News and Events
The MSSE Division participates in sponsor-funded research and development and supports a number of conferences in scientific and technical areas. Recent events and information regarding our research, publications, proposals, awards, technical directions, conferences, staffing, and student and faculty visitors will be posted here on a regular basis.
December 2011
Big winners: 2 Oak Ridge seniors win $100,000 science competition
knoxnews.com
by Mike Blackerby
These are the students that Boyd Evans and John Mueller mentioned for the Simens award. The team's mentors are Boyd Evans and John Mueller in the Microelectronics Systems Research Group of the Measurement Science & Systems Engineering Division at ORNL.
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Oak Ridge High School senior Cassee Cain remembers well one of her first class science projects way back in elementary school.
"I remember doing a classic plant-a-seed-and-watch-it-grow," said Cain with a laugh, speaking by phone from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., on Monday afternoon.
Cain has certainly blossomed into one of the nation's top high-school research students since that early rudimentary science project.
Cain and fellow Oak Ridge High senior Ziyuan Liu, both 17, were awarded the $100,000 grand prize Monday in the team category of the 13th annual Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology.
The competition is considered America's premier science research competition for high-school students.
Cain and Liu won the prestigious award by using new gaming technology to analyze human walking patterns.
Their bioengineering project, "Using Kinect for Xbox 360 and Computer Vision to Analyze Human Gait," provides an accurate understanding of a person's motion and is important in prescribing treatment for those with injuries or ailments that affect movement, such as for amputees or people with joint replacements. Their work could ultimately contribute to prosthesis design.
"This team's project involved the creative reuse of new gaming technology — the Kinect sensor — with advanced computer vision algorithms," said competition judge Sudeep Sarkar, a professor at the University of South Florida.
"When further developed, their system could open avenues to bring personalized rehabilitation to the home. This could potentially reduce medical costs, allowing clinicians to monitor a patient's progress from a remote site."
The students said they conceived the idea for their project while working at Oak Ridge National Laboratory last summer. The team's mentors on the project were Dr. John K. Mueller and Dr. Boyd McCutchen Evans III of ORNL.
Liu said a kids-being-kids moment sparked the final decision to go ahead with the project.
"This concept was developed between the two of us — we've been friends for so long," said Liu.
"I was at her house playing with Kinect and we were trying to figure out how does this thing critique our dance moves."
Both students credited their parental influences and Oak Ridge background for their successes.
"Being in Oak Ridge kind of automatically pushes you to math and science," said Cain, who has a 4.22 GPA and plans to major in chemical engineering.
"Oak Ridge has given us a very strong influence," said Liu, who has a 4.1 GPA and is mulling a business and computer science major. "Growing up with a laser scientist as a father has definitely piqued my interest in science."
An all-time record of 2,436 students, representing 1,541 projects, registered for the Siemens competition this year.
ORNL Today
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Ken Tobin, director of the Measurements Science & Systems Engineering division, has been elected an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Fellow for his "contributions to computer vision technology instrumentation and measurement."
Ken was named a Corporate Research Fellow in 2003 for his contributions to the field of applied computer vision research that addressed industrial and economic competitiveness, biomedical measurement science, and national security. He has authored and co-authored more than 135 publications and currently holds 10 U.S. patents with three additional patents pending in areas of computer vision, photonics, radiography and microscopy.
In 2010, Ken received an R&D 100 Award for his work in content-based image retrieval applied to both industry and biomedicine.
November 2011
ORNL's Andrews to head Tennessee Academy of Science
Frank Munger's Atomic City Underground
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William H. "Andy" Andrews, a researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is the new president of the Tennessee Academy of Science. He took office at the academy's annual meeting in late October at Union University in Jackson. Andrews, a staff member in ORNL's Measurement Science and Systems Engienering Division, had served as the academy's president-elect for the previous year.
The Tennessee Academy of Science promotes research and the spread of scientific knowledge and facilitates communication among scientists in the state.
Frank Munger on November 22, 2011 at 2:31 PM
People and Honors: Wayne William Manges
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Wayne William Manges has been named a Distinguished ISA Fellow by the International Society of Automation. He is a program manager at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Siemens regional competition winners
Two Oak Ridge High School seniors; Ziyuan Liu and Cassee Cain took the regional championship at the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology on Saturday at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. The two advance to nationals Dec. 2-5 in Washington D.C. and a shot at a $100,000 scholarship that goes to the winners, part of $500,000 that will be awarded at the event.
The team's mentors are Boyd Evans and John Mueller in the Microelectronics Systems Research Group of the Measurement Science & Systems Engineering Division at ORNL.
It should also be noted that Ziyuan is the son of ORNL employee, Bo Liu in the Computer Science and Mathematics Division.
Link to Knoxville News Sentinel Article:
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2011/nov/05/oak-ridge-students-win-regional-scholastic/
Link to Oak Ridger Article before the competition:
http://www.oakridger.com/features/x2086385525/Oak-Ridge-High-School-teams-headed-to-Siemens-regional-competition-in-Georgia
New technology to bring manufacturing jobs back to U.S.
Engineers at Oak Ridge National Laboratories are developing new technology to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.
Posted: 3:55 PM Nov 9, 2011
Reporter: Kate Burgess
Email Address: kate.burgess@wvlt-tv.com
New technology to bring manufacturing jobs back to U.S. (video)
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT)--American manufacturing has been on the decline for years. Furniture builders, automotive workers, electronics makers and thousands of other workers have watched their jobs go overseas.
That's why engineers at Oak Ridge National Laboratories are developing new technology to bring manufacturing jobs back home.
"We're going to help mature this technology to take it from prototyping to manufacturing. And number two, we can take existing companies that are interested in being more competitive and introduce them to the technology, so that they can make new products," said Lonnie Love, Group Leader for ORNL's Automation and Robotics Manufacturing Group.
It all happens at the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility in Hardin Valley. Special machines melt down powdered metal, then use lasers to build it back up.
Love said, "this is like bees building a honeycomb. You're actually building parts up, you're growing them layer, by layer, by layer."
Engineers at the MDF can build nearly anything. From prosthetic limbs to robotic hands; All at a fraction of the cost of traditional manufacturing. Love said "additive manufacturing" is the future of American industry.
"We can start to get companies that we don't even know what they can make yet, to come in here look at the technology and have a vision for what they can create with this technology," he added.
One thing it's sure to create? Jobs. Biomedical development, automotive assembly, robotics....What Love called, "high value jobs."
He added, "If we can start to increase manufacturing, there will be not only new manufacturing jobs, but support jobs that go along with it."
He also expects East Tennessee to "become a hub. Not only for companies that make this type of equipment, but also companies that are interested in manufacturing this type of equipment."
ORNL expects hundreds of companies from across the country to come to the demo center over the next few years.
The DOE sponsored the project.
An international conference for sophisticated doodads and gizmos at ORNL
Frank Munger's Atomic City Underground
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The 2011 Future of Instrumentation International Workshop will be held next week at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
According to organizers, the conference "will bring a unique mix of perspectives on advanced instruments, sensors, measurement science and related topics such as advanced functional materials. By having both applications and a technology focus, the workshop will provide an interesting intersection of emerging developments as well as an opportunity to learn about advancements in differing fields of industry and science."
Here's more: "Our aim is to inspire cross pollination of new approaches to challenging measurement problems by engaging researchers, government and business leaders. Each year there are a variety of meetings and conferences that pertain to various aspects of sensors, automation, instrumentation and applications. In many of these meetings there tends to be a look over the horizon at new technology with the bulk of the conference describing past and current efforts."
Organizers said the Oak Ridge conference will en opportunity to put some of his new knowledge into action by providing a roadmap for the future. "It is our goal that this roadmap will be referenced by investors and decision-makers to push the forefront of future instrumentation," the conference statement.
The conference has high ambitions.
"The goal is to focus on advanced instrumentation, measurement concepts and scientific underpinnings that enable new methods and applications of instrumentation. With instrumentation embedded into an expansive array of applications across virtually every aspect of life (e.g., biotechnology, health care, space exploration, consumer products, and all aspects of the nation's infrastructure ), we are striving to assemble a group of technologists, analysts, and business leaders to investigate the impact of current trends in instrumentation technology on application areas including the electric grid, industry, transportation, medicine, environment, nuclear power, buildings and food safety."
Posted by Frank Munger on November 3, 2011
Creepy PETMAN Robot Can Walk And Do Pushups, Just Like A Human
TPM
Carl Franzen
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The field of robotics is steadily advancing, one metallic step at a time.
Unconvinced? Just take a look at a new demonstration video from Massachusetts robotics company Boston Dynamics, featuring PETMAN, their anthropomorphic robot that walks in place, maintains its balance when pushed, crouches and does pushups with the fluidity of some humans. And all without a head. (H/T: Danger Room)
The robot is the latest eye-catching machine from Boston Dynamics, a robotics company spun off in 1992 and led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Marc Raibert. To date, the company is perhaps best known around the Web for videos of its Big Dog robotic pack animal in action. The new humanoid robot uses much of the same motion technology as the Big Dog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mclbVTIYG8E&feature=player_embedded |
PETMAN, though, is arguably an even more striking advancement, given how closely it mimics the dynamic range of human motions, even struggling to maintain its balance when buffeted in mid-stride.
As Boston Dynamics explains, the robot was designed to test “chemical protection clothing used by the US Army,” under a “variety of suit-stressing calisthenics during exposure to chemical warfare agents.”
In essence, PETMAN was designed to be destroyed, or at least get severely damaged: The robot will be dressed in new NBC suit materials and sprayed with chemical weapons in a chamber as Army scientists look on and record the effectiveness of the materials.
Not only that, Boston Dynamics reports that robot will even “simulate human physiology,” including sweat, to allow Army researchers to better understand how the new materials will actually perform.
Possessing such minute details, it seems that PETMAN has already crossed into the uncanny valley separating robots and humans.
The entire robot was developed and built in just two years time, with support from Midwest Research Institute (MRI), Measurement Technologies Northwest, Oak Ridge National Lab as well as Smith Carter CUH2A (SCC) and HHI Corporation, according to Boston Dynamics.
We’ve reached out to Boston Dynamics for more information on the cost of the robot and other details and we’ll update when we receive a response.
Army, MIT, Military, Military Technology, Robots
Carl Franzen is TPM Idea Lab's tech reporter. He used to work for The Daily, AOL and The Atlantic Wire (though not simultaneously, thankfully). He's never met a button that didn't need to be pressed. He can be reached at carl@talkingpointsmemo.com.
People and Honors: Terry Payne
Knoxville News Sentinel
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Terry Payne has been appointed to the Anderson County Chamber's board of directors. He is R&D program manager at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
October 2011
Story Tips from the DOE's ORNL – Marissa Morales
Newswise — To arrange for an interview with a researcher, please contact the Communications and External Relations staff member identified at the end of each tip. For more information on ORNL and its research and development activities, please refer to one of our Media Contacts. If you have a general media-related question or comment, you can send it to news@ornl.gov.
SENSORS -- Detection from afar . . .
A new instrument able to detect chemical residues from a distance overcomes a number of problems that have plagued laser-based detectors of the past, according to Marissa Morales of Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Measurement Science and Systems Engineering Division. Using a tunable mid-infrared quantum cascade laser and an infrared camera, Morales and colleagues were able to identify as little as 5 micrograms per square centimeter of an explosive residue on a stainless steel surface. The ORNL system avoids safety problems associated with high-power lasers and approaches that require the laser to methodically scan a large area, a slow process. ORNL’s technique also avoids problems of interference in the infrared region from background material. [Contact: Ron Walli, (865) 576-0226; wallira@ornl.gov]
September 2011
Wireless Standard Receives IEC Approval
Wayne Manges, ORNL Industrial Wireless Manager in the Measurement Science& Systems Engineering Division, and co-chair of the ISA100 committee, announces Wireless Standard Receives IEC Approval
Wayne Manges, ORNL MSSE, serving in a dual capacity as co-chair of the International Society of Automation's (ISA) ISA100, Wireless Systems for Industrial Automation, committee and the ISA100 Working Group 14, Trustworthy Wireless Working Group, heralded the first industrial wireless standard developed with direct end-user participation and support. ISA, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, announced on September 16, 2011, that ISA100.11a-2011, "Wireless Systems for Industrial Automation: Process Control and Related Applications," has been approved by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) as a publicly available specification, or PAS. This follows its approval earlier this year as an ISA standard, developed per ISA's open consensus process as accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
What is most noteworthy is that ISA100 was founded and guided by the Department of Energy’s Industrial Technology Program (ITP) and DOE’s Office of Electricity (OE) with a goal to help the nation in achieving the 10% potential energy impact that was outlined by National Academy of Sciences and a Presidential Advisory Committee in 1998 and 2002, respectively. IEC approval of ISA100.11a-2011 has substantial benefit to the world’s energy generation and delivery utilities for such entities are typically required to deploy devices that are IEC compliant. As ISA100.11a was evolving the implications of cybersecurity in relation to wireless devices deployed in industrial settings was strengthened by DOE-OE input and review. The standard was developed with hundreds of experts contributing through a conscious process driven by end users representing a wide array of industrial sectors (utilities, oil & gas, pharmaceuticals, automotive). “Wayne Manges should be commended for guiding this, at times very contentious, ISA/ANSI/IEC approval process of this first standard for industrial wireless. His unique position at ORNL allowed him to bring DOE and other agencies’ input into the standard, the net result being an outstanding technical achievement in standards for industrial automation,” said Bill Allen (Alcoa).
Background on ISA100 (www.isa.org/isa100)
ISA-100.11a-2011 was developed to provide reliable and secure wireless
operation for noncritical monitoring, alerting, supervisory control, open
loop control and closed loop control applications. The standard defines the
protocol suite, system management, gateway and security specifications for
low-data-rate wireless connectivity with fixed, portable and moving devices
supporting very limited power consumption requirements. The application
focus is to address the performance needs of applications, such as
monitoring and process control, where latencies on the order of 100 ms can
be tolerated, with optional behavior for shorter latency.
With over 600 members from across the globe, ISA100 brings together
wireless experts representing diverse industrial and technical interests in
an open forum. For more information on ISA100, contact Linda Wolffe,
lwolffe@isa.org or visit www.isa.org/standards.
A full article pertaining to this topic can be found at
ISA 100 Wireless Standards Receives IEC Approval
July 2011
10 Questions for a Robotics Engineer: Lonnie Love
Submitted by Niketa Kumar
ENERGY.GOV
July 28, 2011
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Lonnie Love |
In the latest 10 Questions, meet Oak Ridge National Laboratory engineer Lonnie Love. From mesofluidics and hydraulics to solar photovoltaics and biogeneration, Dr. Love discusses his innovative approaches to advancing robotics, clean energy technology and nanomaterials. Get an insider’s look at all this and more below:
Niketa Kumar is a Public Affairs Specialist in the Energy Department's Office of Public Affairs.
Learn more about:
Science: Pyroelectricity key for energy harvesting researchers
ElectronicsWeekly.com
Ferris Jabr, New Scientist
Friday 22 July 2011
In 314 BC the Greek philosopher Theophrastus noticed something unusual: when he heated a black crystalline rock called tourmaline, it would suddenly attract ash and bits of straw. He had observed what we now call pyroelectricity - the ability of certain crystals to produce a voltage briefly when heated or cooled. Now the same phenomenon is being used to convert waste heat into electricity.
Nearly 55 per cent of all the energy generated in the US in 2009 was lost as waste heat, according to research by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. There have been many attempts at using this waste heat to generate electricity, so far with only limited success.
Pyroelectricity could be the key, say Scott Hunter and colleagues at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. They have built an energy harvester that sandwiches a layer of pyroelectric polymer between two electrodes made from different metals.
Just a few millimetres long, the device is deployed by wedging it between a hot surface and a cold surface - between a computer chip and a fan inside a laptop, for example. Crucially, the device is anchored to the hot surface alone and so acts as a cantilever - a beam supported at one end.
As the device warms, the polymer expands more than the electrode close to the cold surface, and the whole device bends like the bimetallic strip in a thermostat. It droops toward the cold surface, where it cools and then springs back toward the hot surface, warming up again. Soon the cantilever is thrumming between the hot and cold surfaces like the hammer of a wind-up alarm clock.
Each time it is heated, the polymer generates a small amount of electricity which is stored in a capacitor (Proceedings of SPIE, DOI: 10.1117/12.882125).
Previous attempts at using pyroelectric materials to recycle waste heat have only managed to turn 2 per cent of the heat into electricity. Hunter believes his device could achieve an efficiency of between 10 and 30 per cent.
Hunter says the device can also convert heat in exhaust gases into electricity. It might even be used to capture the energy that solar cells lose as heat, he says. Energy generation aside, he adds that the devices could soak up enough heat to play a significant role in cooling laptops and data centres.
Laurent Pilon of the University of California, Los Angeles, who also studies pyroelectric energy harvesting, says he likes the compactness of the device and its relative simplicity, but has some doubts about the potential efficiency.
"I think some of their expectations are a little exaggerated," he says. "They are relying on conduction to heat the device, which is a slow process." He and other groups have used fluids to heat or chill a pyroelectric material. This is much quicker, though the need to pump the fluid around does consume some of the energy generated.
Ferris Jabr, New Scientist
Hydrogen may be key to growth of high-quality graphene
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Graphene grains come in several different shapes. Hydrogen gas controls the grains' appearance. Credit: ORNL |
A new approach to growing graphene greatly reduces problems that have plagued researchers in the past and clears a path to the crystalline form of graphite's use in sophisticated electronic devices of tomorrow. |
Particle Identification - Particle size, shape & make-up Using SEM/EDS/AFA Analysis - www.herguth.com
Findings of researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory demonstrate that hydrogen rather than carbon dictates the graphene grain shape and size, according to a team led by ORNL's Ivan Vlassiouk, a Eugene Wigner Fellow, and Sergei Smirnov, a professor of chemistry at New Mexico State University. This research is published in ACS Nano.
"Hydrogen not only initiates the graphene growth, but controls the graphene shape and size," Vlassiouk said. "In our paper, we have described a method to grow well-defined graphene grains that have perfect hexagonal shapes pointing to the faultless single crystal structure."
In the past two years, graphene growth has involved the decomposition of carbon-containing gases such as methane on a copper foil under high temperatures, the so-called chemical vapor deposition method. Little was known about the exact process, but researchers knew they would have to gain a better understanding of the growth mechanism before they could produce high-quality graphene films.
Until now, grown graphene films have consisted of irregular- shaped graphene grains of different sizes, which were usually not single crystals.
"We have shown that, surprisingly, it is not only the carbon source and the substrate that dictate the growth rate, the shape and size of the graphene grain," Vlassiouk said. "We found that hydrogen, which was thought to play a rather passive role, is crucial for graphene growth as well. It contributes to both the activation of adsorbed molecules that initiate the growth of graphene and to the elimination of weak bonds at the grain edges that control the quality of the graphene."
Using their new recipe, Vlassiouk and colleagues have created a way to reliably synthesize graphene on a large scale. The fact that their technique allows them to control grain size and boundaries may result in improved functionality of the material in transistors, semiconductors and potentially hundreds of electronic devices.
Implications of this research are significant, according to Vlassiouk, who said, "Our findings are crucial for developing a method for growing ultra-large-scale single domain graphene that will constitute a major breakthrough toward graphene implementation in real-world devices."
More information: http://pubs.acs.or … 21/nn201978y
Provided by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (news : web)
June 2011
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Wayne W. Manges of the Measurement Science & Systems Engineering Division has been elected to the distinguished grade of International Society of Automation (ISA) Fellow. Fellow membership is conveyed in acknowledgement of an outstanding achievement in scientific or engineering fields as recognized by ISA peers and is the highest grade of membership. Candidates must have a minimum of five years of ISA membership, currently be an ISA Senior Member, and have at least 10 years in instrumentation development, application, operation, management or teaching. Wayne currently serves ISA as co-chair for both ISA100, Wireless Systems for Automation, and the Trustworthy Wireless Working Group (TWWG). The criteria for selection are demanding and only a few members are elected each year, making the Fellow grade a coveted honor.
Award presentations will be made at the Annual ISA Honors & Awards Gala to be held on October 17, 2011, at the Renaissance Riverview Plaza Hotel in Mobile, Alabama. This event is the opportunity for ISA to provide recognition and express appreciation for outstanding achievement to the honorees.
NAE selects Lonnie Love for Frontiers of Engineering symposium
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Lonnie Love of the Robotics & Energetic Systems group is one of 85 engineers selected to take part in the National Academy of Engineering's 17th annual U.S. Frontiers of Engineering symposium. The participants -- engineers ages 30 to 45 who are performing exceptional engineering research and technical work in industry, academia, and government -- were nominated by fellow engineers or organizations and chosen from approximately 315 applicants.
"The young engineering innovators of today are solving the grand challenges that face us in the coming century," says NAE President Charles M. Vest. "We are proud that our Frontiers of Engineering program brings this diverse group of people together and gives them an opportunity to share and showcase their work."
The symposium will be held in September at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., and will examine additive manufacturing, engineering sustainable buildings, neuroprosthetics, and semantic processing.
Lonnie has won a number of awards for his robotics-based research, especially in mesofluidic prosthetic systems. He was 2009's Inventor of the Year at ORNL.
The Microlectronic Systems Research Groups welcomes thirteen student interns for the summer 2011 session. We have a diverse group of student interns with varied educational disciplines coming to us from many different colleges and universities across the country, including two rising seniors from Oak Ridge High School.
ORNL researchers win seven R&D 100 Awards - MSSE WINS TWO OF THE SEVEN R&D 100 AWARDS
Media Contact: Miriam Kramer
Communications and External Relations
865.241.9515
News Release
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., June 22, 2011 — Scientists and engineers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have received seven R&D 100 Awards presented by R&D Magazine.
These awards, sometimes referred to as the "Academy Awards of Science," honor the 100 most outstanding advances in technology for the year and are chosen by an expert panel of independent judges and the editors of R&D Magazine.
"I want to congratulate this year's R&D 100 award winners," Energy Secretary Steven Chu said. "The Department of Energy's national laboratories and sites are at the forefront of innovation, and it is gratifying to see their work recognized once again. The cutting-edge research and development done in our national labs and facilities is helping to meet our energy challenges, strengthen our national security and enhance our economic competitiveness."
The seven awards bring the total number of R&D 100 awards won by ORNL researchers over the years to 164.
"Winning seven of these prestigious awards is a testimony to the talent and creativity of a remarkable staff," ORNL Director Thom Mason said. "Our researchers do a tremendous job of delivering our mission of scientific discovery and innovation."
ORNL / MSSE researchers were recognized for the following technologies:
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Standing left to right - James Patton, Scott Hunter, Nickolay Lavrik, Michael Sepaniak, Sitting - Panos Datskos, Barton Smith |
Nano-Optomechanical Hydrogen Safety Sensor Based on Nanostructured Palladium Layers, jointly submitted and developed by Nickolay Lavrik of the ORNL Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, Panos Datskos, Scott Hunter and Barton Smith of the ORNL Measurement Science and Systems Engineering Division, and the University of Tennessee's Michael Sepaniak and James Patton. This technology utilizes nano-sized palladium particles to more efficiently detect hydrogen levels at a lower cost than the competition. Palladium particles react immediately to the presence of hydrogen gas, making the sensor more sensitive when reading levels of hydrogen within any given environment. Other sensors utilize electricity to monitor hydrogen, but an electrical short could prove to be a fire hazard when working with the flammable element. This new technology eliminates that threat and can be used to monitor industrial building activities, rechargeable battery manufacturing and many other hydrogen-sensitive operations. This work was sponsored by DOE's Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Program and conducted in part at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is sponsored at ORNL by the DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences.
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Isaac Mahderekal, Abdolreza Zaltash, Randall Linkous, Randall Wetherington, Ed Vineyard, Patrick Geoghegan |
NextAire Packaged Gas Heat Pump, jointly developed and submitted by ORNL's Ed Vineyard, Abdolreza Zaltash, Randall Linkous and Isaac Mahderekal of the Energy and Transportation Science Division, Randall Wetherington of the Measurement Science and Systems Engineering Division, Patrick Geoghegan of the Neutron Facilities Development Division and Southwest Gas, an investor-owned utility serving customers in Arizona, Nevada and portions of California and IntelliChoice Energy, headquartered in Phoenix. The gas heat pump technology is used to heat and cool small and medium sized buildings using fuel—typically natural gas—instead of electricity to power the compressor. To operate conventional electric heat pumps, fuel is converted to electricity at power plants, resulting in waste heat discharged to the environment. In addition, further energy losses occur as the electricity is transmitted over power lines and converted to mechanical power by the compressor. By reducing conversion and transmission losses, the NextAire unit significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions. By converting fuel at the gas heat pump location, waste heat to the atmosphere is dramatically reduced and exhaust heat given off by the engine can be used to supplement the heat provided by the unit. The DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy's Industrial Technologies Program and the National Energy Technology Laboratory funded this joint venture.
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