Advanced Materials Technology Marketing Summaries

Fuel cells are an important component in the energy industry, but the high cost of producing the platinum catalyst—an essential part of a fuel cell—has historically kept fuel cells from being commercially viable. Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory have devised a process for creating a “nanosegregated” platinum alloy catalyst with significantly enhanced properties, making it cost-effective and highly attractive for use in fuel cells.

Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory have created a process by which amorphous and nanophase pharmaceutical compounds can be synthesized without the use of a container, thus avoiding potential contamination. The process involves acoustic levitation—that is, a technique in which an object is suspended through pressure created by intense sound waves—to form molecular gels and amorphous solids. The method is expected to help pharmaceutical manufacturers create drugs that dissolve... read more

Scientists at Berkeley Lab have developed a tiny optical modulator based on graphene, potentially leading to significantly improved data transmission speeds in digital communications. The extremely strong interaction between light and relativistic electrons in graphene, a single sheet of carbon atoms, allows the integration of an optical modulator within an ultra-small footprint while operating at a high speed with broad bandwidth under ambient conditions.

Highly specialized electronic devices operate today by virtue of printed circuit boards embedded with dozens of tiny components. The highest-performing, most reliable devices depend on non-conductive oxide films overlaid onto a copper substrate. An Argonne team has devised a unique processing method for fabricating dense ceramic films on copper foils used in these devices.

Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory have developed a coating process for cathodes that improves their electrical conductivity. This procedure, which uses carbon precursors, has proved superior to conventional methods that involve high temperatures and other extremes during the manufacturing process.

Argonne National Laboratory has developed a process to modify the surface of the active material used in lithium-ion batteries. The modification agent can be a silane, an organometallic compound, or a mixture of two or more of such compounds. Both negative and positive electrodes for lithium-ion batteries can be made from the surface-modified active materials. Surface modification can be accomplished by either (1) adding the agent to a non-aqueous electrolyte used in constructing a battery or... read more

Strontium-90 (Sr-90), a radioactive isotope, is a carcinogen that can be released into the atmosphere and human exposure can occur through nuclear weapons and accidents. Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory have created a new and improved detection method that provides more rapid and accurate identification of Sr-90 in urine samples.

Light emitting diodes (LEDs) have seen increased commercialization and investment into R&D as energy efficiency begins to play a larger role in cutting emissions.  The U.S. Department of Energy expects to phase out tungsten bulbs by 2014, and compact fluorescents by 2020, leaving LEDs with virtually the entire lighting market. LED fixtures prices have also seen a 25% drop over the last two years, along with higher adoption in large commercial buildings and outdoor applications.... read more

Recent attention has focused on the preparedness of emergency reponse teams if a terrorist event involving chemical and biological warfare ever occured.  This attention, along with the increased threat to national security, has led to the need for a readily available, easy to use product that would neutralize the adverse effects of these agents.  This new technology addresses the need for a general formulation that neutralizes the effects of either chemical toxants or... read more

Using reverse-genetics molecular biology techniques, researchers at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) have replicated the genetic machinery used by the blue mussel to produce the adhesive anchors and threads that keep it tethered to rocks and other objects in turbulent tidal waters. Most significantly, the INL technology may make it possible to produce adhesives that mimic those of the mussel being very strong, unaffected by water and able to bind to a variety of surfaces such as glass,... read more

Lithography is widely used for defining patterns with high spatial resolution. In most applications of this technique, a thin-film polymeric resist material coating the substrate is patterned using light, electrons, or self-assembly. This resist film defines the pattern to be etched into the substrate. For the resist to function properly, the masking portion of the resist must be able to withstand deep plasma etching of the substrate, even though the resist itself must be relatively thin to... read more

The first generation of solar cells, used in 90% of today's cells, have a focus of high efficiency. These cells use a single p-n junction to extract energy from photons, and are manufactured from silicon semiconductors. This allows for about 30% efficiency, but resulted in a price too high to compete with fossil fuels (payback time of about 5-7 years). The second generation of solar cells focuses on low production costs using thin film cells, which resulted in much lower efficiency rates.... read more

High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters are widely used commercial products to remove airborne particulates from a gas stream in a gas process system or ventilation system. Filter life span is determined by filter design and materials. Existing HEPA filters are made from glass fiber, which is fragile and easily damaged. They are subject to handling errors. Shelf life is reduced by contact with moisture. They are damaged by high pressures, chemical attack, high temperature, and fire.... read more

Researchers at ORNL have developed an invisible marking system for textiles and similar products that could save governments and businesses millions in lost revenues and legal fees. In addition to information required by law, useful tracking and inventory information can be embedded in the tags, as well as valuable consumer information on content and point of origin of materials.

Each year unethical units in the enterprise supply chain falsify operational data and business information to avoid... read more

Fabrication of polymers and plastics from naturally renewable feedstocks offers the potential for a cost-effective and sustainable alternative to petroleum-based polymers. Biomass-derived polymers based on butyrolactones are a potential substitute for petroleum-derived polyacrylic plastics, but methods suitable for large-scale production have been unknown previously.

The invention provides a low cost structural composite alternative for use in typical structural lumber/wood applications in building construction, marine, transportation applications, and the like.

Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed a new material, called Metal Organic Clathrates, for efficiently capturing carbon dioxide for removal from coal-fired power plant flue gas streams.  Modified variations of the materials can be used in a variety of other fields as well, including adsorption cooling, separation of radioactive xenon and krypton (for nuclear energy applications), desiccant dehumidification and methane storage.  

Battelle has developed materials that can be used to create a supercapacitor with performance superior to that of commercially available devices.  The common measures of performance are the energy density (energy per kg) and power density (power per kg).  This technology is based on specific metal oxide compositions synthesized in conjunction with carbon nanotubes or activated carbon.  The performance of the supercapacitor can be tuned by altering the specific metal oxide... read more

This technology provides an alternate method to synthesize a key type of PVC plasticizer described in US 6,797,753 (see separate description entitled “Plasticizers Derived from Vegetable Oils”).  This approach uses esters of fatty acids as feed materials and more specifically uses methyl esters of vegetable oils that are referred to as “biodiesel” fuels.  One particularly useful biodiesel is soybean oil biodiesel (methyl soyate) that is projected to be a high... read more

Non-purified soymeal is used as an inexpensive and biobased reactive filler in preparing high capacity hydrogels. Preparation of these hydrogels involves partial neutralization of acrylic acid, which is subjected to free-radical initiated polymerization in the presence of crosslinkers such as trimethylolpropane triacrylate.  A key approach in obtaining high performance hydrogels involves the removal of low molecular weight acrylic acid oligomers by a simple extraction procedure.

This invention relates to materials that absorb and dissipate energy and/or selectively allow energy to be transmitted – in particular, polymeric materials that include polyol(s) such as polyethers, polyesters, polyether/esters, acrylics, plus other formulary components such as hydroxyl-terminated polybutadienes, polyisocyanates, silicone, RTV (room temperature vulcanizing) silicone, and  suitable catalysts. Included are such polymeric materials that are resilient and resist... read more

This technology addresses the known health issues of commonly used petroleum-based plasticizers used in polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a high volume thermoplastic material (one that is moldable and formed by heating) by providing a biobased and renewable PVC plasticizer with no known adverse health effects.  These PVC plasticizers are derived from soybean oil, but also can be obtained from other vegetable oils.

This technology relates to cellulosic fiber composites using protein hydrolysates. Cellulosic fiber composites currently use petroleum-derived binders such as isocyanates and phenol formaldehyde. This work fills a need for a new fiber-adhesive, resin binder system that reduces the amount of phenolic and/or isocyanate resin needed.

Research on all-solid-state rechargeable lithium batteries has increased considerably in recent years due to raised concerns relating to safety hazards such as solvent leakage and flammability of liquid electrolytes used for commercial lithium-ion batteries. As solid state electrolytes by nature do not carry the safety burdens of liquid electrolytes, an extensive worldwide effort is under way to produce a viable substitute solid electrolyte to replace conventional liquid electrolytes.... read more

Bioethanol is an economical and environmentally friendly biofuel that has emerged as a sustainable fuel source. Fermentation is an attractive process for producing bioethanol, but requires costly product separation due to the low concentration of the fermentative products. Nanoporous polymer membranes have recently been explored not only in separating water from dissolved solutes in fermentation systems such as this, but also in liquid water purification and desalination. However, attempts at... read more

With present day environmental and energy concerns rising, the development of environmentally friendly energy sources is quickly becoming a top priority. One group of alternative energy sources that show great potential to meet future energy demands are bioelectrochemical systems (BES) or microbial fuel cells (MFC), which can be used to both treat waste water and produce energy. Current wastewater treatment processes are energy-intensive due to the power demand for aeration, sludge... read more

Zeolites are crystalline structures made up of "T-atoms" which are tetrahedrally bonded to each other with oxygen bridges. Because of the regularity of the crystalline structure and the pores with angstrom size dimensions, these crystals, when grown together to form a membrane, can operate as separations devices for gas and liquid mixtures. These membranes have advantages over other types of membranes in that they are highly stable under thermal cycling, high temperatures, and harsh... read more

Polar organic solvents are commonly used in cleaning, reactions, and processing in many industries. Today these solvents are known to be volatile, hazardous to health, toxic in the environment, and flammable, with no comparable alternatives. These toxic attributes make polar organic  solvents very hard to work with, and the harmful effects of these volatile compounds require that expensive procedures, equipment and environmental, health, and safety controls be in place at all times to... read more

In today’s industrial processes, heterogeneous catalysts are widely used because of their stability and ease of separation from the reactant phase compared to their homogenous counterparts. A continual challenge in the advancement of heterogeneous catalysts is in the improvement of selectivity, which can significantly reduce costs of product purification and waste. Historically, homogenous catalysts offer high selectivity utilizing specific interactions, while heterogeneous catalysts... read more

Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory have developed a system that can remove radioactive cesium contamination from porous structures, such as brick and concrete, which are notoriously hard to clean, as well as contamination from metal surfaces.

The “Supergel” system focuses on rapid response—capturing as much of the contamination as possible, as quickly as possible, and filling a technology gap immediately.

Nanomaterials that are emerging out of cutting edge nanotechnology research are a key component for an energy revolution. Carbon-based nanomaterials are ushering in the “new carbon age” with carbon nanotubes, nanoporous carbons, and graphene nanosheets that will prove necessary to provide sustainable energy applications that lessen our dependence on fossil fuels.

Carbon aerogels (CAs) are nanoporous carbons that comprise a particularly significant class of carbon nanomaterials for... read more

One of the ongoing challenges to improving performance in capacitors and other high-voltage electrical structures is to identify and reduce the factors that cause failure.  High-voltage devices typically fail following excessive partial discharge activity, which is a localized dielectric breakdown that does not transcend the main electrode gap spacing. One type of failure is anticipated to start at a triple junction, the point at which an electrode and two different dielectric materials... read more

 A team of Berkeley Lab researchers led by Yuegang Zhang and Liwen Ji has taken a major step toward an improved lithium ion battery with the development of anodes coated with vanishingly thin, alternating layers of graphene and silicon. Tests have shown that Berkeley Lab’s graphene-silicon layers create anodes with a much higher charge capacity than those made of graphite. In addition, the multilayer nanostructure of this easy-to-fabricate design resists the rapid degradation that... read more

Although the polyolefin polymer material often used for lithium battery separators costs approximately $1.30/kg, the difficult process used to make it porous, to allow the flow of ions and electrons, raises its cost by two-orders of magnitude, to $120–$240/kg. A Berkeley Lab team led by Nitash Balsara has developed an inexpensive and easily controlled process yielding a nanoporous polymer separator that performs just as well as those made by conventional means.

A Berkeley Lab team led by Nitash Balsara has developed a highly efficient lithium ion battery in which a single inactive material—a polymeric binding agent—serves as a binder that holds active cathode materials together and as a two-lane conductor that simultaneously carries lithium ions and electronic charge.

The present invention relates to a fluid submersible sensing device and, more particularly, to such a device having sensing structure provided within a fluid-tight housing and an external structure located outside of the fluid-tight housing including a passage through which a fluid sample flows.

Y-12 invites interested companies to license its patent-pending method known as TiBor Skin. This two-part technology enables creation and fabrication of toughened and corrosion- and wear-resistant composite structures. First, it provides a family of coatings or surface materials for application on metals plus methods of applying these materials. Second, it provides methods of interjoining the applied coatings with their substrates to form composite structures, the surfaces of which wear and... read more

For DoD, law enforcement, and private security organizations that need personnel protection, Code 4 Armor is a multi-impact, customizable, monolithic armor technology. Unlike competitive products, Code 4 Armor uses cermet metallic patent-pending technology, a composite material composed of ceramic and metal, which provides multiple hit survivability. Code 4 Armor affords superior protection while reducing product weight and production costs. We’ve accomplished a proof-of-concept prototype... read more

3-hydroxypropionic acid is readily converted to acrylic acid by conversion to the acid salt followed by treatment with a solid oxide dehydration catalyst such as titania or alumina.

Scientists at LLNL have invented a durable, ultra-thin coating for mirrors that rivals currently used silver, reflecting over a broad spectral range from infrared to visible to ultraviolet light. Silver is an excellent material for high-efficiency reflectors.  It has the highest reflectance of all of the metals in the wavelength range from 400 nm through the far infrared. Yet sometimes mirror applications require high reflectance over a broader spectral range (e.g., 300 to 10,000 nm) than... read more

The field of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) is a rapidly growing multidisciplinary research area. A long-term goal of this research is to merge microsystems of electrical, mechanical, and magnetic components into low-cost, highly-sophisticated control systems. Ultimately, it is believed that "smart" structures, such as embedded sensors, actuators, and control mechanisms, will be fully integrated into a structure, giving it the ability to sense stimuli and to take an appropriate... read more

Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed a reusable organic liquid that can pull harmful gases such as carbon dioxide or sulfur dioxide out of industrial emissions from power plants. The process could directly replace current methods and allow power plants to capture double the amount of harmful gases in a way that uses no water, less energy, and saves money.

The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has developed materials growth and fabrication technology for the manufacture of high-speed, low power AlSb/InAs high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) that exhibit state-of-the-art low-power performance.

This electrochemical cell can be used to fabricate nanoparticles coated with an atomically thin layer of noble metal. It is based on the rotating cylinder electrode configuration. A cylinder electrode is immersed in a cell with a slurry of nanoparticles. On rotation, the nanoparticles collide with the cylinder and become charged. In one example use, copper is plated onto the nanoparticles. The excess copper solution is then rinsed away, a suspension is created by adding an acid, and platinum... read more

Conductive polymers are finding mainstream applications in organic light-emitting diodes, capacitors, batteries, organic transistors, sensors, solar cells, actuators, textiles, electromagnetic interference, electrostatic discharge, antistatic packaging, and paints and coatings. In order to make these materials more robust, it would be desirable to be able to crosslink them. However, crosslinking often damages the electronic properties of the polymers. By adding crosslinking species as side... read more

Argonne National Laboratory is developing water and ethylene glycol/water-based dispersions of nanoparticles for use as the heat transfer fluid (HTF) in liquid cooling systems. The addition of nanoparticles increases the thermal conductivity of liquids, enabling more efficient heat transfer in liquid cooling systems. 

Plastics products—such as grocery bags, packaging foam, plates, and cups—are lightweight, strong, and inexpensive to produce. However, because these products are not biodegradable, they collect in landfills, litter the environment, and present a long-term environmental problem. Through a new process developed by an Argonne scientist Vilas Pol, a wide range of waste plastics can be converted into a fine black carbon powder or carbon nanotubes. This carbon-based substance has numerous... read more

Portable electronic applications including cell phones, laptop computers, as well as electric vehicles or hybrid electric vehicles require dependable rechargeable batteries.  The lithium ion (Li-ion) battery is the preferred source for portable energy storage due to its desirable energy to weight ratio. The materials used in the development of anodes, cathodes and electrolytes are directly responsible for the performance characteristics of Li-ion batteries.  In order to meet... read more

During production, nanostructures are often capped by surfactants or other capping agents to keep them from agglomerating. These moieties often interfere with the properties of the nanostructures, and must be removed before further processing can occur. This technology is directed toward removing even strongly adsorbed surfactants and capping agents from metal, metal alloy, and core-shell nanostructures without damaging the nanostructure surface, facilitating their applications in... read more