Award Data

Secure, domestic sources of rare earth elements (REE) would be of great strategic importance to the Department of Defense, as well as many commercially important industries. Our approach takes advantage of an abundant and low cost source not previously co

This Small Business Technology Transfer Research (STTR) Phase II proposal from Materials and Systems Research, Inc. (MSRI) and University of Utah (research institution) seeks to fabricate single-phase, polycrystalline tungstate ceramics with densities greater than 99.95% and a mean grain size of less than 1 um. These ceramics have been chosen because of their low thermal expansion and low elastic ...

Rhenium (Re) was the last natural element to be identified and is the rarest of metals. The most concentrated ore contains only about 1800 ppm Re. It has a very high melting point, which leads to uses in high temperature resistant applications like cataly

The rare-earth elements (REEs) find uses in many high tech military applications, including night vision goggles, laser range finders, precision guided weapons, and stealth technology. Their high costs (up to $6800/lb. Scandium) are due to low concentration in ores and high cost of separation. Fourteen of the REEs are listed in a single box in the periodic table, meaning they all have almost iden ...

Metal Oxygen Separation Technologies, Inc. proposes a 6-month SBIR Phase I project to demonstrate feasibility of using molten salt electrolysis with a zirconia solid electrolyte to cleanly and efficiently produce dysprosium metal from its oxide. This Phase I project will have as its goal the design of a molten salt-zirconia-anode system in the context of an electrolysis cell for producing high-pu ...

Our Fused-Realities-Assessments-Modules(FRAM) enables innovative new levels and types of automated quantification strategies for combining human and system performance in real-time for fused performance monitoring and after-action-review purposes. FRAM accomplishes this by fusing output of normative models of behaviors (cognitive/procedural/team), human states (physiological/affective), system sta ...

In this Phase I SBIR proposal, Reactive Innovations, LLC will demonstrate the technical and economic viability of a room temperature environmentally friendly technology for extraction and separation of light rare earth metals (lanthanides) with improved efficiency. Rare earths currently require multiple separation steps to yield high purity material. Decreasing the number of separation processes ...

The predominant method used in electronic support measure (ESM) systems to detect and geolocate noncooperative RF emitters employs arrays of antennas to estimate signal angle of arrival (AOA). There are several issues that preclude wide installation and use of these for emitter geolocation. One issue is accuracy. There are various error sources, including signal noise, multipath effects, and ambig ...

We envision a coherently coupled QCL array architecture featuring 2nd order DFB gratings to vertically couple out light with excellent beam quality and high output power. This approach does not require cleaving of the devices or facet coatings and is therefore inherently more robust and manufacturable than facet emitters.

The low weight, excellent durability and heat resistance of ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) make them attractive materials for use in aircraft engine hot sections, where improved overall engine efficiency can be realized. Nevertheless, the interlaminar properties of CMCs must be well understood before CMCs can realistically replace metallic superalloys in engine hot sections, and no standardized ...