1997 R&D 100 Awards Entry Summaries

• Processes 30 samples in a 24-hour period
• Reduces cost of sample analysis by as much as 50%
• Minimizes operator error and enhances worker safety
• Conducts analyses on-site, thereby eliminating the cost and safety precautions necessary to transport samples to a distant laboratory
• Reduces costly data interpretation time and cumbersome paper files and associated paperwork
• Collects all waste solvents and samples for recycle or disposal
  Cleans itself, thereby eliminating cross-contamination and reducing down-time

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Automatically Controlled Three-Phase Centrifuge

Features

The Automatically Controlled Three-Phase Centrifuge is a successful union between an ingeniously designed centrifuge and an “intelligent” fuzzy controller emulating human expert knowledge in running the machine. Developed for immediate field needs and used on a portable computer, the fuzzy model automates control of a complex, nonlinear, multivariable process for environmental cleanup and oil recovery. It also significantly improves an already successful centrifuge operation.

Applications

• Enables worldwide use of a process that separates oil field and oil refinery wastes (oil- water-solid emulsions often classified as hazardous) into salable oil, reusable water, and harmless solids.
• It can be used to efficiently clean up oil spills that cause serious environmental problems.
• It can be used in separation processes carried out in the steel industry.
• An “intelligent” fuzzy controller such as the one used with the centrifuge is applicable to nonlinear systems that depend on expert knowledge.

Benefits

• Allows operator to change process limits easily.
• Reduces man-hours per job, on-site time, and training time.
• Improves quality control of oil recovered from sludge.
• Enables worldwide use of a separation process that has a 100 percent rate of success.
• Can be modified to include additional capabilities such as safety and environmental features or new parameters for the separation process.

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Detector for Noninvasive Fluid Characterization

Features

The Detector for Noninvasive Fluid Characterization is the first instrument that characterizes materials by determining their physical properties in a single swept-frequency measurement that takes less than 20 seconds. The detector also identifies a large number of liquids inside sealed containers, monitors mixtures, emulsions, and concentration variations, and analyzes biomedical samples as small as one drop. Easy to hold with one hand, our detector is highly suited to field use in a whole range of applications.

Applications

• Identifies hazardous chemicals contained in unlabeled storage tanks.
• Identifies the octane rating of gasoline.
• Accurately and noninvasively determines liquid levels even in thick-walled tanks.
• Provides feedback information on the physical properties of chemicals (for example, concentration of solutions, mixtures, and emulsions), which makes it ideally suited for process control in the chemical industry.
• Identifies all common chemical warfare compounds and their most significant precursors in munitions and industrial containers.
• Monitors and detects contamination and spoilage in food.
• Rapidly tests single-drop pathological and biological samples.
• Can be adapted for diagnosing osteoporosis and arthritis.
• Detects corrosion and depositions inside sealed vessels.

Benefits

• Operates over a broad frequency range with high resolution.
• Characterizes materials directly by determining their physical properties.
• Eliminates the risk of human exposure to hazardous materials.
• Uses the container cavity as a high-quality resonator to amplify the acoustic wave 100 to 1,000 times; therefore, it requires very low power (less than 1 volt).
• Combines the capabilities of several instruments in one, while being portable for field use.

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ERUPT: Comprehensive Volcano SimulatorFeatures

• Provides graphical simulation of almost all known types of volcanic activity in real-time animations
• Transforms supercomputer modeling capabilities into an easy-to-use PC program
• Allows high level of parameter control through intuitive graphical interface suitable for all computer skill levels
• Builds color-coded, two-dimensional cross section of resulting layers of volcanic products
• Illustrates cumulative landscape effects of separate vent locations and separately timed eruptions
• Includes erosion and seismic faulting
• Offers multimedia capability for inclusion of volcanic sounds

Applications

• Education for grades K through 12
• Advanced studies for undergraduate and graduate students
• Public education for civil defense—raising public awareness in
  areas that would be directly affected by eruptions
• Prediction of the potential eruption effects at existing volcanoes
• Research by postgraduates and professional volcanologists—testing hypotheses about the evolution of existing volcanoes

Benefits

• Makes comprehensive volcano modeling accessible to everyone
• Presents calculational results as colorful animations easily understood by everyone
• Educates by offering information otherwise available only through first-hand observation of active volcanoes
• Captures the interest of students of all ages with dramatic realism
• Raises public awareness of volcano hazards by illustrating the possible effects of future eruptions

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FacSim—A Facility Simulation Program for Nuclear Material Processing

Features

FacSim is an object-oriented program that models the operation of nuclear material processing facilities. It provides detailed calculations of the locations, amounts, and types of nuclear materials in a processing stream over time. These calculations are needed to both evaluate and enhance international nuclear safeguards.

Applications

• Evaluate and optimize nuclear material safeguards at
• Nuclear fuel reprocessing plants
• Nuclear fuel fabrication facilities
• Nuclear weapons disassembly facilities
• Simulate diversion scenarios for testing anomaly-detection algorithms
• Evaluate the safety, risk, and material accounting measures for essentially all material processing operations in the nuclear fuel cycle

Benefits

In the near future, tens of metric tons of plutonium from nuclear fuel reprocessing and weapons dismantlement will enter the global energy economy each year. Ensuring that effective international safeguards are applied to this material to prevent its diversion for nuclear weapons poses a major challenge for the International Atomic Energy Agency. FacSim is a powerful tool for evaluating and optimizing nuclear safeguards to ensure that the expanding nuclear energy market does not increase the risk of nuclear diversion.

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FASTAC—A UV System for Controlling Bacteria in Opaque Fluids

Features

FASTAC is a system that reduces and controls bacteria levels in opaque industrial fluids and turbid water without the use of chemical biocides. A novel combination of an intense source of monochromatic ultraviolet (UV) light and a specially designed flow chamber, FASTAC is the only UV system available that can treat opaque fluids, and it is the first technology that offers a safe and efficient replacement for the toxic chemicals currently used to treat fluids. Additionally, FASTAC provides the first UV system that may be cost-effective for treating large volumes of fluid.

Applications

• Reducing and controlling bacteria levels in opaque metalworking fluids in order to minimize health hazards for the millions of automotive, aerospace, farm-equipment, construction-equipment, and machine-shop workers exposed to fluid mists.
• Treating contaminated ballast water on commercial cargo ships and tankers in order to reduce the number of harmful, nonindigenous species introduced into US waters.
• Decontaminating aquaculture systems, wastewater, cooling towers, process water, and drinking water.Benefits
• Efficiently treats large volumes of highly opaque fluids or turbid water.
• Emits a UV wavelength that kills microorganisms without breaking down industrial fluids; the UV source can also be tuned to emit wavelengths appropriate for other liquids.
• Eliminates the need for chemical biocides, thereby reducing health risks for over 1.3 million industrial workers, extending the lifetime of the fluids, and lowering the volume of hazardous waste produced.
• Provides more energy-efficient and effective treatment of wastewater and process water than conventional UV technologies.
• Costs less than conventional UV treatment systems or chemical biocides, in spite of the initial investment.

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High-Temperature Superconducting, High-Gradient Magnetic Separation (HTS HGMS)

Features

Our high-temperature superconducting, high-gradient magnetic separation (HTS HGMS) system removes pollutants from solids, liquids, and gases. Because it is a physical separation process, no additional chemicals are required, which means the system introduces no pollution of its own. By using an HTS magnet to enable separation, we have developed a small, lightweight, portable HGMS system that is easy to operate and maintain. It can be used by industry for waste minimization and pollution prevention and by DOE to clean up polluted sites and process nuclear materials.

Applications

• Decontamination of soils or waste water that contains radioactive isotopes, heavy metals, or other hazardous materials
• Purification of drinking water supplies
• Kaolin clay processing
• Purification of feed stocks and raw materials
• Desulfurization of coal
• Utilization of low-grade ore reserves
• Recovery of valuable mineral oxides and metalsBenefits
• Enables small-scale portable separation of paramagnetic compounds for decontamination or resource recovery
• Is easy to install, operate, and maintain because of its compact refrigeration system
• Allows high-gradient magnetic separation to be used in the field to clean up contaminated soil and water

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Loki: Parallel Supercomputing with Commodity Components

Features

Loki is a parallel computer built entirely from high-volume, personal computer technology. Commodity parallel processors based on the Loki design can provide any organization with general-purpose supercomputing capability for less than one-third the price of its nearest competitor. All software components of the machine are based upon on the Posix-compliant Linux/GNU operating system, and all source-code software is provided, which allows customers to adapt the operating system to their specific needs. Our use of an optimized version of the industry-standard message-passing interface library provides enhanced parallel programming capabilities.

Applications

• Provides general-purpose supercomputing capabilities for research, engineering, and business organizations.
• Performs computationally intensive modeling and simulation in computational fluid dynamics, finite element analysis of thermal and mechanical properties, electromagnetics, and other technical disciplines.
• Provides network server capabilities for management information systems, information transmission for Internet and intranet operations, Web indexing, and large-scale databases such as medical records keeping.

Benefits

• Provides users with dedicated, easy access to fast and efficient supercomputing capabilities.
• Involves low hardware maintenance costs.
• Consists of a flexible architecture that allows customers to buy only those resources required for their particular problem
• Takes advantage of a standard PC/PCI architecture. Users can add PCI devices to each node to augment the computation or communication capabilities of the machine. As a result, individual system components may be upgraded without rendering the rest of the system obsolete.
• Allows users to adapt the operating system to their specific needs (because the source code can be modified).

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MDH-1000: A Hydrogen Purification System

Features

The MDH-1000 can produce hydrogen with a purity greater than 99.9999 percent from commercial gas cylinders (reagent-grade hydrogen typically has a purity of 94.6 percent) or from other impure hydrogen sources. The heart of the MDH-1000 is a metal membrane that separates hydrogen from other gases—with minimal auxilliary equipment—at flow rates over 10 times greater than that of any other hydrogen filter. The membrane is robust and has a long operational life. Moreover, the materials in the membrane are inexpensive. The MDH-1000 unit itself has several safety features that help to reduce the hazards of working with hydrogen.

Applications

• Ultrapure hydrogen is used to purify the silicon that goes into microelectronic devices. Increasingly, ultrapure hydrogen is also used to produce high-purity iron and steel, which have the superior magnetic properties that are required for high-efficiency electric motors, alternators, and generators. The MDH-1000 does not only provide ultrapure hydrogen for these applications, but it can also recover the hydrogen used in them or the hydrogen produced in other industrial processes.
• In the future, ultrapure hydrogen will be needed for proton-exchange membrane fuel cells to generate electricity at central and remote power plants. Ultrapure hydrogen also has the potential to replace the fossil fuels now used to power automobiles.Benefits
• About $160 million per year can be saved by using the membrane technology employed by the MDH-1000 to produce ultrapure hydrogen for purifying the silicon used in microelectronic devices made throughout the world.
• On-site production of hydrogen from methane or methanol is particularly important in Europe, where there are restrictions on transporting large quantities of hydrogen. Therefore, the MDH-1000 can play an important role in Europe.
• Proton-exchange membrane fuel cells—the most promising type of fuel cell for electric vehicles—require ultrapure hydrogen to operate efficiently. The MDH-1000 provides this purity at much lower cost than other sources, improving the economic viability of many fuel-cell applications. Using ultrapure hydrogen in fuel cells to power automobiles would eliminate the pollution now produced by fossil fuels and reduce worldwide dependence on fossil fuels.

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Nanoporous Polymers: "Magic Materials" for Water Purification

Features

• Clean organic compounds in water to parts-per-trillion levels
• Generate a binding between organic contaminants and the polymer that is 100,000 times greater than that generated by activated carbon, the most commonly used absorbent
• Consists of reversible, selective, and efficient absorbents
• Work equally well in water or air
• Eliminate the need for activation—the “turn on” process
• Easy to manufacture—one step away from commercially available materials
• Can be fabricated as granular solids, powders, and membranes
• Do not leach organic contamination during the treatment process

Applications

• Separate organic contamination from water, thereby preserving municipal water supplies (for example, remove hazardous organic compounds from drinking water)
• Recycle industrial waste water by using a continuous on-line process (for example, clean up toxic organics at nuclear waste sites)
• Clean up oil or organic chemical spills, especially in water (for example, tanker spills in oceans)
• Remediate in situ hazardous organics in underground water (for example, remove DNAPLs, or dense nonaqueous phase liquids, from water)
• Clean up organic explosives (such as TNT) at Department of Energy and Department of Defense sites
• Can be used as optical materials (for example, laser safety goggles) and catalysts
• Can be used in much the same way as biological enzymes (for example, enzymes for various hydrolysis reactions)

Benefits

• Supply high-quality water, thereby improving people’s living standards
• Save and conserve valuable resources by recycling both the water and the polymeric materials used to purify it
• Reduce organic pollution in water (parts-per-trillion levels)
• Decrease cleanup costs because the polymeric materials can be used again and again
• Curtail filtration time by using nanoporous membranes

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Quantum Cryptographic Key Generator

Features

The Quantum Cryptographic Key Generator produces and distributes digital keys that can be used to encode and decode messages between two parties separated by up to 100 kilometers. A key is generated and distributed only at the time that the messages are sent, and the key and the message can both be transmitted on the fiber-optic cables currently used by telephone companies worldwide. The quantum properties of the key generator detect and foil any attempt to steal or copy a key.

Applications

• The key generator can provide secure communications in metropolitan areas between banks, between off-site stock-trading centers and central stock exchanges, between corporate offices, and between offices of federal agencies such as the FBI or the National Security Agency.
• In the near future the key generator could provide secure communications—using a low-Earth-orbit satellite—between cities anywhere in the world.

Benefits

• The key cannot be cracked, stolen, or copied—attempts to do so can be detected.
• The key is invulnerable to computer attack.
• The key generator could secure confidential electronic fund transfers—now amounting to $2.3 trillion per day worldwide.
• The key generator could permit certification of public keys for Internet transactions—projected to be a $50 billion per year industry within 10 years.

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RCSD: Remote Container-Sampling Device

Features

• Opens, samples, neutralizes, and vents containers filled with unstable or unknown hazardous materials
• Handles containers of various shapes and sizes (from spray cans to 80-gallon drums)
• Punctures containers by using an internal piston and air pressure, thus reducing the possibility of spontaneous ignition
• Functions from a remote location (as far away as 100 feet), thus ensuring operator safety
• Adapts to conventional emergency response equipment

Applications

• Opens unstable, pressurized, or unknown containers during emergency response activities
• Samples, vents, neutralizes, or transfers chemical contents from damaged containers to new containers
• Benefits the following potential users:
  – hazardous materials teams,
  – fire and police departments,
  – hazardous device teams (for example, bomb squads),
  – environmental restoration teams, and
  – waste site remediation crews

Benefits

• Enables personnel to operate the device from a safe location (up to 100 feet from the hazardous material container)
• Reduces the possibility of spontaneous ignition through the use of a self-contained breathing apparatus air cylinder that provides a compressed-air power source
• Limits the number of employees typically required to work in close proximity to a pressurized drum or hazardous chemical container
• Reduces the amount of equipment used during an operation, thereby diminishing potential fragments (shrapnel) in the event of an explosion
• Reduces emergency response costs by conducting operations on-site with fewer people

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ROAM: Real-Time Optimally Adapting Meshes

Features

Our ROAM software package

• functions as a terrain database server for real-time applications, such as flight simulation, virtual reality, and sensor testing and evaluation
• provides scene generation systems with very accurate terrain geometries
• maintains real-time rates regardless of the size of the gaming area or the resolution of the underlying database
• answers terrain-specific queries in real time (for example, is there a clear line-of-sight between specific positions?); these answers are exact (that is, correct for the finest level-of-detail data)
• allows databases to be reused across different hardware platforms and gaming scenarios
• allows databases to be produced automatically from standard geographical datasets

Applications

• Flight simulation and avionics testing
• Video games
• Virtual reality that involves terrain (for example, large-scale environmental or geophysical modeling)
• Sensor testing and evaluation

Benefits

ROAM software

• uses portable terrain databases that are automatically produced from standard datasets—a process that saves time and money.
• produces high-quality terrain using remarkably few graphics resources (polygons), thereby freeing resources for other uses (such as rendering targets or backgrounds)
• produces quantitatively accurate terrain geometry with an error-metric output, which is important for test and evaluation applications
• guarantees that independent, noncommunicating simulations can achieve consistent results

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