Status: CANCELLED
State: NC
Project Term: 11/09/2022 - 11/08/2024
Program: HESTIA
Award: $1,811,519

Biomason

Biomason will develop a carbon negative cementitious materials production process that may replace most product classes now served by carbon-intensive traditional cement. Traditional cement (the binder element in concrete) requires carbon-intensive, fossil fuel kilning (1,400°C) of limestone, leading to carbon emissions from the high temperature and CO2 burned off the limestone. Biocementation, or microbial induced calcite precipitation, is a viable technology for manufacturing concrete materials with significantly reduced energy, carbon, and logistical footprints. Biomason’s retooling of…

Status: ALUMNI
State: CA
Project Term: 10/01/2012 - 09/30/2016
Program: MOVE
Award: $5,474,629

Blackpak

Blackpak will use high-strength, high-surface-area carbon to develop a sorbent-based natural gas storage vessel in which the sorbent itself is the container, eliminating the external pressure vessel altogether. This design could store natural gas at comparable or lower weight and smaller size than conventional compressed gas tanks while reducing the pressure of the natural gas in the vehicle tank. By reducing tank pressure, the system will enable home vehicle refueling at greatly reduced complexity and cost, making these systems accessible to the general public. In addition, the container-…

Status: ALUMNI
State: MA
Project Term: 01/01/2014 - 03/31/2015
Program: METALS
Award: $248,608

BlazeTech

BlazeTech is developing advanced sorting software that uses a specialized camera to distinguish multiple grades of light metal scrap by examining how they reflect different wavelengths of light. Existing identification technologies rely on manual sorting of light metals, which can be inaccurate and slow. BlazeTech’s sorting technology would identify scrap metal content based on the way that each light metal appears under BlazeTech’s sorting camera, automating the sorting process and enabling more comprehensive metal recycling. The software developed under this program will be used to…

Status: ALUMNI
State: TX
Project Term: 06/21/2021 - 12/20/2022
Program: Exploratory Topics
Award: $499,500

Blue Sky Measurements

Blue Sky Measurements will develop a near-infrared passive scanner using sunlight to detect and measure methane emissions at an oil or gas production well pad or drilling site. The proposed system will provide continuous daily measurements for less than the annualized cost of currently mandated twice-a-year surveys. This fixed-position sensor system will enable operators to continuously monitor their operations for fugitive emissions and enable owners to take corrective action when a leak occurs, minimizing the time between when a leak develops and when it is fixed. This enabling technology…

Status: ALUMNI
State: MA
Project Term: 05/05/2016 - 07/31/2018
Program: OPEN 2015
Award: $2,279,027

Boston Electrometallurgical Corporation

Boston Electrometallurgical Corporation will develop and scale a one step molten oxide electrolysis process for producing Ti metal directly from the oxide. Titanium oxide is dissolved in a molten oxide, where it is directly and efficiently extracted as molten titanium metal. In this process, electrolysis is used to separate the product from the solution as a bottom layer that can then be removed from the reactor in its molten state. If successful, it could replace the multistep Kroll process with a one-step process that resembles today’s aluminum production techniques. If successful, Ti…

Status: ALUMNI
State: MA
Project Term: 04/19/2013 - 03/31/2016
Program: GENI
Award: $2,356,656

Boston University (BU)

The Boston University (BU) team is developing control technology to help grid operators more actively manage power flows and integrate renewables by optimally turning entire power lines on and off in coordination with traditional control of generation and load resources. The control technology being developed would provide grid operators with tools to help manage transmission congestion by identifying the facilities whose on/off status must change to lower generation costs, increase utilization of renewable resources and improve system reliability. The technology is based on fast optimization…

Status: ALUMNI
State: MA
Project Term: 05/01/2018 - 11/30/2022
Program: SENSOR
Award: $998,728

Boston University (BU)

Boston University (BU) will develop an occupancy sensing system to estimate the number of people in commercial spaces and monitor how this number changes over time. Their Computational Occupancy Sensing SYstem (COSSY) will be designed to deliver robust performance by combining data from off-the-shelf sensors and cameras. Data streams will be interpreted by advanced detection algorithms to provide an occupancy estimate. All processing will be performed locally to mitigate security concerns. The system will be designed to accommodate various room sizes and geometries. Occupancy data will be…

Status: ACTIVE
State: MA
Project Term: 08/28/2020 - 08/27/2024
Program: PERFORM
Award: $3,000,000

Boston University (BU)

The proposed work offers a New Risk Assessment and Management Paradigm (NewRAMP). NewRAMP develops innovative approaches for quantifying the risk of individual assets based on their performance and ability to deliver on their assumed obligations. NewRAMP translates this risk to the system level to increase the efficiency of power system operation and planning in the presence of extensive market participation by “risky” assets. NewRAMP synthesizes ideas and theories from finance and insurance, operations research, power system engineering, and electricity market design into methodologies…

Status: ALUMNI
State: NH
Project Term: 01/28/2019 - 06/30/2023
Program: DAYS
Award: $3,016,852

Brayton Energy

The Brayton Energy team will develop a key component to enable a cost-competitive Laughlin-Brayton battery energy storage system that combines thermal storage and innovative turbomachinery to generate power. When the system is charging, an electrically driven heat pump will accumulate thermal energy in a high temperature thermal energy storage medium. During discharge, electricity is produced by heating a gas using the stored thermal energy and sending it through the generation turbine that drives an electric generator. Brayton Energy’s innovation lies in its reversing, counter-rotating…

Status: ALUMNI
State: NH
Project Term: 11/09/2015 - 11/08/2018
Program: GENSETS
Award: $2,599,992

Brayton Energy

Brayton Energy will develop a 1 kW recuperated Brayton cycle engine to produce heat and electricity for residential use. To begin the cycle, compressed air is preheated in a recuperator before adding fuel, then the air-fuel mix is ignited in a combustion chamber. The high temperature exhaust gases then expand through the turbine, providing some of the work that drives the compressor and also produces electricity in a generator. Major project innovations include the use of a rotary screw-type compressor and expander that operate in a sub-atmospheric Brayton cycle i.e. below atmospheric…

Status: ALUMNI
State: NH
Project Term: 03/25/2019 - 09/24/2021
Program: OPEN 2018
Award: $899,483

Brayton Energy

Brayton Energy is developing an efficient and low-cost distributed residential-scale combined heat and power system. This project seeks to advance and combine several complementary technologies—including metallic screw compressors, high temperature ceramic screw expanders, and a high-effectiveness recuperator. This combination will result in an integrated system with performance surpassing existing state-of-the-art systems. Brayton Energy’s proposed technology would continuously deliver 2 kW of electrical power and enable efficient and economical distributed power systems that would radically…

Status: ACTIVE
State: MA
Project Term: 03/22/2021 - 03/21/2024
Program: GAMOW
Award: $2,750,000

Bridge 12 Technologies

Prototype burning-plasma magnetic-fusion devices must operate at long pulse lengths to support power generation, making them susceptible to catastrophic disruption from plasma instabilities. Electron cyclotron heating and current drive powered by megawatt-level gyrotrons (vacuum electron devices that generate high-power, high-frequency radiation) are the most effective ways to heat and stabilize such plasmas. Megawatt-class gyrotrons are large, expensive to build and operate, inefficient, and have limited frequency and device lifetime. Bridge 12 Technologies aims to develop and build a 1-MW,…

Status: ALUMNI
State: MT
Project Term: 06/15/2015 - 07/14/2019
Program: MONITOR
Award: $2,806,529

Bridger Photonics

Bridger Photonics plans to build a mobile methane sensing system capable of surveying a 10 meter by 10 meter well platform in just over five minutes with precision that exceeds existing technologies used for large-scale monitoring. Bridger’s complete light-detection and ranging (LiDAR) remote sensing system will use a novel, near-infrared fiber laser amplifier in a system mounted on a ground vehicle or an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), which can be programmed to survey multiple wellpads a day. Data captured by the LiDAR system will provide 3-D topographic and methane absorption imagery…

Status: ACTIVE
State: UT
Project Term: 03/11/2022 - 03/10/2025
Program: ONWARDS
Award: $900,217

Brigham Young University (BYU)

Brigham Young University (BYU) will apply two-step chloride volatility (TSCV) to co-extract uranium (U) and transuranics (TRU) in a solventless, gas-solid separation scheme to reduce waste volumes and repository footprint by 10x. The BYU team will reduce risks and uncertainty of the TSCV process by quantifying the volatility of U/TRU chlorides in simulated UNF mixtures, optimizing process parameters for U/TRU extraction, and demonstrating TSCV up to a one-kilogram batch size. TSCV eliminates high-level liquid waste from reprocessing UNF in solvents, and recycles hydrogen chloride gas and…

Status: ALUMNI
State: CA
Project Term: 04/22/2020 - 10/21/2021
Program: Exploratory Topics
Award: $500,000

Brimstone Energy

Brimstone Energy is advancing three next-generation reactor technologies related to fertilizer and cement production. These processes could potentially produce 0.5 quads/year of clean H2 and reduce U.S. energy consumption by 0.55 quads/year, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 200 megatons/year, and industrial expenditures by $4.8 billion/year across the cement, hydrogen, and fertilizer industries.

Status: ALUMNI
State: NY
Project Term: 01/01/2012 - 03/31/2016
Program: REACT
Award: $2,479,770

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Brookhaven National Laboratory is developing a low-cost superconducting wire that could be used in high-power wind generators. Superconducting wire currently transports 600 times more electric current than a similarly sized copper wire, but is significantly more expensive. Brookhaven National Laboratory will develop a high-performance superconducting wire that can handle significantly more electrical current, and will demonstrate an advanced manufacturing process that has the potential to yield a several-fold reduction in wire costs while using a using negligible amount of rare earth material…

Status: ALUMNI
State: RI
Project Term: 03/20/2013 - 05/31/2017
Program: OPEN 2012
Award: $3,465,143

Brown University

Brown University is developing a power conversion device to maximize power production and reduce costs to capture energy from flowing water in rivers and tidal basins. Conventional methods to harness energy from these water resources face a number of challenges, including the costs associated with developing customized turbine technology to a specific site. Additionally, sites with sufficient energy exist near coastal habitats which depend on the natural water flow to transport nutrients. Brown University’s tidal power conversion devices can continuously customize themselves by using an…

Status: ALUMNI
State: MA
Project Term: 04/06/2018 - 04/05/2021
Program: MARINER
Award: $909,901

C.A. Goudey & Associates

The C.A. Goudey and Associates team will lead a MARINER Category 2 project to develop an autonomous marine tow vessel to enable deployment of large-scale seaweed farming systems. Essentially all marine transportation systems rely on manned vessels. These systems are labor-intensive and depend on boats and ships that are a poor match to the tasks associated with deployment and operations of large-scale seaweed farming systems. This project seeks to remove the costs and requirements of manned systems through the use of slow-moving, autonomous tow vessels. Such vessels will enable macroalgae…

Status: ALUMNI
State: VA
Project Term: 10/15/2019 - 10/14/2022
Program: Exploratory Topics
Award: $772,400

C-Crete Technologies

Develop next generation cementitious coating materials to extend the lifetime of key infrastructures subject to extreme conditions such as nuclear power plants. Strategically couple emerging 2D materials technology with lamellar structure of low-CO2 cement to impart greater synergy.

Status: ACTIVE
State: VA
Project Term: 03/22/2021 - 03/21/2024
Program: Exploratory Topics
Award: $1,500,000

C-Crete Technologies

The key cause of transformer failure is overheating, which becomes more likely over time due to breakdown of mineral oil, an important transformer heat dissipation and insulating component. C-Crete Technologies will integrate advanced surface chemistry, colloidal engineering with high-throughput characterization, and standardized testing to develop insulating nanofluids for large power transformers (LPTs), with a projected lifetime greater than 80 years. The core of the technology is based on mechanochemical exfoliation of 2D hexagonal boron nitride nanoparticles with tailored surface…

Status: ACTIVE
State: VA
Project Term: 09/20/2023 - 09/19/2025
Program: Exploratory Topics
Award: $500,000

C-Crete Technologies

C-Crete Technologies will develop high-performance nanocomposite kraft papers to improve the insulation of large power transformers. C-Crete’s advanced kraft paper would offer high thermal conductivity, high dielectric strength, low moisture content, and other features that translate to longer transformer lifetimes. This technology could potentially reduce the number of power outages associated with transformer failures, saving the U.S. economy tens of billions of dollars each year.

Status: Selected
State: TBD
Project Term: TBD
Program: SEA-CO2
Award: TBD

[C]Worthy

[C]Worthy is developing a community framework for model building and data assimilation that would provide the structure and processes necessary to incorporate observations, manage model complexity, and meet the need for accurate carbon accounting for marine carbon dioxide removal. The proposed framework would incorporate observational and forcing datasets, data assimilation, an ocean general circulation model, biogeochemistry, tracers, and marine carbon dioxide removal and marine ecosystem modules to estimate the ocean’s state.

Status: ALUMNI
State: CA
Project Term: 05/01/2020 - 04/30/2022
Program: Exploratory Topics
Award: $1,997,532

C-Zero

C-Zero will develop a novel process for transforming methane into hydrogen and valorized carbon cement additive using high temperature liquids in a multi-phase pyrolysis reactor. Unlike current hydrogen generation technologies, C-Zero’s process will not directly coproduce carbon dioxide CO2 and does not require water as an input. If successful, this technology will allow C-Zero to significantly reduce the cost of hydrogen and accelerate large-scale, domestic hydrogen production with low carbon footprint.

Status: ALUMNI
State: CT
Project Term: 02/10/2014 - 12/01/2017
Program: RANGE
Award: $3,995,980

Cadenza Innovation

Cadenza Innovation is developing an innovative system to join and package batteries using a wide range of battery chemistries. Today’s battery packs require heavy and bulky packaging that limits where they can be positioned within a vehicle. By contrast, Cadenza’s design enables flexible placement of battery packs to absorb and manage impact energy in the event of a collision. Cadenza’s battery will use a novel configuration that allows for double the energy density through the use of a multifunctional pack design.

Status: ALUMNI
State: CA
Project Term: 10/01/2015 - 12/31/2018
Program: ALPHA
Award: $950,000

California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

Caltech, in coordination with Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), will investigate the scaling of adiabatic heating of plasma by propelling magnetized plasma jets into stationary heavy gases and/or metal walls. This is the reverse of the process that would occur in an actual fusion reactor – where a gas or metal liner would compress the plasma – but will provide experimental data to assess the magneto-inertial fusion approach. By using this alternative frame of reference, the researchers will be able to conduct experiments more frequently and at a lower cost because the experimental setup…

Status: ALUMNI
State: CA
Project Term: 03/01/2012 - 06/01/2015
Program: GENI
Award: $1,345,817

California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) is developing a distributed automation system that allows distributed generators—solar panels, wind farms, thermal co-generation systems—to effectively manage their own power. To date, the main stumbling block for distributed automation systems has been the inability to develop software that can handle more than 100,000 distributed generators and be implemented in real time. Caltech's software could allow millions of generators to self-manage through local sensing, computation, and communication. Taken together, localized algorithms can…

Status: ALUMNI
State: CA
Project Term: 03/09/2015 - 09/30/2017
Program: IDEAS
Award: $425,000

California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) team is using first-principles reasoning (i.e. a mode of examination that begins with the most basic physical principles related to an issue and “builds up” from there) and advanced computational modeling to ascertain the underlying mechanisms that cause acoustic waves to affect catalytic reaction pathways. The team will first focus their efforts on two types of reactions for which there is strong experimental evidence that acoustic waves can enhance catalytic activity: Carbon Monoxide (CO) oxidation, and Ethanol decomposition. Armed with this…

Status: ALUMNI
State: CA
Project Term: 08/25/2017 - 08/24/2018
Program: IDEAS
Award: $290,000

California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

The team at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has developed a method to determine the mechanical properties of lithium as a function of size, temperature, and microstructure. The body of scientific knowledge on these properties and the way dendrites form and grow is very limited, in part due to the reactivity of metallic lithium with components of air such as water and carbon dioxide. The team proposes to conduct a targeted investigation on the properties of electrodeposited lithium metal in commercial thin-film solid-state batteries. As part of the effort, the team will…

Status: ALUMNI
State: CA
Project Term: 02/11/2016 - 08/10/2019
Program: MOSAIC
Award: $2,999,594

California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and their partners will design and fabricate a new CPV module with features that can capture both direct and diffuse sunlight. The team’s approach uses a luminescent solar concentrator (LSC) sheet that includes quantum dots to capture and re-emit sunlight, micro-PV cells matched to the color of the light from the quantum dots, and a coating of advanced materials that enhance concentration and delivery of sunlight to the micro-PV cells. In addition, the light not captured by the quantum dots will impinge on a tandem solar cell…

Status: ALUMNI
State: CA
Project Term: 03/28/2013 - 09/27/2016
Program: OPEN 2012
Award: $2,398,749

California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) is developing a solar module that splits sunlight into individual color bands to improve the efficiency of solar electricity generation. For PV to maintain momentum in the marketplace, the energy conversion efficiency must increase significantly to result in reduced power generation costs. Most conventional PV modules provide 15-20% energy conversion efficiency because their materials respond efficiently to only a narrow band of color in the sun’s spectrum, which represents a significant constraint on their efficiency. To increase the light…

Status: ALUMNI
State: CA
Project Term: 10/21/2019 - 07/20/2022
Program: Exploratory Topics
Award: $400,000

California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

Construct and operate a transportable Thomson scattering diagnostic that will provide a direct measurement of the temperature and density of magnetized inertial fusion experiments. The system will then be operated to measure the electron density and temperature and so confirm whether experiments have reached fusion-relevant parameters.

Status: ALUMNI
State: CA
Project Term: 06/17/2021 - 09/30/2023
Program: Exploratory Topics
Award: $850,000

California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

California Institute of Technology aims to develop an off-shore, stand-alone system for low-cost, efficient CO2 removal from ocean water. The project’s main objectives are to demonstrate a (1) high operating current density and low power electrodialyzer stack and (2) membrane contactor to facilitate unprecedented rapid removal of CO2 from ocean water. These combined innovations will significantly reduce the volume of ocean water that needs to be processed. They will also significantly reduce the capital and associated system costs. The proposed system aims to provide a viable pathway to…

Status: ACTIVE
State: CA
Project Term: 03/21/2022 - 03/20/2024
Program: OPEN 2021
Award: $1,452,000

California Institute of Technology (CalTech)

Low-cost H2 is the key to affordable long-term grid storage technologies that could work well with grid-scale battery storage to accommodate high penetration of wind and solar electricity generation in the next decades. The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) seeks to develop a hybrid electrochemical/catalytic approach for direct generation of high-pressure H2. Caltech’s proposed system has the potential to reach <$2/kg of H2 produced and compressed at 700 bar using renewable energy sources. The proposed catalytic compression is estimated to require lower capital expenditures and…

Status: ACTIVE
State: CA
Project Term: 09/21/2023 - 03/20/2025
Program: Exploratory Topics
Award: $444,444

Calion Technologies

Calion Technologies will develop an air source heat pump steam generator that could seamlessly replace natural gas boilers for industrial processes and introduce heat pumps to a new swath of customers. Calion Technologies’ unique device would harness ionocaloric heat pumping technology to generate steam at very high temperatures compared with current heat pumps and accelerate the decarbonization of industrial heating, which accounts for 9% U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Status: ALUMNI
State: CA
Project Term: 01/06/2014 - 01/05/2015
Program: REMOTE
Award: $797,646

Calysta Energy

Calysta Energy will develop a new bioreactor technology to enable the efficient biological conversion of methane into liquid fuels. While reasonably efficient, Gas-to-liquid (GTL) conversion is difficult to accomplish without costly and complex infrastructure. Biocatalysts are anticipated to reduce the cost of GTL conversion. Calysta will address this by using computational fluid dynamics to model best existing high mass transfer bioreactor designs and overcome existing limitations. Calysta will make the newly developed technology available to the broader research community, which could help…

Status: ALUMNI
State: MA
Project Term: 05/01/2020 - 08/31/2022
Program: Exploratory Topics
Award: $658,113

Cambridge Crops

Cambridge Crops will develop two advanced bioreactor systems to assess scaling and outcomes for the production of complex, value-added biomaterials as a method for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The technology will determine the feasibility of scaling complex 3D cultures and provide data on suitable mass and energy balances to predict greenhouse gases and energy savings.

Status: ACTIVE
State: CA
Project Term: 09/06/2022 - 09/05/2024
Program: Exploratory Topics
Award: $500,000

Captura

Captura will demonstrate efficient CO2 stripping from oceanwater using low-cost thin film composite hollow fiber membranes. The team will use ultra-low-cost hollow fiber membranes, traditionally used in water filtration applications, as a structural support, and modify their outer layers with highly CO2 permeable polydimethylsiloxane layers to selectively strip CO2 from oceanwater. Captura will also employ a computational model-assisted design and rapidly prototype new gas liquid contactor designs that use counterflow and cross-flow design for efficient CO2 stripping from oceanwater. The team…

Status: ALUMNI
State: PA
Project Term: 06/15/2020 - 08/13/2022
Program: DIFFERENTIATE
Award: $1,581,103

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and team will develop an integrated machine learning-accelerated design and optimization workflow that will reduce the time and cost required to develop functional energy materials in devices. The core innovation pairs machine learning based filtering of candidate materials with accelerated high-fidelity modeling to efficiently search a large design space for high-performance materials under realistic operating conditions. The team will create detailed designs for (1) catalyst systems for electrochemical reactions that convert electrical energy into carbon-…

Status: ALUMNI
State: PA
Project Term: 04/08/2020 - 05/31/2022
Program: DIFFERENTIATE
Award: $1,234,849

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)

Carnegie Mellon University will use deep reinforcement learning and atomistic machine learning potentials to predict catalyst surface stability under reaction conditions. Current methods for determining the metastability of bifunctional and complex surfaces undergoing reaction are difficult and expensive. Carnegie Mellon’s technology will enable stability analysis in both traditional catalysts and new classes of materials, including those used in tribology (friction), corrosion-resistant alloys, additive manufacturing, and battery materials.

Status: ACTIVE
State: PA
Project Term: 09/16/2019 - 03/15/2024
Program: HITEMMP
Award: $2,400,000

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)

The Carnegie Mellon team will develop a modular radial heat exchanger that includes flow through pin arrays and counter-flow headers. The team will fabricate the heat exchanger via laser powder bed fusion additive manufacturing, with superalloys selected for high temperature and high pressure capability. Multiple approaches will be used to smooth the heat exchanger components’ internal passages to minimize pressure drop. Developing 3D metals printing technology for high temperature heat exchangers would radically remove constraints on heat exchanger design, making it a potentially disruptive…

Status: ALUMNI
State: PA
Project Term: 02/06/2019 - 08/05/2022
Program: OPEN 2018
Award: $1,000,000

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)

Carnegie Mellon will combine its expertise in additive manufacturing (AM) with Westinghouse’s knowhow in nuclear reactor component fabrication to develop an innovative process for AM of nuclear components. The team chose to redesign nuclear reactor spacer grids as a test case because they are a particularly difficult component to manufacture. The role of spacer grids is to provide mechanical support to nuclear fuel rods within a reactor and reduce vibration as well as cause mixing of the cooling fluid. The team will alter the traditional AM process, including using nonstandard powders to…

Status: ALUMNI
State: PA
Project Term: 02/27/2012 - 03/28/2015
Program: Solar ADEPT
Award: $1,781,900

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is developing a new nanoscale magnetic material that will reduce the size, weight, and cost of utility-scale PV solar power conversion systems that connect directly to the grid. Power converters are required to turn the energy that solar power systems create into useable energy for the grid. The power conversion systems made with CMU's nanoscale magnetic material have the potential to be 150 times lighter and significantly smaller than conventional power conversion systems that produce similar amounts of power.

Status: ALUMNI
State: PA
Project Term: 10/30/2019 - 10/31/2022
Program: Exploratory Topics
Award: $566,370

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)

Develop a machine learning algorithm to guide the design of molecular additives that streamline the path for alternative binder chemistries concrete use in existing construction methods and equipment. The central goals are to increase the durability of US infrastructure by at least twofold and reduce the energy expended in producing this concrete by at least half.

Status: ACTIVE
State: PA
Project Term: 11/04/2020 - 04/03/2024
Program: REPAIR
Award: $1,200,000

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) will develop a general-purpose mapping system that can integrate with virtually any mobile robot dedicated to pipe inspection and repairs. Confined spaces challenge map creation because they limit payload size. This not only affects the choice of sensor, but how its information is processed because of the space required to store edge computing. On top of that, confined spaces challenge the use of the sensors themselves; most sensors have a lower limit on sensing range, which is often violated in small spaces. Finally, pipe-confined spaces lack features,…

Status: ACTIVE
State: PA
Project Term: 05/02/2022 - 05/01/2025
Program: OPEN 2021
Award: $3,220,309

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) will develop novel electrochemical interfaces based on functionalized mixed conductors (FMCs) that produce transformative improvements in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) technology by eliminating the ionomer from the electrode. In addition, new ORR catalysts will be developed to take advantage of the FMCs and reduce the platinum content used in fuel cells. The ORR kinetics and O2 transport benefits resulting from eliminating the ionomer, along with the new catalysts, could enable more than a 100 mV increase in PEMFC operating voltage while…

Status: ALUMNI
State: OH
Project Term: 09/01/2010 - 11/30/2012
Program: ADEPT
Award: $2,238,263

Case Western Reserve University

There is a constant demand for better performing, more compact, lighter-weight, and lower-cost electronic devices. Unfortunately, the materials traditionally used to make components for electronic devices have reached their limits. Case Western Reserve University is developing capacitors made of new materials that could be used to produce the next generation of compact and efficient high-powered consumer electronics and electronic vehicles. A capacitor is an important component of an electronic device. It stores an electric charge and then discharges it into an electrical circuit in the…

Status: ALUMNI
State: OH
Project Term: 01/01/2014 - 06/30/2016
Program: METALS
Award: $1,374,422

Case Western Reserve University

Case Western Reserve University is developing a specialized electrochemical cell that produces titanium from titanium salts using a series of layered membranes. Conventional titanium production is expensive and inefficient due to the high temperatures and multiple process steps required. The Case Western concept is to reduce the energy required for titanium metal production using an electrochemical reactor with multiple, thin membranes. The multi-membrane concept would limit side reactions and use one third of the energy required by today’s production methods.

Status: ALUMNI
State: OH
Project Term: 01/09/2013 - 02/11/2019
Program: OPEN 2012
Award: $3,527,909

Case Western Reserve University

Case Western Reserve University is developing a water-based, all-iron flow battery for grid-scale energy storage at low cost. Flow batteries store chemical energy in external tanks instead of within the battery container. Using iron provides a low-cost, safe solution for energy storage because iron is both abundant and non-toxic. This design could drastically improve the energy storage capacity of stationary batteries at 10-20% of today’s cost. Ultimately, this technology could help reduce the cost of stationary energy storage enough to facilitate the adoption and deployment of renewable…

Status: ALUMNI
State: OH
Project Term: 05/10/2016 - 12/31/2019
Program: OPEN 2015
Award: $1,513,300

Case Western Reserve University

Case Western Reserve University will develop a data analytics approach to building-efficiency diagnosis and prognostics. Their tool, called EDIFES (Energy Diagnostics Investigator for Efficiency Savings), will not require complex or expensive computational simulation, physical audits, or building automation systems. Instead, the tool will map a building's energy signature through a rigorous analysis of multiple datastreams. Combining knowledge of specific climatic, weather, solar insolation, and utility meter data through data assembly, the team will analyze these time-series datastreams…

Status: ALUMNI
State: OH
Project Term: 01/01/2012 - 06/30/2015
Program: REACT
Award: $1,849,652

Case Western Reserve University

Case Western Reserve University is developing a highly magnetic iron-nitride alloy to use in the magnets that power electric motors found in EVs and renewable power generators. This would reduce the overall price of the motor by eliminating the expensive imported rare earth minerals typically found in today's best commercial magnets. The iron-nitride powder is sourced from abundant and inexpensive materials found in the U.S. The ultimate goal of this project is to demonstrate this new magnet system, which contains no rare earths, in a prototype electric motor. This could significantly…