Award Data

The broader impact of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project is to enable a much wider adoption of various photomedical treatments. Broadly speaking, photomedical treatments use light to cure diseases and promote healing. Specifically, photodynamic therapy uses light to activate a photosensitizing chemical agent to kill cancer cells or bacterial with minimal side effects. M ...

This STTR Phase I project aims to bring together computational thinking, mechanism design, and design process to create a new framework for design-driven robotics education for K-12 schools and camps. This work would result in a platform for 1) teaching students Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) topics and 2) providing them critical hands-on experience designing, prototyping ...

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project is to drive hypertension awareness and control rates around the world, through the availability of low-cost, portable blood pressure monitoring. High blood pressure (BP) is a major cardiovascular risk factor that affects up to 1 billion people worldwide. It is treatable, yet hypertension aware ...

Ceramic matrix SiC-SiC composites are currently the leading candidate for Generation IV nuclear reactor fuel cladding and other structural components, due to their excellent thermal and chemical stability under extreme conditions. However, robustly joining SiC structures when exposed to such harsh operating conditions still presents a major roadblock. A novel bonding joint compound leveraging grap ...

Cherenkov radiation, caused by fast charged particles in a transparent medium, is widely used for charged particle identification. To date, gaseous, liquid, and solid radiators have been used as sources of Cherenkov radiation. Aerogels with low refractive index and high light transmittance, are highly desirable for Cherenkov detectors. Development and testing of aerogels with a refractive index as ...

Atomic structures of biomolecules (e.g., proteins) and biomolecular complexes facilitate detailed understanding of biomolecular function. They are key drivers of the ongoing revolution in molecular biology and of many areas of biotechnology, including development of pharmaceuticals and of enzymes and light harvesters for bioenergy. Most biomolecular structures are determined by X-ray crystallograp ...

The Department of Energy’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences has identified a need for new proton conducting membranes for solar fuel generator applications. Specifically, development of block copolymers with good proton conductivity at ambient temperatures and low gas diffusion and ionic transports are needed. There are currently no commercially available proton conducting membranes which possess ...

Understanding the genomic basis of economically important plants for growth time, crop yield, responses to drought and disease resistance is of critical importance to sustaining and improving food supplies for humans and livestock, as well as insuring sufficient raw material availability for industries that depend on plant materials, such as biofuel manufacture. Current computational methods for a ...

Development of Li-ion conducting membranes capable of supporting Li-metal anode to enable high- performance Li-metal batteries (LiMB) is a priority for the Department of Energy (DOE). State-of- the-art membranes used for Li-ion batteries (LiB) are not suitable for LiMB and have a number of disadvantages including poor cycling performance, low Li-ion conductivity, and electrochemical stability with ...

Commercial-scale geothermal reservoirs are thousands of feet below the Earth’s surface, so scientists rely on indirect measurements to reconstruct 3D subsurface reservoir maps from seismic vibrations, electromagnetic waves, or gravity measurements. Geothermal operators typically use electromagnetic or gravity surveys, but seismic surveys are preferable because they enable higher-resolution 3D su ...