In This Issue:
1997
Competitions Yield 64 Technology Partnerships
New
Standard Is Freeze-Dried What?
NIST Research
Shows Nanocomposites Can Take the Heat
Research May
Help Hunt for Interstellar Iron
New
Standard Is Boon to 'Smart' Sensors
Irish/Old
Bay Combo Helps Labs Assess Ocean Radioactivity
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ATP
1997 Competitions Yield 64 Technology Partnerships
Transgenic tobacco that can be used to produce human insulin, information technology tools that could bring artificial "common sense" to searches on the Internet and a suite of innovative manufacturing and materials technologies are among the technology grails sought in 64 new industrial research projects announced recently by the Commerce Department's Advanced Technology Program.
The awards were the result of seven ATP competitions conducted in 1997, including a general competition open to proposals from any area of technology and six competitions in ATP focused program areas. The latter included competitions in motor-vehicle manufacturing technology, information infrastructure for healthcare, digital data storage, technologies for the integration of manufacturing applications, component-based software, and the newly established program in tissue engineering. ATP focused programs concentrate resources on key technical barriers and business challenges in specific technologies judged by industry to offer the potential for major economic benefits to the nation.
The majority of the awards, 48, went to small businesses either for single-company projects or as the lead company in an industry joint venture. Over 100 companies are involved in the 64 projects as formal participants, with many more participating as subcontractors.
If carried through to completion, the 64 projects announced today will cost approximately $142 million in funding from private industry, matched by approximately $162 million in ATP funding. The awards are contingent on the signing of formal agreements between ATP manager NIST and the project proposers.
Detailed lists of the 1997 ATP projects and their participants are available from the NIST World Wide Web site at http://www.nist.gov or by contacting NIST Public and Business Affairs at (301) 975-2758.
Media Contact:
Michael
Baum (301) 975-2763
Environment
New Standard Is Freeze-Dried What?
To monitor the health of our oceans, scientists must be able to measure a variety of pollutants that seep into waterways, are absorbed by marine life and passed up the food chain. Since pollutants can become concentrated in mollusks, NIST scientists chose mussels from Dorchester Bay in Boston Harbor for a new Standard Reference Material to help marine biologists accurately assess pollution in marine life.
The mussel tissue SRM includes one 8-gram bottle of freeze-dried mussel tissue blended into a very fine powder, plus NIST-certified values for 14 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, 24 polychlorinated biphenyls, seven chlorinated pesticides, mercury and methylmercury. Scientists studying pollution in living tissues can use this SRM to check the accuracy of their own measurement methods. Several international standards laboratories assisted in certifying the pollutant levels in the mussel tissue.
NIST SRM 2974, Organics in Freeze-Dried Mussel Tissue, is available for $411 from the Standard Reference Materials Program, Bldg. 202, Rm. 204, NIST, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899-0001, (301) 975-6776, fax: (301) 948-3730.
Media Contact:
Linda
Joy (301) 975-4403
Fire Science
NIST Research Shows Nanocomposites Can Take the Heat
Remember the scene in "The Graduate" when a would-be mentor wraps his arm around young Benjamin and says, "I've got just one word for you... Are you listening? ... Plastics!" If that film were being made in 1997, that one word might be nanocomposites.
Nanocomposites are super plastics--compounds in which about one nanometer (40 billionths of an inch) size particles of montmorillonite clay are dispersed throughout the polymers involved. NIST fire science researchers Jeffrey W. Gilman and Takashi Kashiwagi have found that this new class of materials is tops in flame retardancy.
Flammability in plastics is a major concern because fires started in the synthetic fabrics found in carpeting, upholstery, furniture or bedding often lead to property damage, injury or death. NIST's experiments show that the heat release rate--the most important parameter for predicting fire hazard--is reduced 63 percent in a nylon-6 clay-nanocomposite containing a clay content of only five percent. According to Gilman, the clay additive, unlike other fire retardant additives, does not degrade the overall material.
Industry tests show the hybrid nylon-6 clay nanocomposite, compared to pure nylon-6 based plastic, has 40 percent higher tensile strength (resistance to breakage), 68 percent higher tensile modulus (ultimate level of resistance to breakage), 60 percent higher flexural strength (ability to be bent or twisted without breaking) and 126 percent increased flexural modulus (ultimate level of ability to be bent or twisted). Gilman and Kashiwagi also said that, unlike many chemical fire retardants, nanocomposites produce no increase in carbon monixide or soot during combustion.
NIST plans to host a conference in the near future where scientists and plastics industry representatives will discuss setting up a research consortium to further study nanocomposite flame retardancy properties.
For more information, contact Jeffrey W. Gilman, B258 Polymers Bldg., NIST, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899-0001, (301) 975-6573.
Media Contact:
John
Blair (301) 975-4261
Physics
Research May Help Hunt for Interstellar Iron
Scientists from the NIST Time and Frequency Division, Oxford University and the University of Bonn recently made spectral observations of the iron deuteride (FeD2) molecule near 6.9 terahertz (43 micrometers) using laser magnetic resonance spectroscopy. These are the highest frequency far-infrared LMR observations ever recorded and the first FIR observations of a vibrational bending spectrum made using LMR spectroscopy.
The FeD2 observations are important because they provide accurate spectral information for researchers to search for iron in the interstellar medium--an existence that has yet to be documented. In addition, the development of the technology used to make the observations opens up significant new opportunities for important measurements in radio astronomy and upper-atmospheric research.
The international team modified a spectrometer so that it allows measurements at frequencies as high as 9 terahertz, just about the same as the upper limit for radio astronomy measurements. This expanded range of LMR measurement now covers fine-structure transitions in a number of atoms and molecules, providing the potential for making the exacting laboratory frequency measurements needed to support searches for these species in space.
Closer to Earth, the researchers soon may use their new ability to assess the level of chlorine oxide (ClO), an important molecule in the upper atmosphere. ClO has a fine structure transition at 8.2 terahertz, which should be detectable by the improved LMR spectroscopy. This data would provide needed information on atmospheric chemistry relating to depletion of the ozone layer.
A paper, no. 29-97, describing the work is available from Sarabeth Harris, MC 104, NIST, Boulder, Colo. 80303-3328, (303) 497-3237.
Media Contact:
Collier
Smith (Boulder) (303) 497-3198
Manufacturing
New Standard Is Boon to 'Smart' Sensors
With the approval of a new interface standard developed by NIST and industry, users and makers of sensors and actuators soon may be exulting in diversity, rather than lamenting it.
Just adopted by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the digital standard (IEEE-1451.2) provides a common "smart" link between transducers (the collective term for sensors and actuators) and microprocessors. The interface could spur some healthy mingling of technologies and applications in what is now a highly fragmented market.
Numbering about 3,000, transducer manufacturers have tended to specialize in application areas, each favoring a small subset of the multitude of control-network alternatives. "It has been too costly," explains NIST's Kang Lee, chairman of the IEEE committee that developed the standard, "for many transducer manufacturers to customize their interfaces to the particular requirements of each network." Consequently, industrial customers' technology options also were limited, despite the burst of innovation in sensors and actuators.
The IEEE standard is network independent, able to work with microprocessors designed for any of the various control networks. It features a standard digital format for transferring data from transducer to processor. The format includes a transducer electronic data sheet--or TEDS--that contains information ranging from date code and serial number to sampling rate and date of last calibration. TEDS, says Lee, greatly simplifies the installing, integrating and maintaining of transducers. More than 25 companies contributed to the development of the standard.
For more information, contact Kang Lee, B106 Sound Bldg., NIST, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899-0001, (301) 975-6604.
Media Contact:
Mark
Bello (301) 975-2767
Radiation Measurement
Irish/Old Bay Combo Helps Labs Assess Ocean Radioactivity
Sediment dredged up from the Irish Sea and the Chesapeake Bay has been blended to create a new NIST Standard Reference Material for radioactivity. This is the first standard for laboratories that monitor radioactivity in ocean sediment or similar environmental samples.
NIST worked with the United Kingdom's National Radiological Protection Board to prepare and blend the sediments into a very fine powder. Twenty laboratories around the world then assisted in determining the certified levels of radionuclides in the SRM. This international effort was prompted by the need to accurately monitor radiation in Arctic Ocean beds where several nuclear submarines have been sunk.
Laboratories monitoring radioactivity in the environment will be able to use the new NIST SRM to verify the accuracy of their analyses and methods. Researchers have certified values for 10 radionuclides, including natural and man-made isotopes. Non-certified values also are provided for 11 additional radionuclides.
NIST Standard Reference Material 4357, a unit of which consists of one 85-gram bottle of powdered ocean sediment, is available for $431 from the NIST Standard Reference Materials Program, Bldg. 202, Rm. 204, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899-0001, (301) 975-6776, fax: (301) 948-3730.
Media Contact:
Linda
Joy (301) 975-4403
