

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project is for the development of a wireless sensor for continuous and real-time measurement of the high temperature in gas turbines. The new sensor offers turbine manufacturers and owners/operators the capability to place small-sized sensors in hard to reach areas in the turbine, and transmit sensed data wirelessly thereby enabling heat loads to be ...

This STTR Phase I project will remove the most critical roadblock to making long-lasting batteries from safe and economical zinc and air. Zinc is plentiful in the U.S. and zinc-air batteries have the potential to hold more than five times the energy of current lithium-ion batteries, but a key challenge for making rechargeable zinc-air batteries is that the zinc inside the battery naturally forms s ...