Available Technologies

Chemical procedures for production of high quality metal oxide nanoparticles and single walled carbon nanotubes

m06-003 — Inorganic nanocrystals have numerous applications in diverse fields such as catalyst production, ultramodern electronic and electroptical devices, super-magnets, photographic suspensions and are a benchmark model for nanotechnology given the tunability of their optical, magnetic, and mechanical properties. This technology is a wet chemistry procedure for the manufacture of discrete, monodisperse, stable, and size uniform nanocrystals using thermal decomposition of metal acetates. The nan...

Carbon Dioxide Separation at High Temperatures with Ceramic Membrane

m04-058 — Due to a growing concern over greenhouse gas emissions, the development of methods of separating carbon dioxide from gaseous process streams has gained importance. While there are carbon dioxide membranes for low temperatures, constructing membranes for operation at high temperatures reminds a challenge. High temperature ceramic membranes that selectively pass carbon dioxide would enable a number of novel technologies ranging from the design of zero-emission coal-based electric power pla...

Method for reducing carbon dioxide emissions in lime and cement production

m05-071 — The effects of increased carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere on the climate and various ecosystems have created the need to reduce emissions of CO2. The lime and cement industries are responsible for approximately 5% of global carbon dioxide emissions. Of these emissions, about 50% arise from the chemical liberation of carbon dioxide bound in carbonates and 40% from fuel consumption. Lime is manufactured from limestone and dolomite by heating these materials in a limekiln, and...

Self-Assembling Protein Hydrogel with Bio-active Protein

m06-002 — “Lead Inventor: , Production of protein hydrogel monomers with the bio-active unit attached : Hydrogels are used for scaffolding in tissue engineering, drug-delivery systems, in contact lenses, biocatalytic electrodes, and wound dressings. The diversity of different uses for hydrogels is due to their ability to absorb large amounts of water while retaining their structural integrity, which gives them flexibility much like tissue. The range of applications for hydrogels has the potential ...

Self contained, modular coal gasifier

m06-026 — Traditionally, indirect heating of coal/water slurries by catalytic oxidation of gaseous fuel is used to drive the endothermic coal gasification reactions to produce hydrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide. Further, recirculated product gases (hydrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide) are used as the energy source, thereby avoiding the use of an external fuel source during continuous operation. But there is a need for separating carbon dioxide from the product gases and plant effluent in ord...

Power generation from and disposal of elemental sulfur

m06-040 — In remote locations such as Alberta, Canada or Kazakhstan the sulfur produced from oil/gas cleanup is often wasted, as it is unfeasible to bring this sulfur to market. The sulfur extracted from oil is the main source of sulfur production. Sulfur produced in more remote locations, depending on the market price, may simply be stored on-site. This technology has the potential to increase efficiency and revenues of such operations by taking elemental sulfur extracted during oil/gas clean up,...

Copper Oxide Nanoparticle System for Catalytic Converters

m06-079 — Carbon monoxide is a colorless, tasteless and odorless gas that can cause serious cardiovascular and neurobehavioral effects at low concentrations and death at high concentrations. It comes from a variety of sources such as automobile exhaust, cigarettes, furnaces, heaters, industrial manufacturing units etc. One approach to make this gas harmless is to convert it into carbon dioxide through catalytic oxidation. Such an approach is currently incorporated in majority of carbon monoxide pu...

Biomass as a Sustainable Energy Source and Waste Water Purification

m06-085 — Clean, purified water in the modern world has become an important resource and commodity in a rapidly expanding global population. Although the majority of the earth’s surface is made up of bodies of water, only a tiny fraction of this water is in a clean, desalinated form needed for consumption, watering crops, etc. Water purification methods using current technology are able to filter and desalinate clean water, but also produce much waste from carbon-based energy sources, thus produci...

Directed Evolution of Cellulase Enzymes for Ethanol, Biomass Conversion via Chemical Complementation

m06-088 — Since over 85% of the energy used in the United States comes from non-renewable fossil fuels, there is a pressing need to develop feasible and practical fuel alternatives. The primary structural component of green plants is cellulose. Cellulose can be broken down in to the simple sugar, glucose through the enzymatic action of cellulase. Glucose is then fermented to produce ethanol, which can be used as an alternative fuel. Although cellulose is readily available, cellulase, is costly to ...

Enhanced Natural Carbon Sequestration in Peridotite

m07-015 — Global warming is one of the biggest environmental challenges facing earth. It is believed to be linked to the rapid increase in concentration of carbon dioxide in the earth’s environment. An effective way to decrease the carbon dioxide concentration is to capture and store it either from atmosphere or directly from sources such as industries. Natural carbonation of peridotite, a dominant igneous rock of the upper part of the earth’s mantle by weathering and low temperature alteration is...

Timber Yields and Ecological Value of Managed Forests Optimized with Algorithm

m08-001 — Forestry management has the challenging task of integrating ecological concerns with economic objectives. Sustainable harvesting recommendations must take into account multiple criteria such as timber yields, structural complexity, biodiversity, and other desirable forest attributes. Current harvesting models are ineffective at aligning multiple ecological variables such as structural biodiversity with economic demands. Furthermore, the spatial pattern of a harvest dramatically affects t...

Synthetic Fuel Production with a Reduced Carbon Footprint

m08-005 — As the world begins to focus upon reducing greenhouse gas production, technologies that reduce carbon dioxide emissions will become increasingly important. One of the easiest ways to reduce carbon dioxide emission is to simply capture and store it, as is done for large, point-source emitters, such as factories. Approximately 50% of emitters, however, are small and mobile, and therefore, cannot benefit from carbon capture and storage technologies. 65% of these emitters are associated with...

Long-Term Monitoring of CO₂ in Geological Formations with Gravimeters

m08-015 — Global warming makes reducing CO2 output a societal imperative. Many have suggested sequestering the CO2 underground, since the use of fossil fuels is too deeply entrenched to change overnight. However, an effective and easy method to monitor the sequestered CO2 still has to be developed. This technology consists of placing semi-permanent gravimeters (machines which measure local gravitational field) deep underground. Gravity measurements can be related to the density of the surrounding ...

Laser-Based Process for Low Defect-Density Films in Solar Cells

m08-019 — Bulk silicon is the dominant substrate type for present day solar cell manufacturing with continued strong growth. Manufacturers are working towards reducing the thickness of substrates to save on materials cost, but they encounter serious mechanical stability issues. Provided a low defect density film can be provided, thin-film poly-Si solar cells can offer significant reduction in materials use. A recent development involves the use of low defect density films as seed layers for epitax...

Environmentally-Friendly Hydrogen Production and In-Situ Carbon Dioxide Removal

m08-020 — Fossil fuel amounts to more than 86% of energy consumption in the world. The burning of fossil fuels produces around 21.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. Since natural processes can only absorb about half of that amount, there is a net increase of 10.65 billion tonnes of atmospheric carbon dioxide per year. Carbon dioxide is one of the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, which may cause major adverse effects. This calls for technological improvements that enabl...

Microbial Ecology and Biokinetics of Ammonia and Nitrite Oxidation in a Partial Nitrification Bioreactor

m08-021 — Biological nitrogen removal from waste water is a costly process. Traditionally it is achieved by complete oxidation of ammonia present in the waste to a mixture of nitrite (NO2-) and nitrate (NO32-) through ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB), the process is called nitrification. The second stage involves the reduction of nitrite/nitrate to nitrogen gas. However, through achieving partial oxidation of ammonia it is possible to solely produce nitrite (NO2-), which can then directly be conve...

Nitrogen Pollutant Removal from Waste Water by Partial Nitrification

m08-022 — Nitrogen containing compounds in particular ammonia (NH3) is a serious water pollutant. However, its biological removal from waste water is very a costly process. Traditionally it is achieved by complete oxidation of ammonia present in the waste to a mixture of nitrite (NO2-) and nitrate (NO32-), the process is called nitrification. The second stage involves the reduction of nitrite/nitrate to nitrogen gas. Each step of nitrification/oxidation and denitrification/reduction requires resou...

Microbial Fuel Cells for Generating Electricity from Waste

m08-024 — Many parts of the world are plagued by problems disposing of wastewater and sewage in a manner that is efficient and environmentally friendly. The United States produces over 40 billion gallons of wastewater daily, costing over $25 billion per year and consuming over 21 billion kilowatt hours annually. Bacteria have been proposed as an alternate means of naturally degrading organic waste materials, although this process has been proven inefficient to be implemented on a large scale. Also...

Ozone-Treated Carbon Nanotubes for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells and Electrodes

m08-025 — Dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) technology offers the potential of low cost cell manufacture using low cost flexible substrates. The way these cells work, a chemical reaction (the reduction of triiodide to iodide) takes place at the top side by which charge is transferred from a transparent conducting film into an electrolyte. The common approach, a transparent conducting oxide film provided with a thin platinum film to catalyze the reaction, is both costly as well as incompatible with ...

Nanoparticles Self-Assemble into Non-Uniform Structures

m08-041 — Composite materials can have diverse and often disparate properties, for example, being stiff yet flexible. In recent years nanocomposites have gained increasing interest for their unique electronic, chemical, and structural properties. Nanoparticles, however, are inherently difficult to assemble into the hierarchical, anisotropic (non-uniform) structures required by many applications. They cannot be manipulated with traditional manufacturing and compounding techniques. The development o...

Self-Organizing Particles Combine to Create Metamaterial

m08-061 — Thin films made via self-assembly of two types of particles into so-called superlattices can potentially be useful for a range of “"metamaterials”“ with valuable physical properties. The self-assembly of micrometer-sized hard spheres into binary superlattices has been intensively studied since the early 1980s and this approach has now also been introduced into the field of nanoparticles (NPs). It creates a unique pathway to combine nano-scale components having distinct properties thereby...

Management of Byproduct Sulfur Involving the Generation and Disposal of Soluble Sulfate Salts

m08-088 — Increased production of fossil fuels is causing a sulfur glut in the world market. Global surplus of sulfur is set to reach 5 Mt S/year by the end of this decade. In many remote oil producing regions, sulfur is either stored in solid form or reinjected underground as H2S. Neither practice is low-risk from an environmental health and safety perspective, and cost-effective alternatives are necessary. This technology is an apparatus for the sequestration and disposal of sulfur consis...

Copper-Cerium Oxide (Cu-CeO2) Nanoparticles Engineered with a High Defect Density for Redox Catalysis

m09-024 — The water-gas shift is a reaction that produces hydrogen in fuel cells and thus critical for a possible future hydrogen economy. However, low efficiency of catalytic metal nanoparticles is a major problem in this reaction. This invention presents a straightforward method to produce nanoparticle catalysts with a high defect density. It improves the catalytic activity by introducing extended defects in the particle structure. Defects in the nanoparticles were imaged with high resolu...

Nanoparticles for Redox Catalysis, Automotive Exhausts, fuel cell electric cars, catalytic converters

m09-041 — Three-way catalysis (TWC) is the main technology used to control emissions from gasoline engines. The catalyst uses an active coating incorporating metal oxides and combinations of precious metals (PM). However, there are a number of critical problems in this field. For example, low efficiency of catalysts is a major problem and defect density has been shown to be an important factor in catalytic activity; however, current methods to generate defects are expensive and difficult. Another ...

Carbon-14 tag to identify and inventory carbon dioxide waste streams

m09-090 — In order to meet the challenge of climate change while allowing for continued economic development, the world will have to adopt a net zero carbon energy infrastructure. Reconciling that goal with the world’s large stock of coal and other low-cost fossil fuels has created a need for the ability to capture the CO2 that is produced in the combustion of fossil fuels. The ability to capture and store CO2 on a large scale remains largely untested. As these technologies are developed and teste...

Extraction of Carbon Dioxide from Air

m05-026 — A method and device for extracting carbon dioxide from air using wet scrubbing and returning the carbon dioxide to a gaseous form after several chemical transformations are disclosed. Air containing carbon dioxide is exposed to sodium hydroxide solution to form sodium carbonate, which is then causticized using calcium hydroxide. Carbonate ion is transferred from sodium to calcium cation, to form calcium carbonate precipitate. The precipitate is thermally decomposed at a temperature above...

Fabrication of porous graphene membranes using gold nanoparticles

m09-084 — Ultrafiltration is a pressure-driven process which uses semi-permeable synthetic membranes to separate certain substances from water or other solvents. The efficiency of the filtration process is determined by the throughput which is directly related to the thickness of the membrane. Therefore, to provide high throughput, the membrane must be thin and strong enough to withstand high pressure. 2-D planar sheets of carbon, or “"graphene,”“ is an ultra thin material that offers great streng...

"Laser fluorometry for photophysiological measurements of aquatic flora "

m10-049 — In vivo fluorescence of chlorophyll a and accessory phycobiliprotein pigments is broadly used as an index of chlorophyll concentration and phytoplankton biomass and provides useful information for structural and photophysiological characterization of the mixed algal populations. When excited by a laser at a higher frequency, these pigments re-emit at a lower frequency that can be detected and deconvoluted into a detailed spectrum. The peaks in this spectrum indicate the populations of th...

Solar-Powered Inflatable Light for Sustainable Lighting Solutions during Natural Disaster Recovery

m10-104 — Restoring normal life in regions affected by natural disasters or war plays a vital role in recovery efforts. Re-establishing electrical grid infrastructure in those cases can sometimes take weeks or months. There is a need for a solution that can be deployed easily and immediately and with minimal maintenance. Sustainable lighting solutions, including photovoltaic cells coupled to rechargeable batteries, are an ideal approach to providing on-demand lighting with no operating cost. Howev...

Arsenic Meter

m02-087 — “Name of the inventor: Alexander F. Van Geen Field Test-Kit for Analyzing Arsenic Concentration in Water: The system for determining arsenic concentrations in water sample involves using dual-channel colorimeter comprises of a pair of cuvettes to hold test and reference aliquots. A dual beam arrangement of light is incident on the pair of cuvettes. A pair of photo detectors is configured to measure the intensity of light transmitted through the pair of cuvettes. Output voltages of the ...

Logging operations core sample data collection

m04-010 — “Name of the inventor: David S. Goldberg Logging operations can include coring to capture the core sample Method and apparatus for collecting data regarding geological properties of underground or undersea formations during coring operations are described. This method also makes in situ measurements over the same cored interval in a particular hole. The method for performing logging operations while coring includes capturing the core sample a core barrel. A logging sensor is activated ...

Carbon dioxide emissions capture and mitigation

m04-022 — Methods and cryogenic system for capturing, sequestering, storing, disposing of, or entraining carbon dioxide (C02) in the air environment and mitigation of carbon dioxide emissions are described. Magnesium bearing silicate is dissolved in an aqueous acid. The pH of the solution is increased to produce dissolved magnesium component. The resulting solution is neutralized by adding ammonia solution. The precipitated magnesium component is carbonated to sequester carbon dioxide from the air...

Bacterium Capable of Biodegradation of Wastes

657 — “Name of the inventor: I. Bernard Weinstein Microorganisms for Waste Treatment: Biologically pure cultures of microorganisms designated SH2A and SH2B or their mutant forms are disclosed. A method of using SH2A/SH2B or their mutant forms to degrade an organic material and for growing SH2A/SH2B or their mutant forms under suitable temperatures in an optimal medium are disclosed. Novel thermophilic bacteria capable of degrading lipids, proteins, carbohydrates, and wood fiber have been descr...

Composite Material Produced through Dredged Material Decontamination and Solidification

m01-046 — “Name of the inventor: Christian Meyer Composite Material Production through Dredged Material Decontamination and Solidification A method for the decontamination and solidification of dredged material is and for producing filler for a composite material and production of composite material is disclosed. Lime-Based Binder Added to Dredged Material as Filler for Composite Materials like Concrete A lime-based binder is added to the dredged material to form a mixture. The mixture is cooled to a...

Apparatus for Preparing Cerium Oxide Nanoparticles

m01-057 — Cerium oxide in the form of fine particles is useful as a catalyst for polymerization, for reforming fuels, and for abating polluting gas in automobile exhaust systems. The catalyst acts as an oxygen pressure regulator in the reduction of NOX to molecular nitrogen, the oxidation of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide to water and carbon dioxide, and the conversion of H2S to H2 and S. This need is met by the present invention. The proposed method comprises providing a first aqueous so...

Micro Steam Turbine for Power Generation

m03-063 — “Name of the inventor: Luc Frechette Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) for Power Generation The steam turbine power plant micromachine comprises of a rotatable, disk-shaped rotor having rotor blades. The stator blades are inter digitated with the rotor blades to form a turbine. A pump pumps a working fluid through the engine. The pump is integrated into the backside of the disk-shaped rotor and is driven by the turbine. A turbine driven generator converts mechanical energy into el...

Ball-and-socket interfaces for organic photovoltaic cells

m10-046 — Photovoltaics are expected to play a major role in satisfying the long-term global demand for cheap and renewable energy. Within the broad and diverse photovoltaic field, organic small molecules are particularly promising materials. While organic photovoltaics (OPVs) are attractive as materials for conversion of sunlight into electrical energy, higher conversion efficiencies are needed for OPVs to become a commercially viable technology. Crucial to improving the efficiency of photovoltai...

Compost Farming Public Sculpture as Recycling Benefits Learning Tool

m10-116 — In 2008, 31 million tons of food waste was disposed of in landfills, generating 68 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions, comparable to 12.3 million passenger vehicles per year. There, it decomposes to methane, a noxious greenhouse gas. This technology offers an alternative food waste disposal method to landfills, while simultaneously suggesting an avenue through which to generate useful fertilizer for organic farming. Food waste is turned into compost and har...

Ground Water Safety Testing with Peltier-Cooled Pristine Sample Extraction Tool

m11-019 — About 2 billion people world wide rely on groundwater aquifers as the main source of drinking water. Contamination of these water sources through exposure to natural contaminants released from sediments present a growing health concern. Accurate ground sampling techniques are crucial in the assessment of safe drinking water supplies. Inappropriate sample extraction techniques have proven to increase the difficulty of understanding multiple biogeochemical and hydrological factors contribu...