NEI Corporation is a Somerset, NJ based company that has received a grant(s) from the Department of Energy's SBIR/STTR program. The abstract(s) for these grant award(s) are provided as well since they provide insights into NEI Corporation's business and areas of expertise. This project will develop a mercury remediation solution for use in contaminated U. S. Department of Energy waste sites, thereby leading to cost savings and reducing the time for treating waste. This project will develop a nanoparticle-based technology that will enable coal-fired power plants to use sources of water other than conventional rivers or lakes. The nanoparticle-based technology also will be a cost-effective means of reducing the amount of toxic metals in waste water streams. This project will develop a nanotechnology-based coating for industrial vapor-to-liquid heat exchangers to enhance their performance by an order of magnitude and improve the energy efficiency of associated industrial processes. This project will enhance the properties of elastomeric seals for use in geothermal energy production and has the potential to prevent failure of equipment and to allow the down-hole equipment to run unattended for extended periods of time, greater than 5 to 10 years, without maintenance. This project will develop nanoparticle-enabled fluid technology to enhance the performance of heat exchangers used in small refining operations across the nation. The enhanced performance of the heat exchangers will lead to cost and energy savings. This project will develop technology to enable a new generation of lithium-ion batteries to deliver the required energy storage capacity at an economical price, making Li-ion batteries for electric utility and vehicles applications more affordable. This project will develop non-chromate corrosion inhibiting coating systems to enable the use of light weight magnesium alloys in automobiles. The result will lead to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and fuel costs to consumers. This project will develop a nanotechnology-based, self-healing industrial coating. Self-healing coatings will have significantly enhanced operational lives, thereby reducing installation and repair costs. There is a present need for sorbent technologies to enable coal-fired power plants to reduce mercury emissions. This project will develop a novel environmentally friendly sorbent technology to meet this emerging market need. This project will develop and implement a new class of 5V high voltage Li-ion battery cathode material for next generation plug in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). This project will develop advanced materials for use as the internal wall of a fusion power reactor is expected to enable fusion power to be developed as a sustainable source of energy. This project will develop a new chemistry for Flow Batteries so that it is highly efficient, has long cycle life, and is low cost and non-toxic. The flow batteries can be used by utilities, in conjunction with green power generation, such as solar, wind turbine and fuel cell. The proposed technology will reduce the cost of the mercury removal from coal fired power plants, thereby allowing power plant utility companies to comply with mercury regulation. The proposed novel modified dielectric percolative composites will be reliable and will have high dielectric constant, thereby delivering high energy density to future solid state pulsed power systems.

The SRT Group, Inc. (SRT) is a technology oriented firm focused on developing and licensing energy technologies. SRT has developed and patented advanced halogen-based processes for: nn‚· electrical energy storage,nn‚· renewable hydrogen production,nn‚· biowaste (carbonaceous waste) treatment,nn‚· multi-emission (SOx, NOx, Hg, HAPs) control,nn‚· solar energy conversion to heat & electricity,nn‚· liquid fuel production from hydrogen,nn‚· sour-gas (H2S) sweetening, andnn‚· greenhouse gas reduction. nnThe enforcement of the Clean Air & Water Acts, renewable portfolio standards, growth in peak electric demand, and the rise in oil & natural gas prices create an immediate opportunity for SRT's patented processes. The company's near-term goal is to develop the biowaste to biofuel technology with energy storage, followed by the clean-coal & sour-gas technologies, and eventually SRT's solar processes. The solar technology will integrate all the SRT processes into a benign total energy system suitable for most of the planet.

Octillion Corp., together with its wholly owned subsidiaries, is a technology incubator focused on the identification, acquisition, development, and commercialization of alternative and renewable energy technologies. Through established relationships with universities, research institutions, government agencies and start-up companies, the company strive to identify technologies and business opportunities on an edge of innovation that have the potential of serving and unmet market needs. nOnce a technology has been identified, the company fund the research and development activities relating to the technology with the intention of ultimately, if warranted, licensing, commercializing and marketing the subject technology, either through internal resources, collaborative agreements or otherwise. Unique to the company's business model is the use of established research infrastructure owned by the various organizations the company deal with, saving us capital which would otherwise be required for such things as land and building acquisition, equipment and furniture purchases, and other incidental start up costs. As a result, the company are able to conduct research in development. nnAmong the company's current research and development activities is the development of a patent-pending technology that could adapt existing home and office glass windows into ones capable of generating electricity from solar energy without losing transparency or requiring major changes in manufacturing infrastructure. The company are also developing a system to harness the kinetic energy of vehicles in motion as part of a broader effort to enhance the sustainability and energy efficiency of transportation infrastructures and systems.

Isosceles is a company that received a STTR Phase I grant for a project entitled: Full Spectrum Conjugated Polymers for Highly Efficient Organic Photovoltaics. Their their award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and their project will demonstrate the feasibility of forming full spectrum highly efficient polymer solar cells from newly designed conjugated and potentially variable bandgap polymers that harvest visible through infrared light. The novel materials will be forged by incorporating Silole and donor-acceptor-donor moieties into the backbone and are expected to increase light harvesting and carrier mobility, and hence short circuit current output potentially by a factor of three over the state of the art. The key innovations of this work will also optimize energy levels to reduce voltage loss and further optimization of device structure and film morphology is expected improve fill factor. The primary objective of phase I is to determine the feasibility of forging full spectrum and high carrier mobility conjugated polymers that achieve highly efficient solar conversion. An ancillary goal of this work is arrive at an understanding of photophysical processes and device physics that will lead to optimal device fabrication during phase II. The environmental, societal and economic impacts of this technology are enormously broad. The ensuing abrupt drop in energy costs stemming from full spectrum harvesting promises to deliver stability and urgently needed relief to today's volatile oil based global economy. While photovoltaic (PV) production is already the fastest growing source of energy across the globe, the planned efforts of this STTR project are expected to disruptively reduce the projected cost of photovoltaic production in 2010 by a factor of 3. At a forecasted production cost of $0.70 per Watt, this research will demonstrate a technology that is competitive with the cost of electricity that is produced from fossil fuels. This technology will provide clean and cost competitive energy for home and industrial power, vehicle propulsion, consumer electronics, remote sensing, security, and an endless list of existing applications that currently rely on energy from fossil fuel.

Solarno is a company that received a STTR Phase I grant for a project entitled: Synthesis of multifunctional nanofibrous polyaniline/carbon composites. Their their award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and their project will develop novel multifunctional materials based on polyaniline (PAni) nanofibers (PANFs) and carbon nanofibers(CNFs) for energy storage. Although PAni composites have been reported for a wide range of applications, including sensors, biosensors, photoelectrochromic cells, etc., due to their excellent electrical, thermal and mechanical properties, none capitalize on the enhanced properties expected from the combination of PANF with CNF. PANFs have greater electronic conductivity than PAni nanospheres and nanorods and can be synthesized on a variety of substrates. Solarno will use a proprietary process for synthesizing composites of PANFs on CNFs. In Phase I Solarno will use these composites as electrode materials for asymmetric supercapacitors, an enabling technology that provides both high energy and power, with the specific technical objectives of: synthesizing and characterizing PANFs on CNF substrates, and achieving supercapacitor performance of 15 Wh/kg, 10 kW/kg and >10 cycles, thus far exceeding current lead acid batteries in terms of power and cycle life. In Phase II we will improve the energy density of these devices to enable potential replacement of such batteries, and explore other functions for the composites, such as sensors and electro-chemical devices. The PANF/CNF composites developed by Solarno will be introduced to the supercapacitor market via materials sales, and partnering/licensing arrangements, and later to related electrochemical functions/applications. Solarno is targeting requirements of the Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) market for its initial supercapacitor designs, and as such, the ultimate customers will be major automobile manufacturers. The market requires that capacitors provide higher energy density, reduced size, higher reliability, and lower cost. Commercially available EDLCs commonly provide energy densities around 4 Wh/kg, and power densities between 15-21 kW/kg. The supercapacitor developed here can excel in this market by providing energy density > 25 Wh/kg and better reliability (>2.0 x 104 cycles); the Phase I work will optimize the properties of our PANF/CNF composite to meet this goal. The supercapacitors will also be well-suited for load-leveling for renewable energy sources; direct societal benefits will come from improving the viability of HEVs and renewable sources, tied to reductions in fossil fuel consumption, providing bridge power for wind and solar power farms, and partially replacing lead acid storage batteries. The results of this work in optimizing PAni composites for supercapacitors will translate well into improved functionality for other applications.

Nanoptek Corporation is developing technology that produces hydrogen directly from sunlight and water with a nano-engineered photocatalyst (patents pending). Nanoptek's Solar Hydrogen Generators will employ this photocatalyst to produce low-cost carbon-free hydrogen anywhere in the world, for use in clean power production, manufacturing, and transportation.