Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Dr. Philip J. Maziasz,
Dr. D. Ray Johnson, and
Mr. Alexander G. DeTrana

CF8C-Plus is a new cast austenitic stainless steel developed by ORNL and Caterpillar that has much greater strength at high temperatures than standard or comparable premium grades of stainless steels and alloys. It also provides greater resistance to aging, fatigue, and thermal fatigue than materials currently used in advanced diesel engine and industrial gas turbine combustor or support components.

Caterpillar along with Honeywell approached ORNL regarding the development and commercial application of CF8C-Plus based on the results of ongoing R&D at ORNL. The goal for all parties was to produce real parts and verify properties of a steel that would perform well at very high temperatures but that would cost less than superalloys having comparable performance capabilities. The resulting CF8C-Plus is now a commercial product with an incredible track record so far. For example, components fabricated from CF8CPlus are installed in high-temperature systems on all on-highway heavy-duty truck diesels. To date, this single application has used more than 300 tons of CF8C-Plus, and none of the parts has failed. A variety of large and small parts, including a 6,700 lb. centrifugally cast casing for the Mercury 50 industrial gas-turbine engine, have been made successfully on the first attempt. The combination of “make-it” advantages and “use-it” properties is exceptional.

The CF8C-Plus technology was awarded an R&D 100 Award in 2003. Since that time, additional partnership agreements have been established with other companies, including General Electric and Stainless Foundry & Engineering. Honeywell has signed a new CRADA with ORNL for testing CF8C-Plus cast stainless steel for diesel and automotive turbocharger housing applications.

Contact
Dr. Philip Maziasz
865-574-5082
maziaszpj@ornl.gov

Online information
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
EERE.Energy.Gov CF8C-Plus PDF Presentation
advance materials & Processes October 2008 Article:
CF8C-Plus Heat-resistant cast stainless steel

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Improved Oxygen Management in Channel Catfish Hatcheries

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Mid South Area
Mississippi State University

Dr. Eugene L. Torrens (ARS)
Dr. James Steeby, Mississippi State University

The largely family-owned and operated catfish hatcheries in the US have experienced financial stress during the past few years. One cause of this has been the extreme variability in hatch rates due to a number of factors, including variations in water quality, fungal and bacterial infections, fertility and so forth. Consequently, hatcheries have been challenged to increase efficiency without having to invest in expensive new infrastructure.

Aware of the financial stresses and the worrisome unpredictability of hatch rates, ARS scientist Dr. Eugene Torrens partnered with Dr. James Steeby of Mississippi State University to identify the factors responsible for the wide variations in hatch rates. Both of these investigators had worked on commercial catfish farms during their long careers, and so are familiar with both current commercial methods and economic constraints. Data was collected on catfish egg and fry metabolism that led to the findings that the hatch variations were due largely to the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water. Armed with these findings, Drs. Torrens and Steeby developed and published specific dissolved oxygen recommendations for catfish hatcheries. Their challenge was twofold: first, they needed to educate the industry as to the impact of sub-optimal dissolved oxygen on developing eggs, and then they needed to develop and transfer technological “fixes” to the industry.

The result was an aggressive communications program of publications targeting science and industry and the design of a set of practical options for hatchery oxygen management, ranging from simple and inexpensive aeration through water towers to precisely controlling the dissolved oxygen in individual hatchery troughs using liquid oxygen metered and delivered through diffusers.

Within three years, those recommendations have been implemented by nearly all of the industry with strong positive results. While firm data are not available, it is estimated that (well) water use may have decreased by 10 to 20% as fry production has increased. Further, this project has resulted in the first technical upgrade to catfish hatcheries since the need for calcium hardness was discovered nearly 20 years ago. As the industry as a whole is realizing the need for greater efficiency in the face of foreign competition, the hatchery segment has seen both the hope and the benefit of improved technology through this project. The researchers anticipate a rapid modernization of hatchery technology as farmers apply additional science to maximize efficiency.

Online information
ARS Healty Animals Newsletter April 2009 Article: Spotlight on Catfish: Stoneville

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Center for Disease Control & Prevention - Tech Transfer Office
Flow Applications, Inc.

Dr. Joseph Martinez
Dr. Sandra Steiner
Dr. George Carlone
Mr. Tom O’Toole
Mr. Mike Hickey, Flow Applications, Inc.

Streptococcus pneumoniae remains one of the most significant causes of sickness and death worldwide and is a major cause of pneumonia, bacterial meningitis, and otitis media (ear infection). Until 2000, S. pneumoniae infections caused over 100,000 hospitalizations for pneumonia, 6 million cases of otitis media, and 60,000 cases of invasive disease, including 3300 cases of meningitis in the United States. There are over 60 serotypes of S. pneumoniae that vary by region and country requiring continued development and improvement of S. pneumoniae vaccines that treat greater numbers of serotypes including those that are more common in developing countries.

The human body protects itself against S. pneumoniae by a process called “opsonophagocytosis”, whereby the presence of functional antibodies leads to the killing of the bacterial cell. To improve detection of these functional antibodies, CDC scientists developed a multiplexed opsonophagocytic assay which allows for detection of opsonic antibodies directed against multiple serotypes of S. pneumoniae using pneumococcal polysaccharide coated multicolor fluorescent beads. This is a “flow cytometry’ based technology. The benefits of this technology include reduction of assay time and decreased costs due to multiplexing multiple serotypes.

The transfer of this technology involved joint research between CDC lab researchers and a company under a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA), the filing and issuance of both U.S and foreign patents, and the exclusive licensure of the technology. Through this CRADA collaboration, CDC was able to expand its technological applications and expand the scope of the patent claims to ensure sufficient patent protection of the resulting technology. The CRADA and exclusive license were obtained by Flow Applications, a start up company formed to commercially develop this assay.

The technology was needed to help decrease the time and costs associated with testing pre- and post-vaccine serum against S. pneumoniae. In the future, candidate Streptococcus pneumoniae vaccines will need functional antibody data in order to satisfy Federal Drug Administration (FDA) requirements for approval. Previous opsonophagocytic assys (OPA) to measure functional antibodies could only assess a limited number of serotypes and required the use of infectious organisms and overnight incubation to allow colony growth in order to measure the killing of opsonized bacteria by phagocytic cells. This current technology increases the number of serotypes assayed within the same test and reduces the time required to perform the test. Additionally, this technology eliminates the need to use live infectious organisms as part of the assay.

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Center for Disease Control & Prevention - Tech Transfer Office
Inviragen, Inc.

Dr. Clair Huang (Kinney) and Mr. Tom O’Toole of CDC
Dr. Richard Kinney and Dr. Dan Stinchcomb of Inviragen, Inc

Dengue (DF) and dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) are viral diseases caused by one of four closely related virus serotypes (DEN-1, DEN-2, DEN-3, and DEN-4), and are the most significant viral illnesses transmitted by mosquitoes to humans worldwide. Infection with one of these serotypes provides immunity to only that serotype for life, so persons living in a dengue-endemic area can have more than one dengue infection during their lifetime. DF and DHF are primarily diseases of tropical and sub tropical areas, and the four different dengue serotypes are maintained in a cycle that involves humans and the mosquito. Infections produce a spectrum of clinical illness ranging from a nonspecific viral syndrome to severe and fatal hemorrhagic disease. Important risk factors for DHF include the strain of the infecting virus, as well as the age, and especially the prior dengue infection history of the patient.

Over 2.5 billion people, including travelers, are at risk of contracting dengue illness in countries in tropical regions of the world. These regions are Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, South America, and parts of Africa. Each year tens of millions of cases of DF occur and, depending on the year, up to hundreds of thousands of cases of DHF. The case-fatality rate of DHF in most countries is about 5%, but this can be reduced to less than 1% with proper treatment.  Most fatal cases are among children and young adults. In Puerto Rico alone costs have totaled $250 million over the past decade. There is a critical worldwide public health need for a dengue vaccine that successfully immunizes and protects humans against all four types of DEN virus.

CDC has developed live-attenuated candidate DEN-1, DEN-2, DEN-3, and DEN-4 vaccine viruses that share three identical genetic mutations responsible for the non-virulent characteristics (attenuation determinants) of the vaccine viruses. The vaccine candidates have been genetically and phenotypically characterized in detail. Furthermore, new assays have been developed at CDC for the purpose of advancing the safety of these vaccine viruses.

CDC has licensed and transferred this vaccine technology to Inviragen, Inc., a small biotechnology company located in Fort Collins, Colorado. This technology transfer has moved these vaccine candidates to a commercial setting, where they can be manufactured under the controlled conditions required for product testing in humans. Success of the program will provide a safe, effective, low-cost, and easy to use tetravalent DEN vaccine to save millions of lives and decrease the tremendous economic burdens caused by the disease.

Online information
Inviragen, Inc Dengue Vaccine Info

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Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Dr. Sergei V. Kalinin
Dr. Stephen Jesse
Mr. Alexander G. DeTrana

Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM) is a mainstay of nanoscience and nanotechnology development because it provides topographic imaging and for probing of electrical, mechanical and magnetic properties at the nanoscale. However, standard SPM does not capture information about energy loss—information that is critically important in areas such as semiconductors and energy transport and storage. Classical SPMs methods based on lock-in or phase-locked loop detection are not well suited to the measurement of localized energy dissipation. While feasible with conventional SPM methods, it is seldom done due to enormous time requirements (tens of hours per standard 256 × 256 pixel image), precluding viable quantitative dissipation imaging.

ORNL researchers developed an improved capability for scanning probe microscopy—the Adaptive Band Excitation controller and software. This development has enabled a new family of SPM techniques that allow rapid measurements of energy dissipation in electrical, mechanical, magnetic, and thermal processes. It can be incorporated into new SPMs as well as implemented on all of the existing SPM platforms now in use (more than 20,000 worldwide).

The Adaptive Band Excitation Method overcomes the intrinsic limitation of all standard SPM modes by exciting the system and detecting the response at multiple frequencies in parallel, effectively exciting the band of frequencies. The new family of SPMs enabled by Adaptive Band Excitation can be universally applied to all SPM techniques and can provide a huge impact on all areas of nanoscience and nanotechnology by providing a universal tool to study energy dissipation processes. In molecular systems, it will provide new information on molecular reactions and hence complex dynamic pathways that control protein folding and unfolding, and hence biochemical processes in living bodies. Similarly, understanding the energy-loss processes in semiconductors and superconductors holds the promise of cheaper and more efficient materials for energy transport and more powerful computers. In energy storage, increasing the lifetimes and storage densities and efficiencies clearly offer tremendous potential in resolving current energy problems. The technology has been licensed to Asylum Research for implementation in Asylum’s controllers, and other companies have also expressed interest in the technology. It was selected for a 2008 R&D 100 Award.

Online information:
Asylum Research
Asylum Research and ORNL Offer New Monograph on Piezoresponse Force Microscopy for Electromechanical Studies
Piezoresponse Force Microscopy with Asylum Research AFMs with videos & pdf notes

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Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Dr. Mark Reeves has served as Regional Coordinator of the FLC Southeast Region for the past four years, where he has provided consistent, thoughtful and creative leadership. His contributions to the FLC and to the Southeast Region, as well as to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL) Office of Technology Transfer are many and substantial.

Mark assumed sole stewardship of the intellectual property portfolio of one of ORNL’s primary research organizations upon the departure of Larry Dickens from ORNL. During the past year, Mark also assumed the position of Interim Director of ORNL’s Office of Technology Transfer, a position that has seriously increased his responsibilities to the ORNL technology transfer effort.

In spite of these added responsibilities, Mark has continued his involvement with and leadership contribution to the FLC by participating on the Executive Board and as Regional Coordinator for the Southeast Region. As an Executive Board member, Mark has brought his own sense of values and experiences to bear on many of the issues facing the FLC and has promoted the FLC through presentations to other academic, government, and industry associations. He also took up the mantle of the late Larry Dickens in providing training at all levels in license structure and negotiation in the FLC’s annual training curriculum. As Regional Coordinator, Mark has continued supporting the annual regional conference, encouraged greater participation by laboratory representatives in the Southeast Region, built partnerships with other FLC Regional Coordinators, and catalyzed the development of a new public relations and internal outreach publication to explain the value of federal laboratory technology transfer to agency representatives, laboratory management, laboratory scientists and engineers, and commercial partners.

Mark’s contributions to the FLC Executive Board, the FLC’s education and training program, and to the FLC Southeast Region have been given despite significantly expanded responsibilities and activities in his home laboratory’s Office of Technology Transfer. For these reasons he has been selected as the FLC Southeast Region’s 2008 Laboratory Representative of the Year.

Contact information
Regional Coordinator
Mark Reeves
Office of Tech Transfer& Economic Development
1 Bethel Valley Road Building 4500N, Mail Stop 6196
Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6196
Phone: 865-576-2577
Fax: 865-574-9241
reevesme@ornl.gov

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