Until recently, Sage Electromatics made electrically tintable windows on a relatively small scale. All that’s about to change. On Friday, the DOE announced that it would provide Sage with a $72 million loan guarantee to build a 250,000 sq. ft. plant in Faribault, Minn.

The company’s SageGlass windows can turn from clear to opaque and back with a click of the switch. (Okay, not literally that quick, but more like in 3-5 minutes after a small amount of voltage is supplied or cut off.) Sage says its product is the only commercially available, electronically tintable window glass in the world.

The loan nicely complements a $31 million Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit the company snagged from the DOE earlier this year.

Sage says its panes are coated with five layers of ceramic materials and use a low voltage:

“When voltage [less than 5V DC] is applied to these layers in their “clear” state, they darken as lithium ions and associated electrons transfer from the counter electrode to the electrochromic electrode layer.Reversing the voltage polarity causes the ions and associated electrons to return to their original layer.”

The company uses a vacuum-deposition sputtering process coating conventional float glass. A second piece of glass is added to complete the sandwich, which is surrounded by an aluminum frame. The units can transmit less than 4% of the visible light in their tinted state.

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, according to the DOE, says SageGlass could cut a building’s heating and air conditioning equipment size by up to 25% and reduce overall cooling loads for commercial buildings up to 20% (by lowering peak power demand) besides shrinking lighting cost. Use of SageGlass may provide LEED credits.

While the glass panels currently operate only in either clear or opaque modes, the company says it will sell an intermediate-level tint system later this year. Sage also says PV-powered units are under development - a good match because of the low-voltage requirements.

The units can be connected to either a simple wall switch or as units integrated into a building management control systems. They also come in four colors (interior appearance - the exterior of appearance of the four are the same): black, green, blue and gray. The largest size currently available is 40″ x 60″ (in either dimension, W x L, or L x W).

The company offers an interesting portfolio on its website of SageGlass installations.

Faribault is located about 25 miles south of St. Paul. The company says the new factory will create about 160 new jobs.

A group out of Missouri University of Science and Technology says it has a new method for mixing metals with ceramic that will allow stronger, heat-resistant, functionally graded materials for the creation of hypersonic and other ultrahigh-temperature aerospace components.

The group, led by Ming Lue, a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor at S&T, uses a precisely controlled extrusion approach to combine – in varying proportions – the ceramic and metallic base components together with a binder. For example, zirconium carbide is pushed through one tube, tungsten is pushed through a second tube and the binder from a third. The metal–ceramic combination is then extruded as a paste, but interesting thing is that the exact mix could be carefully altered as a function of time.

This could potentially revolutionize manufacturing of complex- near net-shaped ceramic parts (which can’t  be processed by conventional methods such as slip casting or injection molding).

In other words, a manufacturer could produce a component with a paste composition that can be varied as it is extruded.

The piece is made depositing the paste, layer-by-layer. The component is then put through what they call Rapid Freeze Prototyping and Freeze Casting to remove the water and polymer binder. The last step is a reaction sintering. The end result is a component composed of gradient materials with custom-tailored mechanical properties.

The biggest benefit, says Leu, who is associated with S&T’s Center for Aerospace Manufacturing Technologies, is the ease it would give manufacturers to create customized parts for aircraft or spacecraft. “By controlling the extrusion forces, we can customize the percentage composition of each of the materials in the final product,” says Leu, who worked on the project with Greg Hilmas, a professor of materials science and engineering  and Robert G. Landers, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.

Another benefit is that the process cuts the amount of polymer needed to bind the metal and ceramic.

“In order to create high-performance combustion components or high-performance hypersonic vehicles that can sustain extreme heat and minimize thermal stresses, these types of functionally graded materials will be needed,” says Leu.

ACerS recently conducted a wonderful “Materials Challenges in Alternative & Renewable Energy 2010″ conference Feb. 21-24  in Cocoa Beach, Fla. Co-organizers Jack G. Simon and George G. Wicks, along with their advisory and technical planning committee, put together an outstanding technical program that included 160 presentations and posters, and 227 people from around the globe attended.

The first day of the conference opened with several 40-minute “tutorial” sessions led by some of the top people in the field. We will have videos available of some of the tutorials in a few weeks. In the meantime, ACerS and the tutorial presenters are making their PowerPoint presentations available for download:

Hydrogen Storage Technologies: A Tutorial with Perspectives from the US National Program [3MB]
Ned T. Stetson, Technology Development Manager, Hydrogen Program, DOE

Air Force Energy Program [2MB]
Bobby Diltz, Energy Systems Research Group, Air Force Research Laboratory Airbase Technologies Division

Photovoltaics: Past, Present, and Future [4MB]
Ryne P. Raffaelle, Director, National Center for Photovoltaics, National Renewable Energy Lab

Material Needs in Alternative and Renewable Energy for the Automotive Industry [6MB]
Mark Verbrugge, Director, Chemical Sciences and Materials System Lab, General Motors R&D

Wind Energy: Background, Technology, Opportunities, & Material Challenges [3MB]
Jose Zayas, Program Manager, Wind & Water Power Technologies, Sandia National Labs

Advanced Materials & Manufacturing for the Clean Energy Future
P.J. Dougherty, Strategic Marketing Innovations

Advances in Battery Technology (to come)
Yet-Ming Chiang, MIT and cofounder of A123 Systems

Materials Challenges in Nuclear Energy (to come)
Steve Zinkle, Oak Ridge National Lab

Also in conjunction with it’s Energy Innovations Summit, ARPA-E is promoting a new, brief video about the photosynthesis/photocatalysis  energy storage ideas of MIT’s Daniel Nocera and his company, Sun Catalytix. Nocera has received $4 million form ARPA-E to continue the development of his prototypes.

Nocera’s catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an anode, placed in water. When electricity from a photovoltaic cell is run through the catalyst, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode’s surface, creating oxygen gas. When combined with a cathode capable of producing hydrogen gas from water, the two electrodes create a system that mimics the way plants use sunlight to split water and create energy during photosynthesis. This catalyst works at room temperature

For more information on Nocera’s work see:

Nocera makes more news with electrolysis gains

More about Nocera’s electrolysis catalyst

Catalyst discovery unlocks low-cost solar storage

Today is the last day of ARPA-E’s first big public event - the Energy Innovation Summit. Yesterday, DOE Secretary Steven Chu used the conference to announce that ARPA-E is allocating an additional $100 million in stimulus funds, “to accelerate innovation in green technology, increase America’s competitiveness and create new jobs.”

This is the third round of funding rooted in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Chu said the new monies would be tartgeted in three areas:

Grid-Scale Rampable Intermittent Dispatchable Storage (GRIDS): Efficient grid-scale energy storage systems, “that provide energy, cost and cycle life comparable to pumped hydropower, but which are modular and can be widely implemented at any location across the power grid.” In particular, ARPA-E is asking for technology prototyping and proof-of-concept R&D efforts for both existing storage technologies and “over-the-horizon” storage concepts.

Agile Delivery of Electrical Power Technology (ADEPT): Materials for advanced in soft magnetics, high-voltage switches and high-density charge storage. In particular, ARPA -E is looking for three things from the ADEPT program: 1) integrated chip-scale power converters for solid-state lighting, microinverters for photovoltaics and single-chip power supplies for computers; 2) cost-effective, kilowatt-scale inverters for grid-tied photovoltaics and variable-speed motors; and 3) solid-state medium-voltage energy converters for solid-state electrical substations and wind-turbine generators.

Building Energy Efficiency Through Innovative Thermodevices (BEET-IT): New approaches to air conditioning buildings that can be retrofitted into existing systems. In particular, ARPA-E is seeking 1) systems with refrigerants with low global-warming potential; 2) more effiecient air conditioning systems for warm and humid climates; and 3) vapor compression AC systems for hot climate.

ARPA-E has already funded 37 projects from its first solicitation for proposals related to energy storage, biofuels, carbon capture, renewable power, building efficiency and vehicles. The DOE division says it is still evaluating nearly 500 concept papers sent in from its second solicitation that focus on biofuels, carbon capture and batteries for electric vehicles.