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The FY 2002 Budget Request for the Chemical and
Transport Systems Subactivity is $50.15 million, a decrease of $570,000,
or 1.1 percent, below the FY 2001 Current Plan of $50.72 million.
(Millions of Dollars)
|
FY 2000
Actual |
FY 2001
Current Plan |
FY 2002
Request |
Change |
Amount |
Percent |
Chemical and Transport Systems |
44.24
|
50.72
|
50.15
|
-0.57
|
-1.1%
|
Total, CTS |
$44.24
|
$50.72
|
$50.15
|
-$0.57
|
-1.1%
|
The Chemical and Transport Systems (CTS) Subactivity
supports research and education in areas that involve the transport
and/or transformation of matter and energy. CTS research and education
investments contribute significantly to the knowledge base and to
the development of the workforce for major components of the U.S.
economy such as the process industries (chemicals, pharmaceuticals,
forest products, materials, petroleum, food, and textiles), utilities,
microelectronic component manufacturers, and producers of consumer
products of all kinds. CTS-funded research in areas such as fluid
flow, combustion, heat transfer, fuel cells, sensors, and membranes
contribute to advances that are important for the environment, transportation,
information technologies, energy conservation, and other areas that
impact our daily lives.
The U.S. holds a leadership position in a number
of the industrial sectors listed above and this leadership is manifested
in continuing positive trade balances. U.S. world leadership positions
have come about, in part, from a history of successful basic and
applied research and development efforts, often catalyzed by NSF
funding. The CTS Subactivity will continue to maintain a position
at the cutting edge of important new discoveries. Many emerging
areas are located in the boundaries between conventional disciplines.
CTS will continue to support research in important
traditional areas such as chemical reaction engineering (approximately
$9.0 million), interfacial transport and separations (approximately
$8.0 million), fluid dynamics and particle processes (approximately
$8.0 million), and combustion and thermal processing (approximately
$9.0 million). These areas are essential to ensure continued building
of the fundamental knowledge base, which serves as the foundation
for advances in many fields.
Reallocations within the base of the FY 2002 budget
request of $50.15 million will also permit increases in the following
areas:
Information Technology Research (ITR): An
increase of $500,000 for a total of $1.90 million to support enhancements
in computational tools (algorithms, data mining and visualization)
and infrastructure (tera-scale computing facilities) coupled with
advances in basic science permit modeling and simulation of complex
materials processing and manufacturing techniques. Such simulations
enable a significant increase in the breadth and depth of the CTS
research portfolio in various ITR-related areas. These areas include
the design and utilization of next generation chemical and plasma
vapor deposition techniques for microelectronics manufacturing;
the simulation of growth of next generation photonic crystals with
control of microstructure formation and segregation of dopants and
impurities; the manufacturing of optical fibers needed in wide-band
networking applications with optimum product quality; and the processing
of polymers (plastics) that involves chemical reactions and multi-scale
transport phenomena of non-Newtonian fluids. In addition to reducing
the time required to introduce new products and processes, advances
in process modeling will result in more efficient and environmentally
friendly processing and manufacturing systems.
Nanoscale Science and Engineering: An increase
of $3.34 million for a total of $16.98 million to support research
in the synthesis and processing of matter at the nanometer-length
scale which will produce materials with novel physical, chemical
and biological properties. Understanding of structural morphologies
and properties in the size range from molecular scale to bulk scale
via new experimental tools and simulation abilities will permit
major advances in many areas central to CTS. The fields of catalysis,
fluidics, electronic materials, separation membranes, adsorption
media, fuel cells, plasma processing, sensors, and environmental
technologies will be significantly impacted. The synthesis of particles,
films and 3D structures with functional nanoscale features by methods
involving nucleation, molecular and particle self-assembly, controlled
thermal and mass transport, as well as chemical reactions, is a
priority area for CTS. Furthermore, in order to accelerate the benefits
from increased investments in fundamental research on these topics,
CTS will allocate funds for Nanotechnology Experimentation and Testing
facilities (NEXT), addressing issues that deal with scale-up of
synthesis, development of new instrumentation and methods for characterization
including predictive models and simulation techniques.
Environmental Technologies: Funds for these
programs increase by $1.0 million for a total of $2.7 million. Research
related to products and processes that avoid or minimize negative
environmental impact will continue to be a CTS priority. Examples
of CTS interest areas include: catalysts that minimize undesirable
side products, new biocatalysis methods that permit the use of renewable
feedstock, separations and purification processes that use less
energy, and environmentally friendly solvents, cleaner combustion
processes, and process design methods that reduce or eliminate environmental
impact. These topics are strongly imbedded in the core of CTS programs.
CTS will provide enhanced funding to these environmental technology
areas through a reallocation of existing resources. CTS provides
leadership for the NSF-EPA joint program, Technology for a Sustainable
Environment (TSE).
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