Arun Persaud, a staff scientist and deputy program head in the Accelerator Technology & Applied Physics Division’s Fusion Science & Ion Beam Technology Program, was named one of the Physical Science Area’s “Inventors/Developers of the Year” by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO). The award is given to the most prolific inventors and software developers in each area of the Lab, measured by the number of disclosures made to IPO, and was announced at an Area’s PSA holiday town hall on December 20, 2023.
“I feel honored to receive this recognition,” said Persaud. “The project and associated patent is a team effort, and we are working hard to commercialize the instrument.”
Persaud and his team, which included colleagues from the Lab’s Earth and Environmental Sciences Area (EESA) and Adelphi Technology, Inc., a California-based technology developer, were selected for the award for developing a novel technique for measuring the carbon content of soil on agricultural land using Associated Particle Imaging—a nuclear imaging technique that uses neutrons and gamma rays to create images of the inside of objects.
Persaud said the technique will provide a faster, cost-effective, and more accurate way of measuring and verifying soil carbon and “promises to revolutionize carbon soil analysis, making it a game changer for measuring carbon capture and sequestration in soil accurately and precisely.”
The work is part of a two-year project entitled “Real-time Soil Core Scanner for Carbon and Other Elements.” It is supported by funding from the Base Annual Appropriations Technology Commercialization Fund, funded by the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management and administered by the Office of Technology Transitions.
The technology promises a more robust, faster, and cheaper soil carbon analysis method than current techniques. If successful, it would support broader efforts such as the DOE’s Carbon Negative Shot and the administration’s net-zero greenhouse gas emissions goal.
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