Projects

Effects of plant functional diversity on the ecosystem responses to forest harvesting

Lead Institution

Institute of Microbiology of the CAS

Principal Investigator

Petr Baldrian

Project type

FICUS Research

Forests are important ecosystem that help to maintain the global C balance largely due to C storage in soils, but also play multiple additional roles including the important economic role as the…

Functional and structural analysis of microbial expansin-related proteins that transform lignocellulosic biomass

Lead Institution

University of Toronto

Principal Investigator

Emma Master

Project type

FICUS Research

This project brings together functional genomics, structural biology, and advanced techniques in material science, to evaluate the untapped potential of microbial expansin-related proteins in the…

Tracking the degradation of fresh particulate organic matter in permeable riverbed sediments using FT-ICR-MS and metagenomic/transcriptomic sequencing

Lead Institution

University of Wisconsin, Madison

Principal Investigator

Eric Roden

Project type

FICUS Research

The hyporheic zone, where groundwater and river water mix within riverine corridors, represents a highly active zone of biogeochemical cycling in which key transformations of many critical elements…

Illuminating soil biogeochemical responses to press and pulse disturbances in a coastal ecosystem

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Jianqiu Zheng

Project type

FICUS Research

Coastal ecosystems are undergoing dramatic transitions as sea level rise accelerates and precipitation and storm regimes change. Depending upon the intensity and duration of seawater exposure,…

Plastic Degrading Microbial Communities from Insect Larvae Guts

Lead Institution

University of Delaware

Principal Investigator

Mark Blenner

Project type

FICUS Research

Insect microbial consortia are attractive platforms for plastics deconstruction and conversion as they degrade plastics more rapidly than microbial isolates and do not require pretreatment. While…

Resolving taxon-specific contributions to nutrient cycling in soil microbial communities through stable isotope enabled multi-omics

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Amy Zimmerman

Project type

FICUS Research

Mechanistic and predictive understanding of microbial nutrient cycling requires deconvoluting the outcomes of multiple population- and community-scale processes. Yet quantitative knowledge of…

Belowground genotype-phenotype controls on nitrogen use efficiency of a sorghum bioenergy crop

Lead Institution

University of Arizona

Principal Investigator

Laura Meredith

Project type

FICUS Research

Plant-microbe interactions drive nitrogen (N) transformations in soil, and a detailed understanding of these inter-organismal interactions is needed to enhance crop productivity and N use efficiency,…

Beneficial Partners: Context Dependent Mycorrhizal Resource Exchange in Bioenergy Cropping Systems

Lead Institution

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Erin Nuccio

Project type

FICUS Research

The development of environmentally sustainable sources of energy is a grand challenge of the 21st century. Plant feedstocks are promising renewable sources for liquid transportation fuels, and the…

Assessing the contribution of sediment bioirrigation to the oxidative removal of methane from a fluvial wetland.

Lead Institution

Marine Biological Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Emil Ruff

Project type

FICUS Research

Wetlands are among the largest natural sources of the greenhouse gas methane. While the net fluxes of methane to the atmosphere are relatively well understood, the amount of methane-derived carbon…

Auger electron microscopy for use in classifying the oxide content in an electrospark deposition coating of Zirconium.

Lead Institution

Portland State University

Principal Investigator

Graham Tewksbury

Project type

Exploratory Research

The electrospark deposition process can deposit a variety of metal or cermets on virtually any electrically conductive substrate. This process can produce metallurgical bonding with a very small…

Investigation of Ba-based NOx storage-reduction catalyst by Raman spectrometer (PNNL Title: Mechanisms of sulfur poisoning of NOx adsorber materials, Scope # 43315).

Lead Institution

Seoul National University

Principal Investigator

Do Heui Kim

Project type

Exploratory Research

NOx storage-reduction (NSR) catalysts are used in engines operating alternatively under lean and rich conditions to reduce the fuel consumption of vehicles. Typical NSR catalysts consists of a NOx…

Structural characterization of Nanoporous Thin Films

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Zdenek Dohnalek

Project type

Exploratory Research

The adsorptive/reactive properties of nanoporous thin films of metals and oxides grown via ballistic deposition technique are being studied in our laboratory. We propose to utilize a variety of ex…

Cellular Response to Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Infection: Global Quantitative Proteome AMT Tag Measurements of Cellular Protein Expression

Lead Institution

University of Washington

Principal Investigator

Eric Chan

Project type

Exploratory Research

Please see attached Word Document.

Chemical Characterization of Heterogeneous Inclusions in Soot Particles

Lead Institution

Stanford University

Principal Investigator

Hai Wang

Project type

Exploratory Research

The objective of the work proposed herein is to characterize the heterogeneous inclusions and their influence on the hydroscopic properties of Diesel and laboratory-generated soot. Laboratory soot…

Surface Studies of Electroctalysts in Methanol Fuel Cells

Lead Institution

Neah Power Systems

Principal Investigator

Kwang Kim

Project type

Exploratory Research

Neah Power Systems is developing small methanol fuel cells based upon a silicon architecture for mobile electronics such as laptop computers and PDAs. Neah's silicon architecture is expected to…

Temperature-Dependent Yield of Frenkel Pairs Generated by Valence Excitation in NaCl

Lead Institution

Osaka University

Principal Investigator

Katsumi Tanimura

Project type

Exploratory Research

The dynamics of formation of self-trapped excitons (STEs) and Frenkel pairs upon band-gap excitation have been studied in NaCl by femtosecond time-resolved spectroscopy at temperatures ranging from 6…

Passive Film Stability in Alloy 22

Lead Institution

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Donald Baer

Project type

Exploratory Research

This program activity will involve the testing of Haynes Alloy 22 to determine if a build up of S will lead to the breakdown of a possive film. This is among the most stable alloys known and it is…

Selective immobilization of biological molecules on single walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) surfaces

Lead Institution

Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology

Principal Investigator

Yung Suh

Project type

Exploratory Research

Selective immobilization of biological molecules on single walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) surface is very interesting and important topic for various nanoscale biosensor applications. Confirmative…

Measurements of Aerosol and Aerosol Precursors during the Summer 2004 Northeast Aerosol Experiment (NEAX)

Lead Institution

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Peter Daum

Project type

Exploratory Research

The Atmospheric Sciences Division of Brookhaven National Laboratory requests the use of the Proton Transfer Mass spectrometer and the Aerodyne Aerosol Mass spectrometer for measurements on the DOE G…

Microcharacterization of Engineered Mono-Sodium Titanate

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Edgar Buck

Project type

Exploratory Research

Mono-sodium titanate (MST) is being developed by the DOE for removal of strontium and plutonium from high salt wastes. This study looks at the chemical behavior of MST in the presence of special…