| Scalable Manufacturing Approach of Graded Polymer Thin Film Has Potential for Widespread Use |
- Combines slot die coating with a custom roll-to-roll imaging system to allow for efficient, rapid, and scalable fabrication of high-quality gradient thin films.
- An improved manufacturing process over existing techniques because it uses broad material combinations and yields higher quality patterned thin films.
- Incorporates multiple materials to increase the application of patterned thin films across industries, including microelectronics, energy technologies, and environmental systems.
|
8994 |
|
| Tunable Membrane-Based Wastewater Treatment and Resource Recovery |
- Customizable membrane structure and surface properties provide selective removal of contaminants of emerging concerns (CEC) and recovery of valuable components.
- An enlarged membrane surface area, combined with a gutter effect from the interlayer, results in nearly double the water permeability of current filtration membranes.
- Achieves high-performance recovery of essential nutrients/fertilizers that are free of CECs.
|
8633 |
|
| Tunable MEMs Gas Sensor Improves Selectivity and Sensitivity |
- Versatile: Customizes MEMS chemical sensors, compatible with a variety of sensing materials, allowing for the detection of numerous gas-phase analytes
- Easy to manufacture: Uses batch-fabricated sensors compatible with COTS electronics
- Highly sensitive: Offers sub parts-per-million detection limits for volatile organic compounds
- Enhanced selectivity: Combines gravimetric and impedimetric responses to demonstrate enhanced discrimination between multiple VOCs
- Powerful: Enables the simultaneous observation of both mass loading and dielectric changes in polymeric sensing films upon sorption of an analyte
- Innovative: Uses the transient response characteristics of a sensor response to a gated exposure event, rather than steady-state sensor data
|
8269, 8987 |
|
| Catalyst for Degradation of Traditional PET |
- Degradation of PET products lead to less landfill waste.
- The technology has applications in bio-based packaging to eliminate single-use plastics.
- Degradation does not give rise to microplastics, which are hazardous.
|
8960 |
|
| Plasma-Activated Catalytic Air Purifier Cleans Enclosed Spaces |
- This plasma-activated catalytic air purifier can be used to clean enclosed spaces, such as aircraft, hospitals, and classrooms, while mitigating hazardous gas-phase byproducts.
- The air purifier can be used synergistically with UV diode lasers and UV lamps, providing additional contaminant destruction pathways while lowering the potential for dielectric breakdown and plasma formation.
- This comprehensive technology is effective for germicide and sterilization activities as well as for hydroxyl-radical production and ozone removal in a wide variety of indoor environments.
|
8536 |
|
| Deployable Critical Active Learning (DECAL) System Offers Better Characterization for Improved Diagnostics and Imaging |
- The deployable critical active learning (DECAL) system’s bi-modal interface enables better characterization with large training sets that generate more accurate output for higher precision.
- The algorithm used during the initialization period creates a framework that can be expanded and generalized to any data method and application.
- The DECAL algorithm samples uniquely important, unlabeled data to aid existing active learning systems in generalizing more quickly, providing faster diagnosis statistics.
|
9099 |
|
| Improved Electrically Driven Temperature Swing Adsorption (ETSA) System for Faster, More Productive Direct Air Capture of Carbon Dioxide |
- This electrically driven temperature swing adsorption (ETSA) system uses sorbent-coated carbon fibers that exhibit Joule heating and rapid temperature swings for improved CO2 direct air capture (DAC).
- Over ten times faster temperature controls and six times faster CO2 desorption rate in ETSA than temperature swing adsorption (TSA) operation under the same DAC condition
- The dual-layered structure composed of a Joule heating core and CO2 adsorbing coating layer result in a larger amount of CO2 chemisorption.
|
9063 |
|
| Quantitative, Performance-Driven Framework for Optimal Desalination Architectures and Energy Subsystems |
- Incorporate and simultaneously compare attributes of multiple types of both desalting systems and energy subsystems for optimal system architectures
- Assess parameters that impact overall cost to discover complete architectures that would not have been discoverable using traditional methods.
- Focus on renewable energy subsystems such as solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, and others to create complete desalination architectures that are cleaner and more water efficient than their conventional counterparts.
|
9055 |
|
| Self-Driven, Reusable, Scalable Technique for Harvesting Microalgae with Porous Superabsorbent Polymer |
- Fast: The optimized pore structure of the PSAP beads allows fast and selective absorption of water, greatly reducing standard processing time.
- Cost effective: Microalgae harvesting with PSAP beads cuts costs, as it does not require any complex instrument and little training is needed to operate the harvesting procedures.
- Scalable: PSAP beads can be produced in large quantities at a significantly lower cost than conventional harvesting tools.
|
8849 |
|
| Buoyant Platform Assembly Improves PCM Thermal Management |
- Enhances solidification: Incorporating highly localized agitation via a stirring whip rod, this technology seeds solidification to improve this often-arduous phase of PCM thermal cycling.
- Prevents scale build-up: This technology reduces the instance of sheets of solid PCM forming on the heat sink. The high-frequency, extensible whip rod orbits around the passageway to facilitate nucleation (creating improved solidification), while preventing scale build-up on the interior passageway surfaces.
- Customizable: The structural design allows the platform to be tailored to the effective density of the PCM material, enabling it to stay between the liquid and solid phases.
|
8835 |
|
| Hybrid Molecular Catalysts: A New Blueprint for Catalyst Design, Preparation, and Testing |
- Attachment of molecular catalysts to solid supports can lead to new reactivity not seen under homogeneous conditions
- At an optimal atomic layer deposition (ALD) layer thickness, the molecular catalyst remains highly active while still being resistant to surface detachment and subsequent deactivation
- Catalyst separation and recovery achieved via a simple filtering and washing process rather than energy- and time-intensive distillation or re-crystallization processes
- In addition to the simple filter-and-wash process mentioned above, encapsulation requires only about 10 reaction cycles, making this process technologically and economically viable for large-scale manufacturing
|
8537 |
|
| Vapor Phase Infiltration Produces Solar Cells with Greater Thermal Stability |
- Stability: Decreasing spiro-OMeTAD crystallization improves thermal stability of hole transport layers within perovskite solar cells (PSCs)
- Longevity: Eliminating the main cause of PSCs’ operational degradation increases the overall product lifespan
- Efficiency: Preventing the delamination of the layers transporting electronic charge has doubled the power conversion efficiency of modified PSCs
|
9034 |
|
| Recirculation System for Aerosol Collectors Maximizes Particle Concentration for Improved Pathogen Detection |
- Enhanced detection: Continuously recirculated collection buffer increases the concentration of targeted particles collected and improves detection of pathogens
- Increased sampled air volume: Recirculating the buffer enables running the system for longer periods of time and with larger volumes of air to improve pathogen detection in entire buildings
- Increased control: Users have active control of the volume of fluid introduced during collection via the system’s recharge pump
|
8903 |
|
| Flexible Power Generation with Negative Carbon Emissions |
- Energy security: This system enables the continued use of low-cost domestic fuel (i.e., natural gas) for electricity generation and increases the reliability of U.S. electricity production.
- Environmental protection: Flexible carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems can achieve high CO2 capture rates from flue gas. For example, with this system a power generator could shift the times it exports electricity to the grid, allowing the power generator and CCS plant to operate under steady-state conditions and with reduced emissions.
- Reduced costs: The cost of a net-zero carbon electricity system is lowered by providing dispatchable power to a high-VRE grid.
|
8834 |
|
| Germination Platform for Cost-Effective Plant Production |
- Cost effective: Simply and inexpensively produces large numbers of high-quality plants from somatic embryogenesis
- Convenient: Permits easy handling and transport of germinated propagule
- Practical: Produces high-quality straight roots
|
6888 |
|
| Zeolitic Nanotubes for Advanced Chemical Catalysis and Separation |
- Streamlined: Allows for faster access into and out of zeolite pores without compromising key characteristics of conventional zeolites
- Advanced: Supports a single central mesoporous channel even after calcination of the organic structure directing agents
- Robust: Consists of both micropores and mesopores with the potential to enable a variety of separation and catalytic properties.
|
8407, 8922 |
|
| Novel Nanofiltration (NF) Membrane Optimizing Concurrent Nutrient Recovery and Micropollutant Removal |
- Effective: Targets mainstream domestic wastewater to recover a greater volume (>30%) of valuable nutrients than the current industry nutrient recovery technology focused on side streams
- Safer: Reduces EMPs in the fit-for-purpose water used in agricultural irrigation, minimizing the contaminants charge while permitting a lower rejection rate of valuable nutrients
|
8626 |
|
| Next-Generation Custom-Fit Reusable Mask for Respiratory Protection |
- Aims to eliminate fit-testing: Designed to remove the expensive and time-consuming federal (i.e., OSHA) mandate for annual fit-testing for workplace use
- Improved fit: Adapts to fit specific facial features, increasing comfort and enhancing efficacy and potentially eliminating face-seal leakage to enhance performance
- Reusable: Withstands cleaning and decontamination
|
6635 |
|
| Using Soy Proteins to Reduce Costs of Dewatering of Fibrous Sludge |
- Cost-effective: Decreases costs by 80% compared to using 100% CPAM
- Greater price stability: Experiences much less price fluctuation than the hydrocarbon feedstock from which CPAM is manufactured
- More environmentally friendly: Reduces the mass and volume of sludge requiring disposal and is a nonpetroleum-based option
|
6128 |
|
| Low-Voltage Nanowire-Assisted Electroporation for Water Disinfection |
- Efficient: Achieves rapid and universal pathogen inactivation with low power consumption
- Flexible: Features a configurable structure that can be placed easily into existing pipeline systems
- Chemical-free: Permits disinfection without the addition of chemicals that generate harmful and carcinogenic byproducts
|
8099 |
|
