Award Data

Noon Energy has developed a new class of battery technology that will cost-effectively turn intermittent solar and wind electricity into on-demand power. It uses ultra-low-cost storage media and can match the energy efficiency of lithium-ion technology. It stores energy by splitting CO2 into solid carbon and oxygen in a flow battery configuration, utilizing abundant materials and simple reaction c ...

The trend for short-reach optical fiber communications, those used for data centers and HPC, has been to use simple and power-efficient approaches to scale bandwidth. Approaches include parallel single mode (ex. more fibers), multi-level modulation coupled with direct detection (ex. four-level pulse amplitude modulation or PAM-4), and wide channel spacing (i.e. coarse WDM or CWDM). Bandwidth and c ...

To meet the grand challenges of climate change and energy independence we must replace fossil fuels with solar, wind, and storage. The sodium metal halide (NaMx) battery is a uniquely attractive solution for next-generation grid storage. The raw storage materials in the NaMx iron chemistry are table salt (NaCl) and iron, two of the most abundant and lowest-cost materials. In addition, the NaMx bat ...

Growth, electrification, and increased installation of renewable energy is driving significant increases in worldwide demand for metals like manganese, nickel, copper, and cobalt. This increase in commodity prices and projected demand has driven interest in exploring new sources of minerals such as deep sea mining. The abyssal plain contains locations of concentrated deposits of polymetallic nodul ...

Metals such as rare earths, copper, cobalt, and nickel continue to be critical to the energy industry and advanced technology applications. Traditional mining of these elements is predominantly located in far-flung regions of the world. MSWI ashes represent a unique opportunity as a source for some of these metals here in the U.S. The current unit cost of metal extraction and refinement, particula ...

This project will use a low-cost, high-yield, and simplified continuous approach to synthesize lithium iron phosphate iron (LFP) based cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Sylvatex’s (SVX) proprietary nanomaterial platform has already demonstrated a significant breakthrough in synthesizing cathode materials for LIBs. This project will demonstrate the feasibility of producing LFP-b ...

Sodium beta-alumina batteries are one of the most promising large-scale electrical energy storage technologies due to their high energy density and excellent cycling capability. Despite many advantages, the sodium batteries have several barriers for successful commercialization, mainly related to safety issues and high capital investment for installation. The current battery cells typically oper ...

The proposed project is to demonstrate a novel technique for producing GaN single-crystal boules that yield GaN wafers and substrates suitable for fabrication of GaN high-power devices. The two key attributes of the proposed novel GaN growth technique (a bulk crystal growth technique) are: a high growth rate and an ability to achieve a superior crystal quality. The novel GaN crystal growth techn ...

In this abstract the development of vertical power transistors utilizing bulk GaN substrates with breakdown voltages of 1200V or higher, normally-off operation, and a drain current rating of 100A is proposed. These devices will feature vertical current flow, avalanche ruggedness, and a wide operating temperature range (-55 to 150°C). The target specific on-resistance for the transistor is 30x low ...

SixPoint Materials will create low-cost, high-quality vertical gallium nitride (GaN) substrates using a multi-phase production approach that employs both hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) technology and ammonothermal growth techniques to lower costs and maintain crystal quality. Substrates are thin wafers of semiconducting material needed for power devices. In its two-phase project, SixPoint Mate ...