Laboratory captures seven R&D 100 awards

Contact: Todd Hanson, (505) 665-2085 (99-103)

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LOS ALAMOS, N.M., July 7, 1999 -­ The U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory has captured seven of the 1999 R&D 100 Awards. This is the highest number of awards for Los Alamos since 1990. These latest winners give the Laboratory a total of 63 awards won over the past 12 years. Perhaps more significant is the fact that this is the highest percentage of winning entries ever ­ the Laboratory had 17 entries this year.

Congratulating the Los Alamos winners, Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson said, "These awards are both a tribute to the creative genius 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."

Pleased with the Laboratory's strong showing, Director John Browne noted that "many of these award-winning technical and scientific innovations were born out of Los Alamos' goal to create science that truly serves society. In these turbulent times it's important to remember that Los Alamos is home to some of the best science and scientific minds in the world. I think these awards substantiate that fact. "

The projects recognized by the R&D awards span a diverse range of scientific and technical areas - from innovative computing techniques to revolutionary engine technology and plasma physics. Of the seven awards received by Los Alamos this year five were developed in collaborations with private-sector companies or other scientific institutions.

The R&D 100 awards program, now in its 37th year, is designed to honor significant commercial promise in products, materials or processes developed by the international research and development community. Technologies are nominated in open competition and judged by technical experts selected by the Illinois-based R&D Magazine. The magazine uses technical criteria to select the 100 most significant, unique or promising entries from the nominations received. The seven Los Alamos National Laboratory technologies receiving R&D 100 awards this year are:

Acoustic Stirling Heat Engine

The Acoustic Stirling Heat Engine consists of a long, baseball-bat-shaped resonator with an oval "handle" on one end. Filled with compressed helium and constructed of ordinary steel pipe, the device creates acoustic energy in the form of sound waves by applying heat to the compressed helium contained within the system through a heat exchanger located in the "handle". The intense acoustic energy produced can be used directly in acoustically powered refrigerators, to generate electricity or the combustion-powered liquefaction of natural gas. The Acoustic Stirling Heat Engine is environmentally friendly and up to 30 percent efficient ­ an alternative to typical internal combustion engines which are 25 to 40 percent efficient.

Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Jet

The Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Jet is a device with potential use in a number of areas, including the decontamination of areas tainted by chemical or biological weapons. The plasma jet is created as helium, mixed with small amounts of oxygen, flows between an outer, grounded, cylindrical electrode and an inner, coaxial electrode. These electrodes create an electrical field that pulls off certain electrons to create an ionized gas, or plasma. The loose ions and electrons in the plasma boost other gas molecules in the tube into a metastable state which survive long enough to exit through a nozzle and reach a surface several centimeters away. When the jet flow strikes the contaminated surface, the stream of metastable gas molecules destroys the biological or chemical contaminants, essentially "burning" them at low temperatures, less than 175 degrees Celsius, without damaging the underlying surface. Because the metastable molecules only live for a fraction of a second before returning to ordinary, breathable helium and oxygen, the process is environmentally safe. This was a joint entry between Los Alamos National Laboratory; the University of California, Los Angeles; Beta-Squared, Inc.; and DuPont Nylon.

CHEMIN: A Miniaturized X-Ray Diffraction and X-ray Fluorescence Instrument

CHEMIN is a miniaturized, CCD-based simultaneous X-ray diffraction/X-ray fluorescence analysis instrument. Named CHEMIN to reflect its ability to determine both the CHEmistry and MINeralogy of a sample, the device is designed to remotely characterize elemental composition and mineralogy from small fine-grained or powder samples. The prototype instrument is compact, but the design calls for an instrument even smaller, about the size of a soda can. The compact and lightweight instrument can be used to answer questions about extraterrestrial mineralogy or on earth in field applications requiring a small, low-power instrument for sampling at remote, dangerous sites or where the soil has been contaminated. CHEMIN was a joint entry between Los Alamos, NASA Ames Research, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

PREDICT-A New Approach to Process Development

PREDICT (Performance and Reliability Evaluation with Diverse Information Combination and Tracking) is a structured method for estimating the performance of a product when test data are scarce or unavailable. PREDICT accomplishes this task by documenting and exploiting the expert knowledge of a company's designers, engineers, and scientists and mathematically combining expert knowledge and uncertainty with a wide variety of existing data while folding uncertainties about the product's expected performance into its calculations. PREDICT was sponsored by the Nuclear Weapons Program - Enhanced Surveillance and developed for use in estimating the reliability and associated uncertainty of an aging nuclear package. Delphi Automotive has successfully used PREDICT to improve the reliability of their engine-management systems. PREDICT was a joint entry between Los Alamos and Delphi Automotive Systems.

Real-Time, Puncture-Detecting, Self-Healing Materials

This material technology provides instant detection of punctures or other breaches of personal protective equipment, such as gloves, bodysuits, biohazard suits and boots, or containment vessels, such as hazardous waste drums, chemical drums and radiation sources. The flexible product consists of five layers of material with conducting layers separated by insulating layers. A weak electrical current flows through the conducting layers that are connected to a signal alarm device. Any puncture to the material completes an electrical circuit and sounds an alarm to immediately notify the user. In addition, one of the conducting layers is a modified form of carbon-filled butyl rubber which flows into small cracks and pinhole punctures to simultaneously protect the user. This was a joint entry between Los Alamos and North Hand Protection.

REED-MD: A Computer Code for Predicting Dopant Density Profiles

REED-MD (Rare Event Enhanced Domain following Molecular Dynamics) is a computer code for making accurate and efficient predictions of dopant density profiles in solids after ion implantation. REED-MD's physical models and specialized algorithms allow it to simulate the paths of moving ions in materials and thereby predict the resulting dopant density profiles with spatial resolution comparable to, or better than, those obtained by experimental measurements; typically secondary ion mass spectroscopy. The code, which runs on standard desktop/laptop computers, requires minimal parameter fitting, giving the user true predictive capability. Through close interactions with Motorola, simulation results have been extensively validated against available experimental data provided by Motorola, SRC, and the literature. REED-MD offers the semiconductor industry, as well as others, rapid and reliable exploration of the implant parameter space, saving time and resources when investigating new implant conditions.

The Sulfur Resistant Oxymitter 4000

The Sulfur Resistant Oxymitter 4000 is a sulfur-resistant oxygen sensor for automatically controlling the combustion process in heavy-duty, industrial boilers found in power plants, refineries, cement kilns and pulp and paper mills. The ceramic-based device can replace current oxygen sensors that often do not survive in corrosive sulfur-rich environments. Because traditional sensors have not worked well, boiler operators have compensated by burning excess fossil fuel. This wastes expensive fuel and creates environment problems and pollution. By being able to better control the air-to-fuel ratio many of these problems can be avoided as fuels burn more efficiently and produce less sulfur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen and greenhouse gases. This was a joint entry between Los Alamos National Laboratory and Rosemount Analytical Inc.

A banquet for the 1999 R&D 100 winners is scheduled for September 23 in Chicago.

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