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Via press release, Sandia National Laboratories will use $4.2 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to modify and enhance its existing Battery Abuse Testing Laboratory (BATLab), with the goal of developing low-cost batteries for electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.

The tests help to determine how much abuse lithium-ion batteries can safely handle. Sandia tests everything from regular small cells up to full-sized modules and packs for hybrid vehicles.

The DOE-funded FreedomCAR program turned to Sandia to investigate the possibility of safely using lithium-ion batteries. But before lithium-ion batteries could be placed in vehicles, extensive safety tests needed to take place. With the recent stimulus funds, the BATLab will be able to greatly increase the number of tests it does.

The $4.2 million in funding is part of a $104.7 million economic stimulus package to further develop the nation’s efforts in clean energy and efficient technologies across seven DOE national laboratories.

The $104.7 million ARRA funding is concentrated on three priorities: advancing carbon fiber manufacturing and processing technologies to help reduce the weight of vehicles; developing integrated building systems to reduce U.S. carbon emissions and expanding facilities for fabricating and testing advanced battery prototypes for fuel-efficient vehicles.

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SRNL microsphere filled with palladium. The top of the microsphere has been removed to display contents. Credit: SRNL/Bulletin

The DOE has just announced that a licensing agreement has been reached between Savannah River National Lab and specialty glass provider Mo-Sci Corp. The Missouri-based Mo-Sci will use SRNL’s unique porous-walled hollow glass microspheres as a transport mechanism for targeted drug delivery, hydrogen storage and other uses.

I take a lot of pride in this particular piece of news. When I joined the ACerS staff in early 2008, one of the first projects I developed for the Society’s magazine, the Bulletin, was a story about these PW-HG microspheres and their potential for medical and energy uses, and I have stayed in touch with one of the principle SRNL researchers behind the spheres, George Wicks, an ACerS Fellow. [Full disclosure - Wicks will become the president of ACerS in 2011].

When I first wrote about the microballoon-like spheres, I asked the hyperbolic question, “What looks like a fertilized egg, flows like water, can be stuffed with catalysts and exotic nanostructures and may have the potential to make the current retail gasoline infrastructure compatible with hydrogen-based vehicles of the future – not to mention contribute to other arenas such as nuclear proliferation control and global warming?”

Schematic diagram of PW-HG microspheres and wall porosity. Credit: SRNL/Bulletin

As the diagram above indicates, the microspheres typically have a 50 micron diameter, but can be range from 2 microns to 100 microns. The shells are about 10,000 angstroms. The Bulletin story has a lot of good information about how they are made and the wide range of potential uses.

Microspheres, per se, aren’t new, but there are three things particularly important about the PW-HG microspheres. The first is that they have a network of interconnected pores engineered into the thin shells. Moreover, the SRNL researchers figured out how to customize the properties and dimensions of these pores. Thus, solid, liquid and gaseous materials can pass into and be confined within the microspheres. Several mechanisms are available to attain a controlled release of the microsphere’s contents.

The second thing is that these microspheres can be coated and/or lined with nanomaterials and structures, to, for example, improve absorbency. Proteins or fluorescent indicators can be attached to guide and monitor the spheres for drug delivery purposes or to have them act, for example, as a superior MRI contrast agent.

Finally, at a macro level, large volumes of the PW-HG spheres can be made to flow like a fluid They even look like water when poured from container to container. And, they are recyclable.

SRNL originally developed the unique microspheres as a solid-state storage method for hydrogen; they have been successfully demonstrated to store and release the gas. I am not sure if the project is still active, but at one point Toyota was involved in testing the system.

Mo-Sci’s involvement is a good sign. The company was founded in 1985 by Missouri University of Science & Technology professor Del Day, and found much success in using a different type of glass microspheres to deliver tiny amounts of strong radiation in cancer treatment. Mo-Sci’s sphere have been particularly successful in the treatment of cancerous liver tumors where the spheres can be targeted fairly precisely to deliver radiation - and have the secondary benefit of blocking the blood supply to tumors.

Mo-Sci has worked with medical institutions, such as the Cleveland Clinic, and should know the ins and outs of getting PW-HG microsphere applications to market. For more information about Mo-Sci, see my video interview with Del Day.

An article (”Porous-wall hollow glass microspheres as novel potential nanocarriers for biomedical applications”) jointly written by Wick, other SRNL researchers plus investigators at the Medical College of Georgia  will soon be published in the print version of Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology and Medicine and is now available online. The article provides more detail about the uses of the PHWG microspheres for the delivery of anti-cancer drugs.

UPDATE: The Rolla Daily News has a great story up about this, including an interview with Ted Day and others on the staff of Mo-Sci.

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In a new story on Nature’s website, Karl Thiel reports that the reauthorization of the Small Business Innovative Research program is in trouble because of a disagreement about the role of venture capital firms. The legal authorization for the SBIR and its cousin, the Small Business Technology Transfer Program, lapsed in September 2008. They have survived for more than a year because of temporary “continuing resolutions.” The last of these resolutions will expire Jan. 30.

By requiring that a part of the research funding some 12 federal agencies (e.g., DOE, NASA and DOD) be shunted through these two programs, the SBIR and STTR have become important funding lifelines for small businesses.

Thiel says that U.S. House and Senate each approved their own version of reauthorization bills (S. 1233 and H.R. 2965), but negotiators haven’t been able to reconcile the two versions and reach a single compromise, largely because of disagreements about the eligibility of companies that are majority owned by VC firms.

Since 2003, many small businesses that are majority owned by venture capital firms (as many young biotechs are) were prohibited from receiving SBIR grants under the assertion that these businesses do not qualify as ’small’. Since its inception the SBIR program has enabled federal agencies to award grants to small businesses defined as having fewer than 500 employees. Although the Senate bill would loosen those restrictions somewhat, the House version, favored by organizations such as the Biotechnology Industry Organization and the National Venture Capital Association, both located in Washington, DC, would essentially lift all limits.

Thiel says the the House and Senate Armed Services committees tried to carve out and reauthorize the DoD portions of the SBIR and STTR  for the next 14 years, but even this effort got bogged down in a jurisdictional disagreement. If I understand this correctly, the net result is that the DOD portions gained a one-year reprieve, through Sept. 30, 2010.

At least one of Thiel’s sources predicts that if Congress fails to act, the DOD will go its separate way and establish its own small business program.

ADDING: Apropos, somewhat, to the above, I just received notice from the DOE that tomorrow it is hosting a “Small Business Opportunity Session” in Washington. Jonathan Silver, DOE’s new director of the its Loan Guarantee Program, will deliver remarks. The DOE ’s “Retrofit Ramp-up,” Loan Guarantee and ARPA-E programs are supposed to be highlighted during this session. I realize this is late notice, but the good news is that DOE is offering live webcast of the event (9 a.m. – 1 p.m.). I suspect a postevent webcase will also be available.

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Marina Pascucci, president of CeraNova Corp., describes how her company fabricates the domes - the curved or pointed leading surfaces – of missiles. In this context, she explains how polycrystalline ceramic materials can be both transparent and superior in other ways to something like glass or a monocrystalline material, such as sapphire (alumina). Missile domes need to be transparent in certain wavelengths and over a wide range of their surface because they cover many of a missile’s sensor and systems. Besides transparency, they have to be able to withstand extraordinary mechanical and thermal stresses.

This video is along the same lines as a story we recently posted about a proposal for a new and superior material for missile domes.

Pascucci earned a bachelor’s degree in Ceramic Science and chemistry from Alfred University, and master’s and doctorate degrees in Ceramics/Materials Science from Case Western Reserve University. An ACerS Fellow, Pascucci is president-elect of ACerS. She is a member of the Basic Science and Engineering Ceramics Divisions, and the National Institute of Ceramic Engineers. She is a past chair of the New England Section and also has held officer positions in the Central Ohio Section. She received the F.H. Norton Distinguished Ceramist Award from the New England Section, the Alfred University Career Achievement Award presented by the Alfred University Alumni Association and was one of five invited female speakers at the International Workshop for Women Ceramists held in conjunction with the 50th Anniversary of the Korean Ceramic Society in Seoul, South Korea.

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