FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 23, 1999

NEWS MEDIA CONTACT:
Jeff Sherwood, 202/586-5806

DOE-Funded Work Wins
43 of 100 Top R&D Magazine Honors

Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson today announced that Department of Energy-funded (DOE) researchers have won 43 of the 100 awards given this year by R&D Magazine for the most outstanding technology developments with commercial potential. Their work ranges from a biochip that rapidly detects diseases to a heat engine that uses sound waves to power refrigerators.

"These awards are both a tribute to the impressive creativity of the scientists and engineers at our national labs that made these technologies possible and recognition of the practical contributions that Department of Energy research makes to the country," Secretary Richardson said.

Under Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz met with the winners on behalf of Secretary Richardson this afternoon before the awards ceremony this evening at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.

This year's awards are the largest number ever won by the Energy Department or any other organization in the history of the awards. The awards bring the department's cumulative total to 529, the most by far of any single organization. The winning technologies were selected by an independent panel of some 70 experts and the editors of R&D Magazine.

The Department of Energy is a major research and development agency, funding $7 billion annually in fields such as physical sciences, engineering and environmental sciences. With over 800 cooperative research agreements with private sector firms, DOE is also a leading agency in technology partnerships with the private sector.

The researchers winning the R&D 100 Awards work at nine DOE laboratories across the country. Three of the awards were for research funded by DOE at companies and universities. Twenty-two of the awards are shared between the department's labs and companies or other research institutions. A list of the winning technologies and the laboratories associated with each award follows.

Department of Energy 1999 R&D 100 Award Winners

Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne, Ill.)

• A technique to reduce particulate and nitrogen oxides from diesel engines while increasing engine power (jointly with General Motors and the Association of American Railroads);
• A device that performs a universal chemistry lab operation, chemical extraction, more efficiently and reliably; Brookhaven National Laboratory (Upton, N.Y.)
• A foamy solution that destroys asbestos in installed fireproofing without diminishing its fire-resistive performance (with W.R. Grace & Co.). Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (Idaho Falls, Idaho)
• A tool that uses liquid nitrogen gas to clean or cut surfaces with finer control while minimizing secondary waste (jointly with ZawTech Intl. and Swainston Dairy);
• A robotic inspection system for hazardous fuel-storage sites, reducing inspection time from weeks to days with cost savings of over 75 percent (jointly with Solex Robotics Systems Inc.);
• A method for the textile industry to "size" threads using a supercritical fluid instead of water, doubling throughput while reducing energy use;
• A novel, self-sealing valve that doesn't leak or wear out (jointly with Piquniq Management Corp.); and The only device to provide real-time "wet gas" measurements at the wellhead, giving producers a reliable, economical means to manage natural gas reserves (jointly with Perry Equipment Corp.).

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore, Calif.)

• A switch permitting smaller, simpler optical communications systems (jointly with Allied Signal Federal Manufacturing and Technology and the University of Maryland);
• A system to more quickly deposit multilayer thin films with atomic precision;
• A concealable gamma "watermark" that can uniquely identify and authenticate objects;
• A hardware and software system to calculate with high accuracy what radiation therapy doses should be given to cancer patients;
• A solid-state power source for advanced accelerators and industrial applications (jointly with Bechtel Nevada Corp.); and
• A higher power laser with applications in precision machining (jointly with U.S. Enrichment Corp.).

Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos, N.M.)

• An acoustical stirling heat engine that uses sound waves to power refrigerators, generate electricity or help liquefy natural gas;
• An environmentally benign, low temperature plasma jet that can decontaminate areas tainted by chemical or biological weapons (jointly with the University of California, Los Angeles, Beta-Squared Inc. and Dupont Nylon); and
• A miniaturized x-ray diffraction and x-ray fluorescence instrument that can determine the chemistry and mineralogy of a sample (jointly with NASA Ames Research Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory).
• Modeling techniques for estimating the performance of a product when test data are scarce or unavailable (jointly with Delphi Automotive Systems);
• Materials with a puncture-detecting, self-healing capacity, with applications in personal protective equipment such as gloves and biohazard suits;
• A computer code that can predict the properties of newly designed computer chips that will be made using ion implantation techniques; and
• A sulfur-resistant oxygen sensor that improves the energy efficiency of heavy-duty; industrial boilers by automatically controlling the air-to-fuel combustion ratio (jointly with Rosemount Analytical Inc.).

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (Golden, Colo.)

• An advanced condenser that increases the efficiency and production capacity while reducing the pollution of geothermal and other electric power plants (jointly with Alstom Energy Systems and Pacific Gas and Electric Co.)
• A high-efficiency, thin-film photovoltaic module (jointly with Siemens Solar Industries)

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Oak Ridge, Tenn.)

• A system that can measure and control the temperature of galvanneal steel as it is dipped in molten zinc and then annealed (jointly with American Iron and Steel Institute, Bailey Engineers and the National Steel Technical Center);
• A miniature high speed photon detection device with applications in infrared medical imaging and environmental monitoring (jointly with the Oak Ridge Y-12 plant);
• Technology that makes it possible to manufacture ultra-high performance; superconducting wires necessary for a wide range of high temperature superconductors;
• A frostless heat pump that reduces frost formation on the outdoor coil, improving efficiency and comfort for occupants by increasing air flow and heating capacity;
• A biological sensor (biochip) that rapidly screens and detects diseases and can substantially decrease the cost of medical diagnostics;
• A self-cleaning carbon air filter designed for high-efficiency and long life;
• An approach to automatically generate and optimize numerical software for computer processors that saves tedious, time-consuming work (jointly with University of Tennessee); and
• A computer system enabling users to solve complex scientific problems remotely by searching a network for the best hardware and software to solve the problem, solving the problem and returning the answer to a user (jointly with University of Tennessee).

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (Richland, Wash.)

• A palm-sized microheater with uses in in-line water heaters, fuel cells and home heating systems;
• A compact fuel vaporizer to convert gasoline to hydrogen in an automobile, making the fuel cell-powered car more feasible;
• A fiber-optic radiation sensor with applications in cancer treatment, nonproliferation and environmental cleanup;
• A tool giving mass spectrometers greater sensitivity allowing smaller samples such as "micro" biopsies to be analyzed;
• The first general purpose software allowing chemists to easily use supercomputers in their research; and
• A process to reduce nitrate pollution in water by extracting ammonia from sewage and livestock waste and converting it to a dry, odorless fertilizer (jointly with Scotts Co.).

Sandia National Laboratories (Albuquerque, N.M.)

• 3-D oil exploration software package that produces higher quality seismic images up to 40 percent faster than currently used 3-D commercial packages (jointly with Charles Burch of Conoco Inc. and Scott Morton of Amerada Hess Corp.);
• Artificial microscopic crystals that can manipulate microwaves and infrared and visible light, of benefit to airplane communications and the fiber-optics communication industry; and
• A lightweight, room-temperature radiation detector that can identify the element that is emitting the radiation. Applications range from tumor detection to safeguarding of nuclear materials (jointly with Digirad Corporation).

Diversified Technologies Inc (Bedford, Mass.)

• Compact, low-cost and reliable high voltage switching George Washington University (Washington, D.C.) and J.E. Meinhard Associates Inc (Santa Ana, Calif.)
• A high efficiency nebulizer that allows small forensic, biological and chemical samples to be analyzed for their chemical makeup Monsanto Co. (St. Louis, Missouri), DuPont (Houston, Texas) and General Electric Research and Development Center (Schenectady, NY)
• The "Lasagna Process" that uses an electric current to remove contamination from heavy clay soils

More information about the winning technologies is available from the laboratories' public affairs offices, the laboratories' World Wide Web home pages, or from http://www.rdmag.com

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R-99-256

¨ Updated: 09/23/99