Award Data

High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) materials have excellent mechanical and electrical properties that are attractive for various applications such as power cables and high field, high current superconducting magnets, particularly playing a key role in the commercialization of fusion energy machines. However, HTS materials have very slow normal zone propagation velocities (NZPV) (2-3 orders of ...

Idaho National Laboratory (INL), under funding from the Critical Materials Institute(CMI), has developed a US patented technology to reclaim valuable metals from waste electronic equipment. The Electrochemical Recycling Electronic Constituents of Value (E-RECOV) method uses an electrochemical cell to efficiently recover the bulk of metals from discarded electronics, leading to more complete recycl ...

Solar fuels production is necessary for the future of the global economy. To produce solar fuels from CO2, a highly conductive and stable polymer-electrolyte is needed for this demanding application. A promising class of polymer-electrolytes for electrochemical energy applications has been developed, and this project’s goal is to scale-up production, add quality controls, and reduce waste. The n ...

A recent report by the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee entitled “Challenges at the Frontiers of Matter and Energy” pointed to the need to better understand hierarchical and heterogeneous materials, often at the mesoscopic scale. Such structures can be studied by x-ray and neutron scattering techniques, but they do not generally yield narrow signals in momentum or energy space. The nat ...

HiFunda will develop a novel joining technology to enable integration of key technologies such as supercritical CO2 cycles that can significantly increase efficiencies and reduce power system size and cost. The technology platform developed will find application across a broad range of industrial sectors resulting in improved energy efficiency and economics for power systems based on coal and natu ...

The advanced energy economy will be a dominant market force in the 21st century, one driven by US demand but asymmetrically low domestic supply without immediate action. This project focuses on the development and US manufacturing of a new battery membrane that enables low-cost and long-lived Li-ion batteries.

Next generation reactor R&D aims to produce safer, longer lasting and economically viable nuclear power plants. New designs rely on novel materials that are resistant to both corrosive environments and radiation damage. Testing these novel materials requires an intense fast neutron environment, commonly created with a nuclear reactor or a national laboratory scale accelerator such as the proposed ...

Replacement of petroleum based vehicles with fuel cell electric vehicles operating on hydrogen produced from domestically available resources would dramatically decrease emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants as well as reduce dependence on oil from politically volatile regions of the world. One major inhibitor to a hydrogen society is the lack of infrastructure, which requires hydroge ...

Recently, the Generation IV International Forum has established a set of nuclear reactors (advanced nuclear reactors), with main objectives to improve overall reactor safety, efficiency, sustainability, and proliferation resistance for economically viable nuclear energy. These advanced reactor technologies rely on novel fuels and materials that are resistant to radiation damage and corrosive envir ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program aims at development and demonstration of an integrated theoretically/experimentally combinatorial method for the accurate prediction of rheological behaviors of special polymer solutions. In-depth understandings of dynamic responses of the polymer solutions under external shear are essential for development of the “smart” polymer-based add ...