Award Data

Environmental Protection Agency rules stipulate that corrective action be taken for drinking water distribution systems that exceed the maximum contaminant level (MCL) for total Trihalomethanes (TTHMs) 80μg/L.  Real-time, or even periodic, monitoring of drinking water is not economically feasible.  Current methods use gas chromatography, and are expensive and plagued with long time delays ...

Municipal wastewater treatment plants represent a huge energy ‘sink’ in the United States. Estimates are that these plants consume up to 3 percent of the total amount of power consumed annually. Ironically, the wastewater is concentrated with materials (carbohydrates) which inherently are high energy compounds. Novel research with Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) technology has demonstrated an abi ...

According to the study EPA 2000 Community Water System Survey Data on Pipe Assets, the infrastructure for water distribution and sewerage systems is aging and requires replacement.  In addition, in EPA’s September 2002 report Clean Water and Drinking Water Infrastructure Gap Analysis, the funding gap for replacing aging pipes was estimated to be $27 billion a year for the next 20 years. A ...

In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that carbon dioxide (CO2) is a pollutant under the federal Clean Air Act.  The ruling allows the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate CO2 emissions.  Such regulation will entail monitoring a wide variety of pollution sources including automobile exhaust systems, industrial emission sources, and carbon sequestration sites.  With prese ...

Each day about 700,000 U.S. food service operations/restaurants emit more than 285 tons of particulate matter (PM) and more than 41 tons of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), a significant source of environmental air pollution that can adversely impact health. An estimated 321,000 U.S. underfired charbroilers are responsible for 94% of current restaurant emissions, with approximate costs for conv ...

Electrostatic precipitators (ESPs) are key pollution control devices in air pollution control devices for small oil and coal-fired industrial boilers.  ESPs can operate with an efficiency of 98% to 99% for the removal of mercury and fly ash from the flue gas stream.  With an electrostatic precipitator, fly ash particles are charged electrically as the flue gas passes through the precipitat ...

Active Spectrum, Inc., proposes a novel, low-cost soot sensor for on-board measurement of soot emissions in diesel exhaust gases. The proposed technology is differentiated from existing methods by excellent sensitivity, high specificity to carbon particulates, and robustness to fouling by accumulated soot. Potential commercial applications of the real-time sensor include diesel emissions reducti ...

Isobutanol can be produced biotechnologically from the same biomass sources as ethanol. Compared to ethanol, however, isobutanol is a superior biofuel due to its higher energy content and its compatibility with existing fuel infrastructure. In addition, due to the vapor pressure issues posed by ethanol, requirements to produce gasoline that meet the specifications for reformulated gasoline (RFG) ...

This research will develop and demonstrate the feasibility of preparing reusable and recoverable solid, porous acid and base catalysts for biodiesel production using activated carbon generated from agricultural and forestry residues (i.e., a sustainable biomass).  These new catalysts will greatly reduce amounts of waste pollutants that are generated compared to current methodology that uses ...

Ion Signature Technology, Inc. (IST) will develop and market a collection and analysis system that will retrieve soil-bound pollutants as well as soluble and non-soluble contaminants from groundwater as the probe is pushed by cone penetrometry of Geoprobe into the subsurface. The goal of this project is to detect in real-time the wide range of compounds listed in EPA Method 8260 (VOCs) and 8270 ( ...