Award Data

Logistical shortages of ammonia, coupled with the high cost of new manufacturing plants, >$2BB, leads to lower agricultural output and lost revenue. The current Haber-Bosch process is also energy intensive and consumes ~1% of the total world energy output. Fulcrum Biosciences, FBS, with the University of Utah as subcontractor will develop a bio-electrochemical process that converts air into ammoni ...

Advanced methods in reservoir characterization are required to effectively harness geothermal energy from fractured high-temperature, high-pressure crystalline rock. It is critically important to determine sufficient fluid connection between injection and production wells to enhance sweep efficiency and optimize the lifetime of the reservoir. Measuring hydraulic pressure changes in offset wells in ...

Finding better ways to measure rhizosphere properties has the potential to transform agriculture. Better understanding of the root-microbe-soil interactions that characterize the rhizosphere will help reduce fertilizer, pesticide, and herbicide inputs, improve effective carbon dioxide sequestration, enhance biofuel crop production, and lead to more efficient farms with higher profitability. But th ...

There are no long-lived gamma-ray calibration sources with energies above 3.5 MeV, which is an impediment to the calibration of high-purity-germanium (HPGe) and scintillation detectors used in cutting edge experiments in nuclear physics, astrophysics, and homeland security. In addition, there are growing safety and security concerns about the storage of radioactive sources currently in use. The ...

Low-temperature superconductors have limited usefulness at very high magnetic fields or in high heat load applications, which are representative of some sections in future particle accelerators. In this project, the suitability of second generation (2G) high-temperature superconductor (HTS) wire will be explored for these environments. The characterization of this developing superconductor has b ...

Second generation high temperature superconductors BC50offer potential benefits for many electric power applications, including those that require filamentizated conductors with low ac loss, such as transformers and fault current limiters. However, the use of 2G wire in these applications requires the development of both novel multi-filamentary conductor designs with lower ac losses and advanced ...

This project will develop a novel type of thermal neutron counting detector, which will be optimized for the imaging of thermal neutrons with high detection efficiency (greater than 50 percent), spatial resolution (approximately 55 microns), and time resolution (approximately 1 millisecond) for each detected neutron. The counting rate of detector can be as high as 100 MHz with an active area scal ...

Bi2212, which has the highest Jc of any practical superconductor at fields greater than 15 T, is currently being considered for high-field particle accelerator magnets. In particular, it is attractive for high field magnets that are needed to improve the performance of machines such as the Large Hadron Collider and Muon Collider. However, the processing requirements for Bi2212 are extremely stri ...

Distributed, collaborative visualization and control of real-time fusion experiments and simulations is of growing importance, because the next major facilities will be internationally located and operated. Currently, collaborative visualization tools for tiled displays in control rooms have substantial overhead and are not satisfactory for tracking dynamic displays. This project will build on m ...

On this effort Toyon Research Corp. and The Pennsylvania State University are developing deep learning-based algorithms for object recognition and new class discovery in look-down infrared (IR) imagery. Our approach involves the development of a hybrid classifier that exploits both transfer learning and semi-supervised paradigms in order to maintain good generalization accuracy, especially when li ...