SBIR Phase II: Scalable Photonic Crystal Fabrication for Mesoscale Fuel-to-Electricity Conversion

SBIR 第二阶段：用于中尺度燃料到电力转换的可扩展光子晶体制造

• 批准号: 2132718
• 负责人: Veronika Stelmakh
• 金额: $ 94.53万
• 依托单位: MESODYNE INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Cooperative Agreement
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-02-15 至 2025-01-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2132718&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; II; Scalable; Photonic

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is to commercialize a novel technology that enables compact, efficient, silent, reliable, and fuel-flexible power generation. Existing power solutions can lack endurance, reliability, and portability and often generate harmful emissions; or they are prohibitively expensive or incompatible with existing fuels and distribution infrastructure. The power generation platform developed in this project has the potential to be a key enabling technology for the future rapid growth of commercial drone applications, which currently are often limited by the performance of lithium ion batteries. Drones are expected to make an impact across numerous industries including transport and delivery, power and utilities, telecommunications, and remote sensing. Additionally, this power generation technology can benefit industrial internet of things applications.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project aims to develop a novel power source that is easily portable and is compatible with existing fuel infrastructure. This project develops a system that converts most fuels to electricity via light; combustion heats a nanophotonic material to incandescence and the resulting light drives photovoltaic cells. The nanophotonic material is engineered to be spectrally matched to the photovoltaic cells, enabling efficient conversion. This technology can increase the endurance of drones or other systems up to ten times over batteries alone. This work is focused on cost reduction through new material development. The specific research objectives are to demonstrate a low-cost and scalable process for the nanophotonic material and photovoltaic cell while maintaining high performance, and then integrate and pilot the low cost system. Successful completion of these objectives will enable this technology to translate to drone applications with a compelling need for long-lasting portable power.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

这项小型企业创新研究（SBIR）II期项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是将新颖的技术商业化，该技术可以使紧凑，高效，沉默，可靠和燃料燃烧发电。现有的电力解决方案可能缺乏耐力，可靠性和便携性，并且经常产生有害排放；或者它们与现有的燃料和分销基础设施的昂贵或不兼容。 该项目开发的发电平台有可能成为商业无人机应用程序未来快速增长的关键促进技术，目前通常受到锂离子电池的性能的限制。预计无人机将对许多行业产生影响，包括运输和交付，电力和公用事业，电信和遥感。此外，这项发电技术可以使工业互联网应用程序受益。本小型企业创新研究（SBIR）II期项目旨在开发一种易于便携的新型电源，并且与现有的燃料基础设施兼容。该项目开发了一个系统，该系统将大多数燃料通过光转换为电力。燃烧会将纳米光材料加热到白炽灯，而所得的光驱动光伏细胞。纳米光材料经过设计，可将光伏细胞频谱匹配，从而有效地转化。这项技术可以将无人机或其他系统的耐力增加到10次，仅在电池上仅十倍。这项工作的重点是通过新的材料开发来降低成本。具体的研究目标是证明纳米光材料和光伏电池的低成本和可扩展过程，同时保持高性能，然后整合并驾驶低成本系统。这些目标的成功完成将使这项技术能够转化为无人机应用程序，对长期持久便携式功率的需求令人信服。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子和更广泛影响的评估评估标准来通过评估来获得支持的。