Award Data

This proposal describes an innovative high strength silver alloy for making Bi2212/Ag round wire conductor. To generate magnetic fields greater than 20 T, a new high field superconductor such as Bi2212 is needed. However, Bi2212 is brittle ceramic that can be easily damaged, and its critical current is very strain sensitive. The Bi2212 compound is contained in a silver matrix that is chemically co ...

DOE Nuclear Physics user facilities require larger high-resolution gamma-ray detector systems to provide higher sensitivity measurements. Large diameter germanium crystals are being grown, evaluated, and iteratively improved in the laboratory. Large-diameter crystals will be made into large segmented planar detectors to demonstrate the viability of the crystals and the advanced detection capabilit ...

Degradation of reactor components, heat exchangers, and piping systems in nuclear power plants subjected to heat, high pressure and corrosion has been estimated to cost the electric power industry $17.3 billion dollars annually. Eddy current testing is a widely practiced, and critically important nondestructive evaluation method used in power plants, yet it relies on decades-old sensor technology ...

Proliferation of the weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear weapons is a serious threat in the world today. Prevention of the spread of nuclear weapons has reached a state of heightened urgency in recent years. Scintillator based gamma-ray spectrometers are an important tool in checking the proliferation of the nuclear weapons. The performance of the current radioisotope identifiers is limi ...

There is a critical need for low cost, high performance gamma-ray detectors for identification and localization of special nuclear materials (SNM) such as plutonium and weapons grade uranium. Gamma ray spectrometers are an important tool in checking the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Cadmium zinc telluride (Cd1-xZnxTe or & quot;CZT & quot;) has emerged as the leading room temperature semiconduc ...

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) offers high sensitivity to a range of biological processes through the use of targeted radiolabeled probes. PET imaging can provide diagnosis for symptoms of diseases such as Alzheimers disease, head trauma, cancer, and stroke. In recent years, there has been considerable interest in non-invasive plant imaging using short-lived radio tracers, such as 18F and 11C. ...

Synchrotron radiation is a powerful tool for measuring structural properties of materials. Important applications of higher energy synchrotron X-rays include measurement of strain and material evolution during processing, studies of composite materials and studies of layered systems. Detector requirements for these applications include large area, high sensitivity, wide dynamic range, high spatial ...

The capability to efficiently remove carbon dioxide from industrial gas streams is desirable for a wide variety of applications. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a byproduct of many industrial processes associated with the transformation of fossil fuels into usable products such as heat, electricity, and chemicals. In addition to being a greenhouse gas pollutant, the presence of carbon dioxide in chemical ...

Coal fired power plants are a leading producer of carbon dioxide emissions. To reduce the potential of global warming, carbon dioxide can be captured at the exhaust of coal fired power plants for capture and sequestration. The technology to capture carbon dioxide at the emissions source must be able to be implemented both economically and on a very large scale. Currently, the leading technology t ...

Aerogels with low refractive index and high light transmittance are highly desirable for Cherenkov detectors in high-energy particle physics. However, the quality, cost, and scale of the manufactured aerogels have been a challenge for this field. Over the past 10 years, Aspen Aerogels has gained considerable expertise fabricating highly hydrophobic transparent aerogels. On the proposed effort, Asp ...