Award Data

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 ...

Density functional theory is used by many researchers funded by the Department of Energy as a method for predicting the behavior of chemicals and materials used in energy applications. However, results of these calculations are often not standardized and, even when they are, expert-level understand of the methods is needed in order to properly perform a simulation. The energy research community a ...

Wind power has an important role in satisfying the power needs of the United States. Since wind power is a clean renewable source of energy, it also serves an important role in reducing dependence on fossil fuels, in particular foreign oil supplies, as well as reducing greenhouse gas and carbon emissions. Unfortunately, significant maintenance costs, recently highlighted by a series of blade failu ...

The Exascale Computing Project is tasked to develop the next generation of high performance computing systems capable of computing at 50 to 100 times faster than current HPC systems. Computing at this extreme-scale will significantly enhance the value of materials modeling and simulation to basic materials research and engineering In particular, computing at the extreme scale will enable a higher ...

Achieving a systems-level understanding of science associated with climate change is a key topic within the DOE mission. Light absorbing particles are an important atmospheric constituent and have a direct impact on climate. They also impact air quality and health and human activities play a major role in their abundance and distribution. There is a critical need for improved observational capacit ...

The problem being addressed is the development of high intensity ultrashort pulse lasers, in recognition that today’s ultra-high intensity lasers are limited to repetition rates of < 10 Hz. Technical solutions are sought to enable the generation of high energy (joule-level) laser pulses that can be focused to highly relativistic intensity at high repetition rates (100-1000 Hz). The proposed proj ...

Computer-aided Engineering software that apply the Finite Element Method to perform a multi-physics analysis have received widespread acceptance for traditional macro-scale material systems. Challenges persist in the modeling of complex coupled processes in environmental/thermal barrier coatings (E/TBCs) used to protect substrate material against the corrosive environment in the hot section parts ...

High selectivity in chemical reactions is the key to reducing costs, energy consumption and emissions in chemical processing. More selective and active catalysts will reduce the need for recovering unreacted chemicals for recycle and removing byproducts. Reducing the burden on separation processes will greatly reduce the energy required for chemical production. We propose to design macromolecular ...

Electrons play a very key role in plasma chemistry and dynamics of low temperature plasmas. Improved capability for measuring electron number density, ne, and electron energy distribution function, EEDF, in weakly ionized low temperature plasmas would benefit both fundamental study and application areas. For example, the capability would directly benefit emerging research targeted at modifying and ...

Due to the current oil crisis, the United States has begun to focus on alternative energy sources for transportation and other domestic applications. Methanol offers a renewable alternative to many fossil fuels that can be a raw material for the synthetic hydrocarbons and their products. ISL proposes to fabricate a photo-electrochemical cell that converts carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas which can ...