Three Argonne inventions win R&D 100 Awards

ARGONNE, Ill. (July 8, 2002) - Three technologies developed or co-developed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory are among the winners of this year's R&D 100 awards, given annually by R&D Magazine to the "100 most significant technical products of the year."

Argonne's winning technologies are:

• Globus Toolkit™, a modular suite of open-source software for sharing resources such as computers, networks, data and instrumentation;
• Smart Sensor Developer Kit, a development system to help incorporate miniature chemical sensors into experimental instrumentation;
• Advanced electrodeionization for product desalting, an environmentally-friendly technology for removing salt impurities and other byproducts from finished products.

Globus Toolkit™

The Globus Toolkit™ is an open architecture, open-source set of software services and libraries that support computational "grids," allowing computers far apart to work on the same problem at the same time. The toolkit is central to distributed computing, one of the hottest topics in information technology. The New York Times recently called the Globus software the "de facto standard" for grid computing.

Since its 1996 inception, the project has been dedicated to the open-source philosophy of sharing resources to maximize progress and community benefits. The toolkit – which includes software services and libraries for resource monitoring, discovery, and management, plus security and file management – is now central to science and engineering projects that total nearly a half-billion dollars internationally, and it is the substrate on which many companies are building significant commercial Grid products.

Eight firms – Compaq, Cray, SGI, Sun, Veridian, Fujitsu, Hitachi, and NEC – are developing an optimized form of the toolkit for their operating platforms as a path toward secure, distributed, multi-vendor grid computing. Three other companies – Entropia, IBM, and Microsoft – are expanding their previous commitments to the Globus Project. Platform Computing has released a commercially supported version of the toolkit.

IBM has since joined in development of the next-generation Globus Toolkit 3.0, to be based on Open Grid Services Architecture specifications being drafted by Argonne and IBM.

The Globus Project is led by Ian Foster and Steve Tuecke of Argonne and Carl Kesselman of the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute.

Smart Sensor

The Smart Sensor Developer Kit provides the first-ever user-configurable, active microsensor technology that can be easily and cheaply incorporated into a wide range of instruments for many applications.

The multi-agent chemical microsensor employs films consisting of nanometer-size particles that induce highly sensitive, measurable reactions when exposed to sampled gaseous chemicals. The reactions are translated into voltammetric "signature" outputs, providing extremely low-level detection of chemicals that was not previously possible with films consisting of larger particles.

Chemicals are quickly identified by comparing their voltammetric signatures to chemical signatures in an onboard library. The onboard measurement and analysis software can be run using many popular single-chip microcontrollers, the type found in most low-end wireless pagers and smoke detectors. An optional wireless modem allows the unit to be remotely reprogrammed and recalibrated in the field to specify new levels of detection and update the onboard library of chemical signatures.

The new sensor can simultaneously interpret multiple chemical signatures and transmit an alert, if necessary. Argonne's microsensor is smaller than a dime, and even when included with the highly sensitive voltammetric measurement technology, the size of the total package remains less than that of a wireless pocket pager.

The unit is capable of wide-range, on-board chemical identification and quantification of almost any gaseous chemical and can even periodically clean itself using current from its battery. To date, instruments already being commercialized that employ the technology include intelligent fire detectors, an "electronic nose" to sniff out termite infestations, and a personal monitor that can detect chemical agents and other hazardous materials.

Developers are Michael Vogt, Laura Skubal and Erika Shoemaker (formerly) of Argonne and John Ziegler of General Atomics Corp., San Diego, Calif.

Advanced electrodeionization for product desalting

The Argonne- and EDSEP, Inc.-developed technology is designed to provide a cleaner, cheaper and smarter approach to product desalting – removing salt impurities and other byproducts from finished products.

Each year, industry uses millions of pounds of acid and base chemicals to desalt products. Efforts to replace these processes – which can pollute groundwater and adversely affect human health – with environmentally benign processes have been thwarted by high costs and technical inefficiencies.

The process of removing low concentrations of salt impurities from their products is an energy-intensive and costly step in the chemical, agriprocessing, water conditioning, and environmental remediation industries. The new electrodeionization process developed by Argonne and EDSEP combines the selectivity of the current commercial technology (ion exchange columns) with the efficiency of electrodialysis.

The resulting hybrid process eliminates the need for acid and base chemicals for column regeneration. The Argonne/EDSEP process matches the performance of the current commercial ion exchange technology, while reducing chemical use by approximately 90 percent, reducing waste streams by more than half, and limiting product loss to less than 0.1 percent.

Electrodeionization uses electricity to replace ions rather than the acids and bases used in traditional ion exchange. This approach enables simultaneous desalination and resin regeneration. In Argonne/EDSEP EDI, the resin (the active component in ion exchange columns) is molded into a porous, flexible wafer that facilitates capture and removal of the salt while purifying the desired sugar product.

Developers are Michael Henry, Paula Moon, Yupo Lin, Carl Landahl, James R. Frank, and Seth Snyder, all of Argonne, Shih-Perng Tsai, formerly of Argonne, and Rathin Datta and Dennis Burke of EDSEP, Inc., Mount Prospect, Ill.

The R&D 100 awards, sponsored by R&D magazine, will be presented on October 16 during ceremonies at Navy Pier in Chicago.

The nation's first national laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory conducts basic and applied scientific research across a wide spectrum of disciplines, ranging from high-energy physics to climatology and biotechnology. Since 1990, Argonne has worked with more than 600 companies and numerous federal agencies and other organizations to help advance America's scientific leadership and prepare the nation for the future. Argonne is managed by the University of Chicago for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

For more information, please contact Catherine Foster (630/252-5580 or cfoster@anl.gov) at Argonne.