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At least 199 records · Page 11
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

Mind the Gap: Building Simulation in the Architectural Design Studio

Building modelling and simulation approaches are increasingly being utilized in architectural design studios to guide and inform the design process and offer evidence-based feedback on proposed building performance. The development of intuitive and simplified simulation interfaces has greatly contributed to achieving this integration. One aspect that is often overlooked is the workflow that governs and regulates integrated design, which can have significant impacts on final design outcomes. Currently there are numerous software packages available for building performance simulations. This makes it challenging to select an appropriate tool that provides accurate results yet allows a designer to make informed architectural decisions with a designer-friendly interface. Furthermore, workflows to incorporate simulations into the design process proved to highly impact student’s project design integration. Yet, it is not clear what type of workflows are successful to achieve this goal, under what conditions, and/or for which building and site typologies. This paper addresses these issues by first reviewing three different workflows for integrating building performance simulation processes and highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. Second, a comparative case study approach was employed to test three of the most common workflows in three different integrated design architectural studios at the senior and vertical studio levels as well as in two courses that run parallel and complementary to the design studios. The workflows, processes, and the resultant student projects were further analyzed based on criteria for better integrated design and architectural excellence as outlined in the American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment (AIA COTE) Top 10 Student’s Competition. Third, to situate the pedagogical case studies’ results within a larger context, a survey of the AIA COTE Top 10 student competition award recipients over the last five years was conducted. The results are summarized in a pedagogical framework that outlines best strategies of the type of workflows, software, design process used, methods to achieve desired interaction between design process and analytical feedback, and metrics for educators to evaluate the success of this integration and their learning outcomes in the design studio. The goal is to help bridge the gap between the building design and simulation within the design studio’s creative process for more integrated design outcomes.

Elzeyadi, Ihab↗
DOE OSTI2013

Right-Sized Reuse - Use a Systematic Process, and Design for a Specialized, Yet Flexible Result - 13558

The process of transferring real property from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is always the same - except when it's not. The most frequently asked questions in the process are: how can this take so long and be so complex, and why is it different every time? The process of transferring real property from the Department of Energy is always the same - except when it's not. Repeat as needed. The authority for DOE to transfer property is found in the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (AEA). Specifically, the transfer of real property for mission-related purposes is done pursuant to the AEA Section 161(g). Another rule that can provide certain unique benefits to the transferee is found in 10 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 770, Transfer of Real Property at Defense Nuclear Facilities for Economic Development; it can be followed for economic development purposes at defense nuclear facilities. All federal real property transfers include at minimum a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review and a Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) chap. 120(h) environmental due diligence evaluation. The end-point objective is to be able to demonstrate that a transfer is protective of human health and the environment - typically attained via a risk evaluation. That's it...mostly. None of these requirements are new; their processes are well-known. So, why is it different every time there is a transfer and what can be done to move things along? Time and the perception of open-ended schedules kill projects. Economic development projects that are proposed by Community Reuse Organizations (CROs) and others or by parties who need private capital are especially time-sensitive. It is not reasonable to expect business interests or investors to wait two years while the property transfer process is carried out. Lenders are also risk-sensitive and not solely business-risk sensitive. After all, these are federal properties where contamination is a factor. What are some of the things you can do to address those time and risk issues? Issues of time and complexity arise from several variables. Short-sighted vision and lack of project definition lead to wasted effort and lengthy delays. Some variability on the input side of the process can be controlled in a way that will save you time and actually work to your advantage. Steps can be taken to systematize the transfer process on the agency's part and on the requester/grantee's part. Having the right mix of dedicated people from the beginning, planning with flexibility, coordinating with the clean-up program at your site, knowing the interests and issues of your stakeholders, and working with the CRO/economic development authorities - all of these measures and others can and will help you. The key is not simply knowing the steps and making a punch-list, but understanding the steps and how to work with and use them. These concepts can be applied to create a vision of success for those engaged in real property transfer. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2012

CO₂ Capture Membrane Process for Power Plant Flue Gas

Because the fleet of coal-fired power plants is of such importance to the nation's energy production while also being the single largest emitter of CO₂, the development of retrofit, post-combustion CO₂ capture technologies for existing and new, upcoming coal power plants will allow coal to remain a major component of the U.S. energy mix while mitigating global warming. Post-combustion carbon capture technologies are an attractive option for coal-fired power plants as they do not require modification of major power-plant infrastructures, such as fuel processing, boiler, and steam-turbine subsystems. In this project, the overall objective was to develop an advanced, hollow-fiber, polymeric membrane process that could be cost-effectively retrofitted into current pulverized coal-fired power plants to capture at least 90% of the CO₂ from plant flue gas with 95% captured CO₂ purity. The approach for this project tackled the technology development on three different fronts in parallel: membrane materials R&D, hollow-fiber membrane module development, and process development and engineering. The project team consisted of RTI (prime) and two industrial partners, Arkema, Inc. and Generon IGS, Inc. Two CO₂-selective membrane polymer platforms were targeted for development in this project. For the near term, a next-generation, high-flux polycarbonate membrane platform was spun into hollow-fiber membranes that were fabricated into both lab-scale and larger prototype (~2,200 ft²) membrane modules. For the long term, a new fluoropolymer membrane platform based on poly(vinylidene fluoride) [PVDF] chemistry was developed using a copolymer approach as improved capture membrane materials with superior chemical resistance to flue-gas contaminants (moisture, SO₂, NO x , etc.). Specific objectives were: - Development of new, highly chemically resistant, fluorinated polymers as membrane materials with minimum selectivity of 30 for CO₂ over N₂ and CO₂ permeance greater than 300 gas permeation units (GPU) targeted; - Development of next-generation polycarbonate hollow-fiber membranes and membrane modules with higher CO₂ permeance than current commercial polycarbonate membranes; - Development and fabrication of membrane hollow fibers and modules from candidate polymers; - Development of a CO₂ capture membrane process design and integration strategy suitable for end-of-pipe, retrofit installation; and - Techno-economic evaluation of the "best" integrated CO₂ capture membrane process design package In this report, the results of the project research and development efforts are discussed and include the post-combustion capture properties of the two membrane material platforms and the hollow-fiber membrane modules developed from them and the multi-stage process design and analysis developed for 90% CO₂ capture with 95% captured CO₂ purity.

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Energy-Performance-Based Design-Build Process: Strategies for Procuring High-Performance Buildings on Typical Construction Budgets: Preprint

NREL experienced a significant increase in employees and facilities on our 327-acre main campus in Golden, Colorado over the past five years. To support this growth, researchers developed and demonstrated a new building acquisition method that successfully integrates energy efficiency requirements into the design-build requests for proposals and contracts. We piloted this energy performance based design-build process with our first new construction project in 2008. We have since replicated and evolved the process for large office buildings, a smart grid research laboratory, a supercomputer, a parking structure, and a cafeteria. Each project incorporated aggressive efficiency strategies using contractual energy use requirements in the design-build contracts, all on typical construction budgets. We have found that when energy efficiency is a core project requirement as defined at the beginning of a project, innovative design-build teams can integrate the most cost effective and high performance efficiency strategies on typical construction budgets. When the design-build contract includes measurable energy requirements and is set up to incentivize design-build teams to focus on achieving high performance in actual operations, owners can now expect their facilities to perform. As NREL completed the new construction in 2013, we have documented our best practices in training materials and a how-to guide so that other owners and owner's representatives can replicate our successes and learn from our experiences in attaining market viable, world-class energy performance in the built environment.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Assessment of Algal Farm Designs Using a Dynamic Modular Approach

The notion of renewable energy provides an important mechanism for diversifying an energy portfolio, which ultimately would have numerous benefits including increased energy resilience, reduction of foreign energy supplies, reduced GHG emissions, development of a green energy sector that contributes to economic growth, and providing a sustainable energy supply. The conversion of autotrophic algae to liquid transportation fuels is the basis of several decades of research to competitively bring energy-scale production into reality; however, many challenges still remain for making algal biofuels economically viable. Addressing current challenges associated with algal production systems, in part, requires the ability to assess spatial and temporal variability, rapidly evaluate alternative algal production system designs, and perform large-scale assessments considering multiple scenarios for thousands of potential sites. We introduce the Algae Logistics Model (ALM) which helps to address these challenges. The flexible nature of the ALM architecture allows the model to: 1) interface with external biomass production and resource assessment models, as well as other relevant datasets including those with spatiotemporal granularity; 2) interchange design processes to enable operational and economic assessments of multiple design configurations, including the integration of current and new innovative technologies; and 3) conduct trade-off analysis to help understand the site-specific techno-economic trade-offs and inform technology decisions. This study uses the ALM to investigate a baseline open-pond production system determined by model harmonization efforts conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy. Six sites in the U.S. southern-tier were sub-selected and assessed using daily site-specific algae biomass productivity data to determine the economic viability of large-scale open-pond systems. Results show that costs can vary significantly depending on location and biomass productivity and that integration of novel dewatering equipment, order of operations, and equipment scaling can also have significant impacts on economics.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Counterweight for Long Reach Robotic Arm

Maintenance for vital systems proves challenging due to their location: tucked up and behind components. Pinpointing the precise location of errors presents difficulty when relying solely on the human eye. The solution to this issue arises in the form of a Long Reach Robotic Arm. An adequately balanced robot with several individually controlled links contains the capability to maneuver around obstructing components to locate the points of failure with accuracy. The design process for such a robot begins with the writing of a program. The program intends to visualize how the Long Reach Robotic Arm will move in 2D space by printing a select number of lines representing each arm link to the screen and controlling each link through the keyboard. This code substantially simplifies the design process for the multi-linked arm. The next step in the Long Reach Robotic Arm design process is the development of the arm and its counterweight system. The clear division of this work allows two interns to work on this project: one assumes responsibility for the arm, and the other for the counterweight. I undertook the design for the counterbalance. My half of the project is essential for maintaining safety as an extended multi-linked robot arm presents the challenge of preserving stability. The best method to supply a balance to the robot, even in extension, is a mobile counterweight with a compact design.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Integrating quantitative defense-in-depth metrics into new reactor designs

Risk-informed, performance-based (RIPB) methods have progressed to the point where high-level guidance can be used to augment traditional, deterministic, nuclear safety design practices in areas important to nuclear reactor safety. This paper describes an approach for augmenting the traditional defense-in-depth (DID) qualitative approach with quantitative risk information from a plant-specific probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) in a way that is structured, can be applied on a consistent basis, and allows for clear acceptance criteria. Adding performance-based targets that should be achieved is expected to result in safer and more economical plant designs. Evaluations of DID can be conducted throughout the design process as well as in support of design certification and operating license applications to identify where defense protections could be enhanced or relaxed. Consistent with the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission's policy statement encouraging greater use of PRA to improve safety decision making and regulatory efficiency, this scenario-based DID method can be used to evaluate changes and overall plant design as part of the normal design control process. Although the RIPB method presented in this paper was developed for application to advanced passive light water reactor designs, the metrics could be tailored to other reactor designs. This risk-informed approach to DID helps to ensure that public and worker risk insights are integrated into the design process holistically.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Shaping Symmetry and Molding Morphology of Triply-Periodic Network Assemblies via Molecular Design and Processing of Block Copolymers

This project aimed to uncover molecular design rules for block copolymer (BCP) assemblies of triply-periodic network (TPN) phases, which are highly sought after, yet elusive, nanostructures for many functional material applications that rely on their combination of symmetry and polycontinuous domain connectivity [R1, R2], such as topological-photonics, supercapacitors and ultrafiltration media. While they have been a target of “bottom up” approaches to nanostructured, hybrid materials, the ability to manipulate the tubular network morphology of TPN assemblies beyond the cubic double-gyroid (DG) phase has advanced relatively little.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2019

On the design of magnetically insulated transmission lines for z -pinch loads

Many papers have been published on the theory of magnetic insulation and the use of Z flow analysis of magnetically insulated transmission lines (MITL’s). We describe herein a novel design process using the circuit code SCREAMER , for a real-world MITL for z-pinch loads based on the Z flow model of magnetic insulation. In particular, we design a 15-TW, 10-MA, 100 ns double-disk transmission lines using only circuit modeling tools and Z flow analysis of the MITL. Critical issues such as current loss to the anode during the setup of magnetic insulation and the transition from a non-emitting vacuum power feed to a MITL play a large role in the MITL design. This very rapid design process allows us for the first time to explore innovative MITL designs such as variable-impedance MITL’s that provide a significantly lower total inductance and improved energy delivery to the load. In conclusion the tedious process of modeling the final MITL design with highly resolved 2-D and 3-D electromagnetic particle-in-cell codes occurs as a validation step, not as part of the design process.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2019

A General Framework for Process Synthesis, Integration, and Intensification

Process synthesis, integration, and intensification are the three pillars of process design. Current synthesis and integration methods are able to find optimal design targets and process configurations when all the alternatives are known beforehand. Process intensification, on the other hand, combines multiple physicochemical phenomena and exploits their interactions to create innovative designs. Often times, these designs are not known beforehand, and a phenomena-level representation of chemical processes are required to identify them. This disconnection between the three paradigms limits the ability to systematically discover optimal design pathways. We demonstrate that the building block representation, originally proposed in our earlier work on process intensification, has the potential to bridge this gap. Depending on the attributes assigned to the interior and the boundaries of these two-dimensional abstract building blocks, they can represent various intensified or isolated phenomena at the lowest level, various tasks at the equipment level, and various unit operations at the flowsheet level. Here, this common multiscale representation enables an mixed-integer nonlinear optimization-based single framework for the sequential or simultaneous synthesis, integration, and intensification of chemical processes. Such a general framework is critical to reduce the risk of eliminating potential intensification pathways and candidate flowsheets at the conceptual design stage. The framework is demonstrated using a case study on an ethylene glycol process.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2025

On the optimal sizing of power take-off systems for wave energy converters

The power take-off (PTO) system in a wave energy converter (WEC) is the means by which the energy in an ocean wave is converted into useful energy. There has been a general lack of technology convergence in the wave energy industry and PTO design has been largely device-specific with the design process determined by the WEC developer. An optimized PTO design can significantly affect the efficiency, reliability, performance, and overall cost and viability of a device. There remains a need in the marine energy industry for best practices and efficient design processes to be identified as it could greatly benefit developers and researchers in designing an optimal WEC PTO. This research utilizes the open-source Matlab-Simulink based software, WEC-Sim, which was developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and the Eagle, a high-performance computing system, to model and optimize two WECs of different archetypes and then investigates if any trends exist that can be exploited for greater efficiency in optimal PTO design. The results from this research indicate that there may be an optimal sizing for WEC PTOs for both power and PTO force rating and that substantial reductions can be made in the cost of a device without significant loss in the energy produced. Furthermore this optimal sizing may be independent of WEC type and deployment location. With an optimal, or near optimal, approach to WEC PTO sizing demonstrated, a methodology is proposed to address the challenge of nameplate ratings in the wave energy industry.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Description of FY25 Theory and Simulation Performance Target: Development of an integrated modeling framework for fusion reactor design and assessment

The urgency to deliver fusion power is growing now more than ever, with increasing pressure for both public programs and private companies to meet milestones timelines and overcome significant remaining technical challenges to ensure growth of a nascent fusion industry in time to meet rapidly growing clean energy demands. With incredible advancements in computation and years of investment in fusion model development and validation, integrated modeling is poised to fill a key role in accelerating the timeline to a fusion pilot plant (FPP). Future fusion pilot plants will operate in regimes far beyond current experience, and device design will rely on physics-based prediction and extrapolation. Many concepts will also rely on simulation to assess safety (shielding, tritium management, materials activation and lifetimes), economics and scalability before the decision to build. Importantly, integrated simulation can be used to reveal and solve the complexities of system integration that may otherwise not be apparent in physical components or models developed in isolation. New experimental test facilities that produce relevant conditions to validate and resolve key technical challenges for various subsystems (materials, blankets, fuel cycle, etc.) have been repeatedly called for by the fusion community but are not yet realized. Integrated modeling has an important role in identifying realistic load conditions (thermal, electromagnetic, plasma, neutron and photon loads, etc.) and defining the components and experiments for these test facilities in order to ensure meaningful validation that sufficiently reduces modeling uncertainties and technical risk for the full integrated reactor. The Fusion REactor Design and Assessment (FREDA) SciDAC project is building a component-based integrated modeling framework & data structure to enable self-consistent, multi-fidelity, iterative optimization workflows for the fusion reactor design process. FREDA aims to shorten the time to viable designs by providing a set of flexible workflows to support the various stages of the design process using an integrated model hierarchy, ranging from the simple analytic descriptions to the highest fidelity, theory-based plasma and engineering modeling developed by the fusion and fission communities. These tools are expected to be needed for timely support of FPP design in the milestone program and in the FIRE collaboratives. The plasma simulation backbone of FREDA is IPS-FASTRAN with newly developed coupled Core-Edge Pedestal-SOL (CESOL) workflows, which is being extended to the far-SOL region up to the plasma facing components. FREDA incorporates the FERMI engineering modeling suite and will enable self-consistent evaluation of the thermal shields, limiters, blanket, magnets, and other surrounding structures with predictions of temperatures, erosion, dpa, activation, tritium generation and transport, creep, corrosion, material degradation, etc. Parametric generation of 3D CAD enables rapid iteration of component geometry in response to plasma and loading specifications.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2019

Quality Guidelines for Energy System Studies: Process Modeling Design Parameters

The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) conducts systems analysis studies that require a large number of inputs, from ambient conditions to parameters for Aspen Plus® (Aspen) process blocks. The sheer number of assumptions required makes it impractical to document all of them in each issued report. The purpose of this section of the Quality Guidelines for Energy System Studies (QGESS) is to document the assumptions most commonly used in system analysis studies and the basis for those assumptions. In order to develop the systems analysis models presented in various NETL reports, significant vendor data has been obtained, and this data enhances the model outputs. Much of the vendor data obtained is considered proprietary and not suitable for public release, or attribution to a specific vendor. As such, several sub-systems common in NETL reports and their processparameter data are not reported in this document to protect proprietary vendor information.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2013

The NSLS-II Alignment Coordinate System Conventions

For NSLS-II construction activities, a construction coordinate system is established with certain connections to geodetic NY State Plane Coordinate System, while physicists design the lattice and layout of accelerator and beam lines in a relatively dependent virtual space with their beam following coordinate system. In engineering design process, mechanical drawing designers, and beam line experts may both have their own coordinate system in a self-convenient manner. This situation will bring out problems of consistency and eventually lead to potential chaos for survey and alignment work. Therefore, it prompts to establish coordinate conventions recognized by all the relevant groups in order to smooth the coordinate processing flow when executing the alignment task according to specific design. Here descriptions about several existing coordinate system will be delineated and the definition of accelerator alignment coordinate system will be emphasized. The rotation and translation mathematical parameters will be given to allow for easy transformation. All the units are in meters. A programming code has been written to deal with a key requirement of integrating components’ fiducials into storage ring coordinate system. The parameters and code can be validated and tested by relevant groups.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Design of Defensive Cybersecurity Architectures for High Temperature, Gas-Cooled Reactors

This report presents the design of defensive cybersecurity architectures (DCSAs) for High Temperature, Gas-Cooled Reactors (HTGRs). A DCSA is a cybersecurity design feature that places systems into security zones in a graded approach according to the importance of the functions performed by the systems. DCSA design efforts for advanced reactors may commence as early as the system-level design phase. This design approach is consistent with the draft regulatory guide for advanced reactor cybersecurity programs (DG-5075) and enables advanced reactor designers to consider the effects of security-by-design (SeBD) features on their DCSAs. Integration of DCSA design and other cybersecurity activities with the traditional design process as part of a SeBD framework may enable advanced reactor designers to improve the security posture of their plants while reducing implementation and operating costs. This report provides a DCSA template for an exemplar HTGR and describes a DCSA design process using event tree analysis so that the template may be optimized for a given HTGR design.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Turbulent Flow Effects on the Biological Performance of Hydro-Turbines

The hydro-turbine industry uses Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tools to predict the flow conditions as part of the design process for new and rehabilitated turbine units. Typically the hydraulic design process uses steady-state simulations based on Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) formulations for turbulence modeling because these methods are computationally efficient and work well to predict averaged hydraulic performance, e.g. power output, efficiency, etc. However, in view of the increasing emphasis on environmental concerns, such as fish passage, the consideration of the biological performance of hydro-turbines is also required in addition to hydraulic performance. This leads to the need to assess whether more realistic simulations of the turbine hydraulic environment -those that resolve unsteady turbulent eddies not captured in steady-state RANS computations- are needed to better predict the occurrence and extent of extreme flow conditions that could be important in the evaluation of fish injury and mortality risks. In the present work, we conduct unsteady, eddy-resolving CFD simulations on a Kaplan hydro-turbine at a normal operational discharge. The goal is to quantify the impact of turbulence conditions on both the hydraulic and biological performance of the unit. In order to achieve a high resolution of the incoming turbulent flow, Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) turbulence model is used. These transient simulations are compared to RANS simulations to evaluate whether extreme hydraulic conditions are better captured with advanced eddy-resolving turbulence modeling techniques. The transient simulations of key quantities such as pressure and hydraulic shear flow that arise near the various components (e.g. wicket gates, stay vanes, runner blades) are then further analyzed to evaluate their impact on the statistics for the lowest absolute pressure (nadir pressures) and for the frequency of collisions that are known to cause mortal injury in fish passing through hydro-turbines.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2015

Solving the Big Data (BD) Problem in Advanced Manufacturing (Subcategory for work done at Georgia Tech. Study Process and Design Factors for Additive Manufacturing Improvement)

3D printing originally known as additive manufacturing is a process of making 3 dimensional solid objects from a CAD file. This ground breaking technology is widely used for industrial and biomedical purposes such as building objects, tools, body parts and cosmetics. An important benefit of 3D printing is the cost reduction and manufacturing flexibility; complex parts are built at the fraction of the price. However, layer by layer printing of complex shapes adds error due to the surface roughness. Any such error results in poor quality products with inaccurate dimensions. The main purpose of this research is to measure the amount of printing errors for parts with different geometric shapes and to analyze them for finding optimal printing settings to minimize the error. We use a Design of Experiments framework, and focus on studying parts with cone and ellipsoid shapes. We found that the orientation and the shape of geometric shapes have significant effect on the printing error. From our analysis, we also determined the optimal orientation that gives the least printing error.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

High-Temperature Ceramic-Carbonate Dual-Phase Membrane Reactor for Pre-combustion Carbon Dioxide Capture (Final Scientific/Technical Report)

Arizona State University, in collaboration with University of South Carolina, worked on a project aimed at development of a new high temperature, high pressure CO 2 perm-selective membrane reactor for water-gas-shift reaction (WGS) with simulated gasifier syngas to produce a high concentration H 2 stream with CO 2 capture. The membrane reactor is made of a CO 2 semi-permeable ceramic-carbonate dual-phase (CCDP) membrane with high CO 2 perm-selectivity/permeance and thermal/mechanical stability for application in WGS reaction. The objectives of this project were to (1) synthesize the chemically/thermally stable tubular CCDP membranes with CO 2 permeance and selectivity (with respect to H 2 , CO or H 2 O) larger than 6.5×10-7 mol/m2·s·Pa and 500, respectively; (2) establish CCDP membrane reactor setup and study high pressure CO 2 permeation and WGS reaction with CO 2 capture using the setup; and (3) identify conditions for WGS in the CCDP membrane reactor that produce CO 2 and H 2 streams with purity of >99% and >90% respectively at CO conversion >95% and overall carbon capture >90%. The work in this project included both membrane development and membrane reactor process study. The membrane development efforts were focused on investigating a H 2 S resistant and highly oxygen-ionic conducting metal oxide material and membrane for CO 2 separation, fabrication of tubular samaria-doped-ceria/molten-carbonate CCDP membrane with high mechanical strength, and experimental and modeling study of high-pressure CO 2 permeation of the CCDP membranes. Mathematical models were developed to describe WGS in the CCDP membrane reactor without a catalyst or packed with a commercial high temperature WGS catalyst. Experiments on WGS in the CCDP membrane reactor with the commercial WGS catalyst, guided by the model analysis, were performed to identify optimum conditions for achieving the CO conversion, carbon capture, and the purity of the H 2 and CO 2 streams mentioned above. At 30 atm feed pressure, 750°C operation temperature, space velocity of 250 h-1, and with steam sweep, a single-stage CCDP membrane reactor with average CO 2 permeation flux of 0.5 cm3(STP)/min.cm2 can achieve CO 2 conversion of 95% and overall carbon capture of 94%, and produce CO 2 and H 2 streams with dry-based purity of >99% and 92% respectively. The project also included process design and techno-economic analysis (TEA) for a CCDP membrane reactor process for WGS reaction with CO 2 capture for a 550 MW coal-fired IGCC power plant, and its comparison with the conventional fixed-bed reactor system for WGS with follow-up CO 2 capture by an amine absorption process. The target performance for the reactor for WGS with CO 2 capture includes CO conversion >95%, hydrogen stream purity >90%, CO 2 stream purity >95%, and total carbon capture >90%. The CCDP membrane developed in this project can achieve the performance target, without subsequent CO 2 capture process at the optimum conditions identified in this project. The outcome of the process design and TEA analysis shows that the membrane reactor for WGS with in-situ CO 2 capture has an operating cost about 40% lower than that for the conventional fixed-bed reactor with a separate amine absorption process for CO 2 capture. However, the capital cost of the membrane reactor process is about twice that of the conventional process because of the higher cost of the CCDP membrane. Modeling analysis shows that a membrane reactor using a CCDP membrane with higher CO 2 permeance (about three times the current value) can deliver the targeted performance for WGS reaction with CO 2 capture at a much higher space velocity and lower membrane surface area to catalyst volume ratio, leading to a smaller catalyst amount and/or membrane area and hence significantly reduced membrane reactor capital costs.

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗