Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Technology Marketing Summaries

To overcome limitations with cellular silicone foams, LLNL innovators have developed a new 3D energy absorbing material with tailored/engineered bulk-scale properties. The energy absorbing material has 3D patterned architectures specially designed for specific energy absorbing properties. The combination of LLNL's capabilities in advanced modeling and simulation and the additive manufacturing technique known as direct ink writing allowed LLNL researchers to design and control the... 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

Existing nanosensor technologies employ gas, chemical, and biological detection methods that depend on an external power source (typically a battery) to operate. This limits conventional technologies by constraining both the nanosensor size, and reachable locations. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has developed a superior alternative: the first batteryless sensors using one-dimensional semiconducting nanowires. The commercial applications for this technology include readily deployable... read more

Various alternative-fuel systems have been proposed for passenger vehicles and light-duty trucks to reduce the worldwide reliance on fossils fuels and thus mitigate their polluting effects.  Replacing gasoline and other refined hydrocarbon fuels continues to present research and implementation challenges for the automotive industry. During the last decade, hydrogen fuel technology has emerged as the prime alternative that will finally drive automotive fuel systems into the new millennium.

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High reliability and lower maintenance and operating costs make magnetic levitation (maglev) technology integral to advancing the nation’s transportation networks.  In urban settings maglev has additional advantages over conventional mass transit and transport systems, including lower noise, higher efficiency, and higher grade and turn capabilities that allow vehicles to run on elevated tracks to eliminate the constraints and costs of underground tunnel operation.  Germany... read more

Rechargeable metallic sodium batteries have application in large-scale energy storage applications such as electric power generation and distribution, in motive applications such as electric vehicles, hybrids, and plug-in hybrids, and for aerospace applications such as powering satellites. So far, two sodium-based battery technologies have shown particular commercial promise: sodium-sulfur and sodium-nickel chloride, both referred to as sodium-beta batteries.   Sodium-β battery... read more

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... 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

Marangoni drying is used in semiconductor processing and  other industries to produce a dry, ultraclean surface on flat substrates.  In the conventional Marangoni drying step, e.g., for semiconductor wafer fab, an alcohol or other volatile organic compound (VOC) vapor is blown through a nozzle over the wet wafer surface or at the meniscus formed between the cleaning liquid and wafer as the wafer is lifted from an immersion bath.  The Marangoni effect causes a surface-tension... read more

LLNL's technology is useful in fields such as power systems engineering, security monitoring, and vehicle tracking to identify, locate and monitor a particular source of electromagnetic radiation in a noisy broadband environment.  Conventional broadband filtering techniques are often inefficient in reducing unwanted electromagnetic noise, and this inefficiency results in higher energy and processing costs along with imprecise location, monitoring and tracking capabilities.  The... read more

Energy harvesting is a developing technology that seeks to exploit naturally-occurring energy to power systems, rather than relying on external sources such as batteries.  Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has developed a method and a device for capturing the chemical energy in organic molecules and converting it into electrical energy. Vibration-based conversion has been commercialized to piezoelectric devices, and the LLNL team believes the time right for matrix-assisted energy... read more

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers have developed a two-phase liquid dielectric composite with synergistic properties that boost the benefits of each separate form. Fluid dielectrics are versatile compounds that assist or govern numerous industrial processes such as  precision cooling, high-voltage capacitance, and the electrical protection of high-voltage switchgear.   Liquid dielectrics suppress or instantly quench corona discharge and arcing without forming... read more

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has developed a method using nanolipoprotein particles (NLP) to solubilize and isolate membrane bound hydrogenases for the biological production of hydrogen.

Hydrogen is a renewable energy carrier that has the potential to replace fossil fuels in our economy. The majority of hydrogen produced today is from natural gas, heavy oils, and coal. The Department of Energy Hydrogen Program technical plan calls for the development and commercialization of... read more

Hydrogen storage for transportation is one of the most important problems faced in implementing a “hydrogen economy”. Hydrogen can be produced in many ways, but then must be stored for use by fuel cells. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Hydrogen, Fuel Cells & Infrastructure Technologies Program has set hydrogen storage goals to be achieved by 2015. New technologies and storage materials are required to meet these goals if a hydrogen economy is to be realized. The... read more

The limitation to reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is the expense of stripping carbon dioxide from other combustion gases. Without a cost-effective means of accomplishing this, hydrocarbon resources cannot be used freely. A few power plants currently remove carbon dioxide from flue gas for sale as an industrial product. Oil companies commonly remove carbon dioxide from natural gas to improve its energy content. In both cases, the most common technology is a temperature-swing... read more

Rechargeable batteries presently provide limited energy density and cyclical lifetime for portable power applications, with only incremental improvements forecasted in the foreseeable future. Furthermore, recharging requires access to electrical outlets via a tethered charger. The MEMS Fuel Cell represents a disruptive power source technology that can avoid many of these problems. It uses easy-to-store liquid fuels such as methanol and provides more than three times the operating time... read more