Water Emergency Transportation Authority

DeepWater Desal (DWD) is developing the Monterey Bay Regional Water Project (MBRWP or the Project) at Moss Landing, California. The MBRWP will consist of a seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination facility and co-located seawater-cooled computer data centers. The Project will be capable of producing up to 25,000 acre-feet of high quality potable water annually. Seawater desalination has been recognized as an important component of the overall regional approach to addressing water supply for the Monterey Bay region. The volume of water produced at the facility, and its central location within the region, make it an ideal solution to augment potable water supplies available in the region. The Project is intended to make a new supply of potable water available north to Santa Cruz, east to Salinas and south to the Monterey Peninsula.

Eco Products Group (EPG) is an environmental technology corporation developing proprietary water conservation products for residential, commercial and institutional environments. The need for water conservation is globally recognized, accepted and being mandated by most municipal water systems. The EPG technology and product lines enable the consumer to conserve 50% - 70% of the water that normally flows down a sink into the sewer system untouched and unused.

Well Aware is a nonprofit organization. It builds reliable, long-lasting water sources that will not fail and will continue to provide clean water for life, enabling entire communities and future generations to thrive, grow, and develop. It was founded in 2008 and is based in Austin, Texas.

Hyfi provides high-resolution water level data to help stormwater managers, first responders, and the public respond to floods in real-time. It was founded in 2020 and is based in Ann Arbor, Mchigan.

Agrihouse is a company that received a STTR Phase I grant for a project entitled: Precision Plant Irrigation Control Utilizing Leaf Thickness Sensor Technology. Their research project will develop an innovative method that enables reliable feedback for plant irrigation control by direct detection of impending water deficit stress (WDS) in plants. This technology indicates water deficit stress of living plants by measuring the thickness of leaves, which decreases dramatically at the onset of leaf dehydration. The proposed method overcomes the obstacle of traditional methods for determining the thickness of living plant leaves, measuring leaf thickness non-destructively, gently, reliably, conveniently, with high resolution, and in real-time. This novel real-time leaf sensor technology is non-destructive to the plants and can be used on a wide number of species. The proposed leaf sensor can easily be miniaturized and automated without hindering plant cycles. It combines concepts of engineering and plant physiology while employing recent technological advances in electronics and information technologies. Early detection of impending water deficit stress in plants may be used as an input parameter for precision irrigation control, a strategy which has the potential to preserve enormous amounts of precious freshwater while ensuring successful plant cultivation and crop yield optimization. Such a device may find commercial applications in agricultural sectors or the greenhouse industry. The research would develop this novel method into a sensor that is applicable reliably, conveniently, and permanently under field conditions. This research implements this novel real-time leaf sensor-technology into an automated irrigation system as a proof-of-concept demonstration, and evaluates its performance in terms of reliable plant cultivation and its potential for water conservation under realistic farming conditions.

Supercon is a company that received a SBIR Phase II grant for a project entitled: A New Production Method for Ta Fibers for Use in Electrolytic Capacitors with Improved Performance and Packaging Options. Their project is intended to develop a new process for manufacturing tantalum (Ta) metal fibers for use in producing tantalum capacitors, and advance this process to the stage of commercialization. This technology, which has been demonstrated in Phase I, could lead to capacitor products having higher performance and greater volumetric efficiency than any currently available. The use of fibers in place of metal powder allows the production of thin anode bodies leading to improved packing options and component performance. The innovation underlying the technology is bundle drawing of Ta filaments in a copper matrix. A composite consisting of Ta filaments in a copper matrix is drawn is a series of reduction steps until the filaments are less than about 10 microns in diameter. The drawn wire is rolled to produce ribbon-type filaments that are 1 micron or less in thickness. The copper composite matrix is chemically dissolved without attacking the Ta to produce metallic Ta high surface area, ribbon-fibers. The fibers are formed into thin mats, which are sintered to produce porous metal strips from which high surface area capacitor anodes are made. A significant aspect of this approach is that fiber morphology can be varied over a wide of fiber thicknesses unlike powder. This allows the morphology of the fibers to be optimized for the particular voltage rating and use requirements in order to maximize the performance of the capacitor. Commercially, nearly all medical, automotive, military and many consumer electronic devices utilize Ta electrolytic capacitors due to their outstanding performance, reliability and volumetric efficiency. Solid electrolytic capacitors are currently made from Ta metal powder. Several million pounds per year of Ta powder are consumed in manufacturing Ta capacitors for these applications. The trend in electronics is toward high powder components and increased miniaturization. Combined with the need to lower materials and manufacturing costs, these considerations have created an opportunity for new method of producing solid electrolytic capacitors. Fiber metal technology has the potential to both lower manufacturing costs, improve capacitor performance, and improve packaging options, which could enable the development of new product that are either currently very difficult or very expensive to make using current technology base on metal powder. Supercon is a company that received a SBIR Phase I grant for a project entitled: A New Production Method for Ta Fibers for Use in Electrolytic Capacitors with Improved Performance and Packaging Options. Their project is intended to demonstrate a new process for manufacturing valve metal fibers for use in producing capacitors. The technology is applicable to all valve metals used for making solid electrolytic capacitors. If successful, this technology could lead to capacitor products having higher performance and greater volumetric efficiency than are currently available. The use of fibers in place of the standard powder compacts allows the production of thin anode bodies leading to improved packaging options and component performance. The innovation underlying the technology is bundle drawing of valve metal filaments contained in copper matrix. A composite consisting of valve metal filaments in a copper matrix is drawn in series of reduction steps until the filaments are less than 10 microns. The drawn wire is rolled to produce submicron thick ribbon type filaments. The copper composite matrix is chemically dissolved to produce metallic thin fibers. The fibers are formed into thin mats, which are sintered to produce porous metal strips from which high surface area capacitor anodes can be made. A significant aspect of this approach is that fiber morphology can be varied within a wide range of thickness and widths unlike powders. This allows the morphology of the fibers to be optimized in order to maximize the properties of the capacitor. Commercially, nearly all medical, automotive and consumer electronic devices all utilize solid electrolytic capacitors due to their performance, volumetric efficiency, and high reliability. Several million pounds per year of powder are consumed in the manufacture of capacitors for these applications. The trend towards higher power components, and miniaturization, combined with the need to lower materials and manufacturing costs have created an opportunity for new methods of producing solid electrolytic capacitors. Fiber metal technology has the potential to both lower manufacturing costs, improve capacitor performance, and improve packaging options which could lead to new products that are either very difficult or very expensive to make using current methods.