Mass. firms in line to receive $33m in fed funding

The US Department of Energy said that several Massachusetts projects will receive a total of $33.2 million in federal funding for energy research.

Among the Bay State companies and institutions in line for the funding are:

1366 Technologies Inc. of Lexington, which is working on technology to lower the installed cost of solar photovoltaics. The firm is set to receive $4 million, the department said.

Agrivida Inc. of Medford, which will receive nearly $4.6 million for efforts to cut the costs of cellulosic biofuels and chemicals.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology is set to receive nearly $7 million as it develops research on all-liquid metal grid-scale batteries that can provide for low cost, large scale storage of electrical energy.

FastCAP Systems Corp. of Cambridge will get about $5.3 million as it looks to reduce the cost of hybrid and electric vehicles and of grid-scale storage.

FloDesign Wind Turbine Corp. of Wilbraham is working on new high efficiency shrouded wind turbines that could reduce noise and safety concerns. It's been allocated roughly $8.3 million in funding.

Sun Catalytix Corp. of Cambridge will get just over $4 million as it researches a novel catalyst to enhance the efficiency of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. That research has the potential to be an important platform technology for the production of solar fuels and for distributed energy storage systems, the Department of Energy said. (Globe Staff)