Award Data

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is clear from the size of the market in warehousing and logistics. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the annual cost of moving inventory by hand in warehouses is 5 billion dollars. Industry is eager to adopt new robotic technology, and it has already made a significant impact in many aspects of this problem, speeding shipments and ...

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer Research (STTR) Phase I project is that smaller and less expensive medical endoscopes will be made possible, which will allow physicians to see better inside the human body. These devices will shorten recovery times, improve diagnosis and treatment, move procedures from operating rooms to exam rooms, and lower healt ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II project aims to develop a manufacturing process to synthesize metal oxide, sulfide and other nanoparticles. The subject method simply involves mixing of common dry chemical starting materials and heating the resulting precursor material to a modest temperature. The objective is to demonstrate feasibility and scalability of this low-cost man ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II project is a study to expand the high speed addressing work conducted under Phase I using monochrome Plasma-spheres to color Plasma-spheres. Plasma-spheres are hollow transparent shells that encapsulate a selected pressurized gas. When a voltage is applied across the shell, the gas ionizes and glows. Plasma-spheres are applied to flexible, el ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II project will develop a multi-functional active fiber Bragg grating sensor technology for the monitoring and management of cryogenic fuel such as liquid hydrogen and liquefied natural gas. The proposed technology uses in-fiber light to actively adjust sensor temperature, which will drastically improve responsivity and sensitivity of fiber sens ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I project will develop a new type of nanostructured substrate for applications in arsenide detection using surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). Arsenic is a well known toxic chemical which exists in both nature and industrial processes, and its detection and monitoring at very low concentration is highly desired. SERS, which relies on Raman sig ...

This STTR Phase II project will develop novel engineered Clostridia strains for fermentation and economically produce butanol as a biofuel from sugars derived from starchy and lignocellulosic biomass. The conventional acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation has low butanol yield (

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project is focused on the development of a unique diamond carbon coated graphite-copper composite material. The composite material will be used to produce low thermal resistance packaging components for use in RF power amplifiers. Under the Phase I effort, a low-cost diamond carbon coating process will be demonstrated. There is a critical need ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project will demonstrate a new method of thermographic imaging to improve the manufacturing yield and energy conversion efficiency of silicon photovoltaic solar cells. Although thermographic imaging is an ideal method for locating the defects and shunts in solar cells which compromise their efficiency, conventional infrared cameras do not have ...

Intellectual Merit: This STTR project will develop novel engineered Clostridia strains for fermentation to economically produce butanol as a biofuel from sugars derived from starchy and lignocellulosic biomass. Butanol is an important industrial solvent and potentially a better transportation fuel than ethanol. Recent rising oil prices and limited petroleum resources have generated high interest i ...