Award Data

Refrigeration and air conditioning in buildings, industry, and transportation account for approximately 10 quads of U.S. primary energy consumption. Motors power the equipment and control the environment in advanced cooling applications and thus their energy consumption represents a significant part of their operating and life cycle costs.Fan motors for heating, cooling and ventilation run the mos ...

Today, conventional hydropower generation accounts for 75% of the United States renewable energy generation (over 270,000 GWH) despite utilizing less than 20% of the usable hydropower available for development. Recent studies indicate that advances in lower cost higher performing generator technologies can substantially increase this resource utilization. Just a 5% increase in market penetration w ...

Wave energy, a promising source of renewable power generation, is unlikely to make a material contribution to US or global energy supplies unless more cost effective and robust technologies can be developed. Oscilla Power, Inc. has developed a technology for the low cost, utility scale harvesting of wave energy enabled by novel magnetic materials that has no moving parts. Following successful labo ...

Topic 20c of DOEs SBIR solicitation seeks grant applications to develop technologies for the assessment and mitigation of materials degradation in Light Water Reactors in order to extend the service life including methods that can mitigate or predict irradiation and aging effects An important degradation phenomenon that limits the service life and energy production of Light Water Reactor (LWR) ...

Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) technology promises to provide an efficient method by which electricity can be generated from coal-derived syngas, biofuels, and natural gas, while increasing energy security and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The large capital costs attributed to the cathode low performance and long-term stability issues are a current limitation of SOFC technologies that must be a ...

One of the major cost elements of todays Lithium Ion Batteries and Ultracapacitors is the cost of manufacturing the electrodes. A significant reduction in cost is a major goal of the DOE Vehicle Technologies Program. Reducing the cost of these storage devices could accelerate the use of HEV, PHEV, and EV vehicles in the U.S. transportation sector. One of the major contributors to the manufacturing ...

We are improving critical technologies needed for the development of laser-driven, tabletop ultrafast x-ray sources suitable for ultrafast characterization of transient structures of energized molecules undergoing dissociation, isomerization, or intramolecular energy redistribution. In this SBIR project, Mesa Photonics will develop an X-ray ultrafast laser pulse measurement instrument for complete ...

X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) is a powerful tool used to study the local molecular and electronic structure of specific elements in a broad range of samples ranging from chemicals and biological samples or tissues to soils and rocks. To achieve the utmost sensitivity, X-ray detectors are required that can separate the fluorescence signal of interest from the high X-ray background originating ...

Measurement of atmospheric carbon dioxide on balloonsondes is a challenge to optical detection methods. High sensitivity, precision, and selectivity are required in a rugged, compact, lightweight package. Altitude-resolved atmospheric carbon dioxide detection on balloons is a critical component of the Department of Energy & apos;s greenhouse gas measurement strategy. Overall objective of the proje ...

Understanding global warming requires continuous field measurements of carbon dioxide concentrations. High-precision measurements of a part-in-3000, or better, are required. However, these high-performance instruments must meet stringent cost objectives. A simple, rugged, infrared spectrometer can provide the required measurement precision at the solicited volume price point. Vista Photonics propo ...