SBIR/STTR Research Award
Plasma Enhanced Thermionic Power Generation in Hypersonic Vehicles
Award amount
$749,704Program and phase
STTR · Phase IIAward year
2022Award details
- Awarding agency
- Department of Defense
- Branch
- Air Force
- Recipient company
- SPECTRAL ENERGIES LLC
- Proposal award date
- 2022-03-09
- Contract end date
- 2023-06-12
- UEI
- C3DAVH4VJDG3
- Solicitation number
- X20.C
- Topic code
- AF20C-TCSO1
Research abstract
The team of Spectral Energies LLC and University of Tennessee will design, build, deliver, and commercialize a Plasma Enhanced Thermionic Energy Converter (PETEC) for efficient conversion of heat to electric power. There are increasing demand to recover the waste heat generated by various high-temperature industries (e.g., steel, aluminum, glass cement, lime, power plant), because this increases energy efficiency, reduces environmental impact, and improves workflow and productivity. Globally effective use of energy, however, accounts for only around 34%, while the remainder, at around 66%, is wasted thermal energy and often causing environmental issues. Current commercially available thermal-electric converters have limited temperature operation range and efficiency (
Technology keywords
Not reported
Other awards by this recipient
Verified by the same UEI. These are other public SBIR/STTR award pages, not a merged company record.
- Development of a Hybrid Optical Sensor for Off-Axis Laser Threat Detection and Classification
- Turbulent boundary layer (TBL) Drag Reduction Flight Demonstration via Dielectric Barrier Discharge Plasma Actuators
- An Open, Modular, and Standardized Testing Architecture for Alternative Navigation Technology relevant to Hypersonic and Supersonic Platforms
- Novel 2D plasma actuator for rotating detonation augmentors
- NanoSPARC: High-Speed Additive Manufacturing for LWIR Meta-Optics
Awards with the same topic code
Verified by an exact topic code match. This is not a text-similarity match.
- AI Powered Market Intelligence & Tech Scouting Recommendation Engine to Drive DoD Discovery and Engagement of an Innovative Industrial Supply Chain
- Enhanced Geothermal System
- Advanced Materials for Soft Robotics Assisted Non-Destructive Inspection
- Document Generation Platform (DGP)
- Light Weight Modular Perception Enhancement (LIMPET) TACFI Sequential Phase II
Research funding history
272 SBIR/STTR records share this UEI (2007–2026). Reported award amounts total $120,780,215. Reported amounts are not federal obligations.
Phases: Phase I, Phase II, Phase II – Direct to Phase II
Agencies: Department of Defense, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Agriculture