Sugar – to – Hydrogen Technology Could Lead to Fuel Independence

Researchers at Virginia Tech, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the University of Georgia have proposed using polysaccharides, or sugary carbohydrates, from biomass to directly produce low-cost hydrogen for the new hydrogen economy.

According to the DOE, advances are needed in four areas to make hydrogen fuel an economical reality for transportation: production, storage, distribution, and fuel cells. Most industrial hydrogen currently comes from natural gas, which has become expensive. Storing and moving the gas, whatever its source, is costly and cumbersome, and even dangerous. And there is little infrastructure for refueling a vehicle.

Using synthetic biology approaches, the researchers are using a combination of 13 enzymes never found together in nature to completely convert polysaccharides (C6H10O5) and water into hydrogen when and where that form of energy is needed. Polysaccharides are used by plants for energy storage and building blocks and are very stable until exposed to enzymes. Just add enzymes to a mixture of starch and water and “the enzymes use the energy in the starch to break up water into only carbon dioxide and hydrogen,” said Y.H. Percival Zhang, assistant professor of biological systems engineering at Virginia Tech.

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Meet NTB’s New Advertisers for June

This monthly review lets you “meet” the new advertisers appearing in NTB and its supplements. Here’s a sneak peek at the products, services, and offers available from May’s first-time advertisers.

3Dconnexion (San Jose, CA) is a provider of 3D navigation devices for 3D design and visualization applications.

Access Laser Co. (Marysville, WA) offers RF excited CO2 and CO lasers for spectroscopy-based instrumentation, laser marking and cutting, laser surgery, night-vision illumination, and more.

Daitron, Inc. (Wilsonville, OR) is a distributor and manufacturer’s representative of machine vision inspection hardware offering analog and digital area-scan and line-scan cameras, ranging from standard to high-resolution progressive scan models.

FLIR Systems (Wilsonville, OR) designs and manufactures thermal imaging and stabilized camera systems for a wide variety of thermography imaging applications.

Fluid Line Products (Willoughby, OH) is a designer and manufacturer of fluid power components for the off-highway equipment, engine, trucking, and military industries.

Intelligent Motion Systems (Marlborough, CT) specializes in the design and manufacture of capacitive load sensors for automotive, aerospace, medical device, and industrial applications.

FlexPDE 5 from PDE Solutions Inc. (Spokane Valley, WA) is an unlimited scripted multi-physics finite element solution environment for partial differential equations.

Photonfocus AG (Switzerland) provides CMOS image sensors and cameras for industrial image processing.

Sprinter Marking (Zanesville, OH) manufactures a range of machine models that automatically ink code-mark message sizes up to 2 square inches on a wide range of porous and non-porous surfaces.

Sony Electronics (Park Ridge, NJ) is a leading manufacturer of audio, video, communications, and information technology products for the consumer and professional markets.

Zircar(Florida, NY) consists of three companies specializing in distinct areas of the original company’s product lines: ZIRCAR Ceramics, ZIRCAR Refractory Composites, and Zircar Zirconia.

Wanted: “Green” Materials

A global specialty chemical company is seeking innovative “green” renewable raw materials, products, and processes for replacement of existing non- environmentally friendly solvents, while not compromising the performance or significantly increasing the cost.
To respond to this Tech Need click here.

Technologies are needed for the economical production of polymers that are based on today’s generally accepted standards for “green” chemistry. Of particular interest are chemistries that produce safe chemicals, and/or that use safer solvents and auxiliaries, and/or that produce chemicals designed for degradation.
To respond to this Tech Need click here.

The Technology Needs of the Week are anonymous requests for technology, distributed through the yet2.com marketplace, that you and your organization may be able to fulfill. Responding to a Tech Need is the first step to gaining an introduction with a prospective “buyer” for your technology solution.

NASA Spacecraft Aids in Forecast of Solar Radiation Storms

NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) now enables scientists to forecast solar radiation storms, giving future astronauts time to seek shelter and ground controllers time to safeguard satellites. The new method offers as much as one-hour advance notice when a storm is approaching.

Solar radiation storms are swarms of electrons, protons, and heavy ions accelerated to high speed by explosions on the sun. On Earth, humans are protected from these particles by Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field. “Solar radiation storms are notoriously difficult to predict. They often take us by surprise, but now we’ve found a way to anticipate these events,” said Arik Posner, a physicist in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

The key to the breakthrough was the Comprehensive Suprathermal and Energetic Particle Analyzer (COSTEP) instrument on board the observatory. COSTEP counts particles coming from the sun and measures their energies. Posner looked at hundreds of radiation storms recorded by COSTEP between 1996 and 2002, and was able to construct an empirical, predictive matrix that involved plugging an electron data into the matrix, and an ion forecast emerging.

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NASA/Industry Partnership Results in New Decision-Making Software

As part of NASA’s Partnership Seed Fund program, Goddard Space Flight Center is integrating the ILIADS software, a geospatial information system (GIS) it developed for lunar applications, with Questus(TM), a management and planning software tool developed by United Space Alliance (USA) for space shuttle operations. The integration will result in a new decision-making application that NASA can use to plan and carry out future robotic and crewed missions to the Moon.

Using internal research and development funding, Goddard technologists modified commercial off-the-shelf GIS software typically used in terrestrial applications to design ILIADS (Integrated Lunar Information Architecture for Decision Support). It gives users access to 3D lunar crater scenes, topographic contour maps, surface distance and elevation measurements, in situ resource and hazard maps, and historical mission data and other useful datasets.

The ILIADS-Questus software will let mission planners directly apply scientific data gathered from remote-sensing satellites and other sources to select potential landing and habitat sites. Ultimately, the tool will support human exploratory sorties on the lunar surface later in the next decade. USA can commercialize the new product, particularly in its work developing NASA’s next-generation trans- portation system, the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV). Goddard and USA expect to complete the integration of ILIADS and Questus in time for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a Goddard-led mission that will spend a year mapping the Moon after its launch in 2008.

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