Award Data

"The Department of Energy’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences has identified a need for new ion conducting membranes for solar fuel generator applications. Specifically, development of phase separated membranes with good proton conductivity at ambient temperatures, very low gas (fuel) diffusion/permeability, and selective ionic transport is required. Currently there are no commercially available p ...

Statement of Problem The global scale of plastics production (reaching 367 million metric tons in 2020) has led to enormous negative impacts on our environment through carbon emissions and environmental pollution. For example, 75% of the disposed plastic ends up being landfilled while only 9% is recycled, leading to a significant amount that ends up in our environment. Thus, there is a pressing ne ...

The laser-based electron accelerator is an innovative tool to obtain GeV to TeV electron energies for high-energy particle physics experiments. The development of high-power laser systems for these accelerators, however, puts stringent challenges on the very limits of the laser materials themselves. The enormous heat generated by the high power creates great thermal stress that leads to effects su ...

Statement of the problem or situation that is being addressed: Nuclear power is a key component in enabling our nation to develop and deploy clean, affordable, domestic energy sources. One of the main challenges in expanding the use of nuclear power is developing technologies which improve the reliability, sustain the safety, and extend the life of current reactors. Safe and reliable reactor opera ...

New long-duration energy storage is critical for the US to incorporate new renewable energy generation, increase system efficiency and resiliency, and reduce usage of fossil-fuel plants to meet periods of peak electric demand. Pumped hydroelectric energy storage is presently the dominant form of long-duration storage, supplying ~94% of US energy storage capacity due to its low cost, high round-tri ...

Statement of the problem or situation that is being addressed: Continued use of nuclear power is critical to meeting carbon emission goals and ensuring national security. Nuclear power production will rely on both current generation (LWR and PWR) as well as next generation designs including the very-high-temperature reactor, lead-cooled fast reactor, molten-salt reactor, supercritical-water-cooled ...

Statement of the problem or situation that is being addressed At the initial phase of a carbon storage project, there is a strong need to understand natural seismicity risks prior to any CO2 injection, preferably prior to making large investments in developing the storage project. Current processes to understand seismicity risks are highly specialized, labor intensive, time constrained, and expens ...

The U.S. transportation system depends on vehicles to move people and products. The majority of U.S. vehicles rely on petroleum products as the primary energy source (e.g. gasoline and diesel), and are material-, energy- and emissions-intensive in their manufacturing and use. Increased adoption of clean energy technologies based on energy storage, electrification, alternative fuels and lightweight ...

The problem being addressed: The plasmas generated by intense lasers are of great interest for fundamental physics and for practical reasons that include the generation of high energy photon and particle beams, industrial processes such as extreme ultraviolet lithography, and fusion energy. These plasmas have complex dynamics, of which time resolved velocity distribution can reveal important attri ...

Offshore wind turbines are a potential means of meeting the countries energy needs, but there is a deficit in the availability of suitable health monitoring solutions for these devices. A comprehensive system which can detect the degradation of key components and provide early warning can reduce unscheduled maintenance and lower the levelized cost of energy. General statement of how this problem i ...