Award Data

Current commercial reactor fuel performance monitoring uses external power range monitors, and evaluates coolant water for contamination that would indicate failure of a fuel element. Estimates of the localized fission rates and temperature distributions within the reactor core are approximated using nuclear simulation codes. Real-time characterization of local in-core radiation field parameters w ...

Statement of Problem: The US DOE has set a goal to advance photovoltaics (PV) technology to reach installed costs of less than $1/Watt. This requires module costs below $0.50/ Watt. Thin film PV provides the lowest documented production cost per watt ($0.67) of any PV technology. Module reliability has a direct impact on the levalized cost of energy (LCOE), or the cost of the energy produced by ...

Cogeneration utilizes solar insolation to simultaneously provide electricity and address other build- ing energy requirements such as Heating or Cooling. Yet, the #1 energy use in Commercial Build- ings is neither of these, but instead Lighting. We show a novel solar Co-Gen architecture that optimally targets this top requirement, with the IR portion driving high-efficiency thermo-PV for electric ...

Industrial cell and module tester for silicon solar cells have converged on a conventional model in which an IV curve is swept during a constant-intensity flashlamp pulse. This scheme has many technical and cost drawbacks. Sinton Instruments has invented techniques that could radically change next- generation cell and module testers in order to lower the cost while simultaneously enabling sophist ...

This Phase I project proposes the development of a Marine Profiling Radiometer (MPR). The MPR is a passive microwave remote sensor capable to measure the stability of the marine boundary layer. Significant innovations in radiometer design, packaging, mode of operation, and calibration enable the MPR to operate in the unforgiving marine environment for an extended time without maintenance and user ...

The US DOE is very interested in promoting on-board vehicular hydrogen storage systems that will allow for a driving range of greater than 300 miles while meeting packaging, cost, safety, and performance requirements. The state-of-the-art H2 storage vessels that meet these requirements are too expensive to manufacture because of high carbon fiber costs. The Phase I/Phase II project will seek to re ...

Since the 1990s, numerous cases of illicit trafficking of nuclear materials have been reported. As a result, a new disciplinenuclear forensic sciencehas been developed to support tracking, testing, and forensic analysis of nuclear material. Obviously, nuclear forensic material samples are extremely valuable and must be safeguarded to avoid loss or misidentification, which drives the need for dura ...

The biomass supply chain is evolving to meet the expanding forms of biomass utilization. In particular to meet the goals to produce 60 billion gallons of renewable fuel by 2030 will require a massive increase in cellulosic biofuel production. To produce 45 billion gallons of cellulosic biofuel will require about 530 million tons of cellulosic biomass to be processed and converted to fuel each ye ...

SiC power electronics are ideally suited for reducing the size and weight of power electronics systems that are used in wind power converters. Present power electronics systems require large transformers which operate a modest frequencies that prevents their use on top of the turbine tower. The electrical parasitics introduced by the interconnections between wind turbine and power conversion elect ...

In order to dramatically reduce CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants and mitigate their impact on global climate change, DOE has called for technologies that can capture at least 90% of CO2 emissions from an existing coal-fired power plant with & lt; 35% increase in the cost of electricity (COE). One approach with the potential to achieve these goals is the use of advanced solvents to separa ...