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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 271 records · Page 15
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Internal-Gelation Production of Uranium Oxide Sol-Gel Particles for Forensic Applications

The purpose of this project was to develop and demonstrate a novel method for the production of uranium oxide microsphere particles with tunable chemical compositions via a sol-gel process using a 3D-printer setup. These particles can serve several purposes in research and development as a forensic training tool or as standard reference materials. A key component of the project was to demonstrate the ability to control physical and chemical parameters of the particles created. First, we demonstrated the ability to employ an internal gelation sol-gel process to create individual uranium oxide particles. The particles were successfully dispensed using a unique 3D-printing setup onto a substrate to react and then were collected and thermally processed. A series of temperatures for the annealing process was tested on individual samples to investigate the effect on the sol-gel chemical composition and physical integrity. Next, we demonstrated the ability to control matrix composition of the particles by separately incorporating fission product isotopes as well as Np-237 into the sol-gel solution. It was shown by gamma-ray spectroscopy that these matrix elements were successfully retained during the gelation process. We studied the retention of the elements across a series of annealing temperatures. Additionally, we demonstrated the ability to quantitatively control the isotopic composition of the particles by altering the U-237/U-238 ratio to a controlled value. Finally, X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) was used to investigate the oxidation state of the sol-gel after annealing at different temperatures.

37 - INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL AND ANALYTICAL C↗
DOE OSTI2025

Development of Predictive Models for Advanced Reactor Autonomous Control

Advanced reactor designs including microreactors and small modular reactors will contribute to the clean production of cheap energy, and autonomous control for advanced reactors is an appealing option for reducing cost. However, there is a lack of industry experience applying autonomous control for advanced nuclear reactors. To accelerate the development and industry acceptance of autonomous control software for nuclear reactors, we aim to demonstrate autonomous control of the Purdue University research reactor (PUR-1) using INL-developed model predictive control (MPC) methods. To prepare for this demonstration, data-driven predictive models based on process data collected from PUR-1 have been developed and integrated with MPC and used to control a physics-based model of PUR-1. A data-driven dynamics model and a gated recurrent unit (GRU) network were both trained on process data from PUR-1. The dynamics model was shown to effectively control the reactor model with MPC when provided reactivity as a control variable but failed to control the model through the control rod positions. The GRU network produced more accurate predictions than the dynamics model when evaluated on operational data, and future work will include the evaluation of the GRU network in the controller.

22 - GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
NASA NTRS1999

ACTS High-Speed VSAT Demonstrated

The Advanced Communication Technology Satellite (ACTS) developed by NASA has demonstrated the breakthrough technologies of Ka-band transmission, spot-beam antennas, and onboard processing. These technologies have enabled the development of very small and ultrasmall aperture terminals (VSAT s and USAT's), which have capabilities greater than have been possible with conventional satellite technologies. The ACTS High Speed VSAT (HS VSAT) is an effort at the NASA Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field to experimentally demonstrate the maximum user throughput data rate that can be achieved using the technologies developed and implemented on ACTS. This was done by operating the system uplinks as frequency division multiple access (FDMA), essentially assigning all available time division multiple access (TDMA) time slots to a single user on each of two uplink frequencies. Preliminary results show that, using a 1.2-m antenna in this mode, the High Speed VSAT can achieve between 22 and 24 Mbps of the 27.5 Mbps burst rate, for a throughput efficiency of 80 to 88 percent.

Tran, Quang K.↗
DOE OSTI2022

Screening and evaluation of biomass upgrading strategies for sustainable transportation fuel production with biomass-derived volatile fatty acids

Biomass conversion to fuels and chemicals is crucial to decarbonization, but choosing an advantageous upgrading pathway out of many options is challenging. Rigorously evaluating all candidate pathways (process simulation, product property testing) requires a prohibitive amount of research effort; even simple upgrading schemes have hundreds of possible permutations. We present a method enabling high-throughput screening by approximating upgrading unit operations and drop-in compatibility of products (e.g., fuel properties) and apply it to volatile fatty acid (VFA) conversion to liquid transportation fuels via a MATLAB script, VFA Upgrading to Liquid Transportation fUels Refinery Estimation (VULTURE). VULTURE selects upgrading configurations that maximize fuel blend bio-derived content. We validate VULTURE's approximations through surrogate fuel property testing and process simulation. Techno-economic and life cycle analyses suggest that VFA upgrading processes down-selected by VULTURE are profitable and have low carbon intensities, demonstrating the potential for the strategy to accelerate process development timelines at decreased costs.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Direct Deoxygenation of Phenol over Fe-Based Bimetallic Surfaces Using On-the-Fly Surrogate Models

We present an accelerated nudged elastic band (NEB) study of phenol direct deoxygenation (DDO) on Fe-based bimetallic surfaces using a recently developed Gaussian process regression (GPR) calculator. Our test calculations demonstrate that the GPR calculator achieves up to 3 times speedup compared to conventional density functional theory calculations while maintaining high accuracy, with energy barrier errors below 0.015 eV. Using GPR-NEB, we systematically examine the DDO mechanism on pure Fe(110) and surfaces modified with Co and Ni in both top and subsurface layers. Our results show that subsurface Co and Ni substitutions preserve favorable thermodynamics and kinetics for both C–O bond cleavage and C–H bond formation, comparable to those on the pure Fe(110) surface. In contrast, top-layer substitutions generally increase the C–O bond cleavage barrier, render the step endothermic, and result in significantly higher reverse reaction rates, making DDO unfavorable on these surfaces. This work demonstrates the effectiveness of GRR-accelerated transition state searches for complex surface reactions and provides insights into rational design of bimetallic catalysts for selective deoxygenation.

Aromatic compounds↗
DOE OSTI2022

Reimport of carbon from cytosolic and vacuolar sugar pools into the Calvin–Benson cycle explains photosynthesis labeling anomalies

Significance Photosynthesis metabolites are quickly labeled when 13 CO 2 is fed to leaves, but the time course of labeling reveals additional contributing processes involved in the metabolic dynamics of photosynthesis. The existence of three such processes is demonstrated, and a metabolic flux model is developed to explore and characterize them. The model is consistent with a slow return of carbon from cytosolic and vacuolar sugars into the Calvin–Benson cycle through the oxidative pentose phosphate pathway. Our results provide insight into how carbon assimilation is integrated into the metabolic network of photosynthetic cells with implications for global carbon fluxes.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

High-energy transient gas pinholes via saturated absorption

This Letter presents a spatial filter based on saturated absorption in gas as an alternative to the solid pinhole in a lens–pinhole–lens filtering system. We develop an analytic model that describes this process and demonstrate spatial filtering with simulations and experiments. We show that an ultraviolet laser pulse focused through ozone will have its spatial profile cleaned if its peak fluence rises above the ozone saturation fluence. Specifically, we demonstrate that a 5 ns 266 nm beam with 4.2 mJ of the initial energy can be effectively cleaned by focusing through a 1.4% ozone–oxygen mixture, with about 76% of the main beam energy transmitted and 89% of the sidelobe energy absorbed. In conclusion, this process can be adapted to other gases and laser wavelengths, providing alignment-insensitive and damage-resistant pinholes for high-repetition-rate high-energy lasers.

Ou, K. [Stanford Univ., CA (United States)] (ORCID↗
DOE OSTI2022

Low-Cost, Durable and Retrofittable Methane Oxidation Catalysts (Abstract)

There is significant concern over the contributions of GHG emissions to global warming which has sparked intense focus on reducing GHG emissions in industrial processes. In response, this project aims to develop and demonstrate a methane oxidation catalyst that can be deployed on NG engines used in US O&G industry and will serve to significantly reduce the carbon footprint associated with those midstream operations. The catalyst will achieve 90% oxidation efficiency while operating at 450°C or less and at 50% less Pd versus existing catalyst technology. This technology would enable the realization of nearly 30% reduced GHG emissions from NG engines (versus diesel) that methane slip from these engines otherwise negates.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2024

Engineering-Scale Testing of the Biphasic Solvent Based CO 2 Absorption Capture Technology at a Covanta Waste-to-Energy Facility

The original goals of this project were to advance the development and demonstration of the Biphasic CO 2 Absorption Process (BiCAP) technology for CO 2 capture from waste-to-energy (WTE) generation at a 2.5 tonne per day (TPD) engineering scale. This project has primarily focused on the basic design of the 2.5 TPD pilot system within the inside battery limits pertaining to CO 2 capture. The project also conducted a preliminary techno-economic analysis (TEA) for BiCAP at a scale of 100,000 tonne per year (TPY) of CO 2 capture and a preliminary life cycle analysis (LCA) with a primary focus on the environmental impacts related to global warming potential.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Techno Economic Analysis for Production of Renewable Natural Gas and Value-Added Chemicals from Forest Biomass Residues (CRADA Final Report)

West Biofuels - in collaboration with the University of California San Diego, the University of California Davis, the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), the Colorado School of Mines’ Center for Hydrate Research, Placer County Air Pollution Control District, the Sierra Business Council, and the Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas)-will demonstrate an innovative pathway to convert forest biomass to renewable gas (RG). The project, Production of Pipeline Grade Renewable Natural Gas and Value-Added Chemicals from Forest Biomass Residues, will utilize an existing pilot-scale gasification system and data and lessons learned from a lab-scale catalytic reactor design, develop, and demonstrate an integrated pilot-scale RG process with a scaled-up catalytic reactor and hydrate-based gas separation process. This robust and simple process uses a commercial proven gasifier, a commercially available catalyst that can tolerate gas contaminants, and a gas separation process that simplifies the downstream processing. Current testing has shown that the process can yield a large amount of methane rich renewable gas in addition to a mixture of propanol, ethanol and other higher alcohols and the relative amounts can be controlled by shifting the process conditions. This process is novel and groundbreaking because the product mixture of RG and valuable alcohols byproducts makes RG production economically feasible at $\$$12 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) or less using forest biomass from high hazard zones.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
NASA NTRS1990

Space station definitions, design, and development. Task 5: Multiple arm telerobot coordination and control: Manipulator design methodology

A proposed methodology applicable to the design of manipulator systems is described. The current design process is especially weak in the preliminary design phase, since there is no accepted measure to be used in trading off different options available for the various subsystems. The design process described uses Cartesian End-Effector Impedance as a measure of performance for the system. Having this measure of performance, it is shown how it may be used to determine the trade-offs necessary to the preliminary design phase. The design process involves three main parts: (1) determination of desired system performance in terms of End-Effector Impedance; (2) trade-off design options to achieve this desired performance; and (3) verification of system performance through laboratory testing. The design process is developed using numerous examples and experiments to demonstrate the feasability of this approach to manipulator design.

Stoughton, R. M.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Team Software Development for Aerothermodynamic and Aerodynamic Analysis and Design

A collaborative approach to software development is described. The approach employs the agile development techniques: project retrospectives, Scrum status meetings, and elements of Extreme Programming to efficiently develop a cohesive and extensible software suite. The software product under development is a fluid dynamics simulator for performing aerodynamic and aerothermodynamic analysis and design. The functionality of the software product is achieved both through the merging, with substantial rewrite, of separate legacy codes and the authorship of new routines. Examples of rapid implementation of new functionality demonstrate the benefits obtained with this agile software development process. The appendix contains a discussion of coding issues encountered while porting legacy Fortran 77 code to Fortran 95, software design principles, and a Fortran 95 coding standard.

Alexandrov, N.↗
NASA NTRS2013

Fairfield Plume Measurement and Analysis on the NASA-300M and NASA-300MS

NASA is developing a 10- to 15-kW Hall thruster system to support future NASA missions. This activity is funded under the Space Technology Mission Directorate Solar Electric Propulsion Technology Demonstration Mission project. As a part of the development process, the NASA-300M, a 20-kW Hall thruster, was modified to incorporate the magnetic shielding concept and named the NASA-300MS. This activity was undertaken to assess the viability of using the magnetic shielding concept on a high-power Hall thruster to greatly reduce discharge channel erosion. This paper reports on the study to characterize the far-field plumes of the NASA-300M and NASA-300MS. Diagnostics deployed included a polarlyswept Faraday probe, a Wien filter (ExB probe), a retarding potential analyzer, and a Langmuir probe. During the study, a new, more accurate, integration method for analyzing Wien filter probe data was implemented and effect of secondary electron emission on the Faraday probe data was treated. Comparison of the diagnostic results from the two thrusters showed that the magnetically shielded version performed with ~2 percent higher voltage utilization efficiency, ~2 percent lower plume divergence efficiency, and ~2 percent lower mass utilization efficiency compared to the baseline version. The net change in efficiency is within the aggregate measurement uncertainty so the overall performance is roughly equal for the two versions of the thruster. Anode efficiency calculated from thrust stand measurement corroborates this finding.

Hall thruster↗
NASA NTRS2014

Artificial Intelligence Based Control Power Optimization on Tailless Aircraft

Traditional methods of control allocation optimization have shown difficulties in exploiting the full potential of controlling large arrays of control devices on innovative air vehicles. Artificial neutral networks are inspired by biological nervous systems and neurocomputing has successfully been applied to a variety of complex optimization problems. This project investigates the potential of applying neurocomputing to the control allocation optimization problem of Hybrid Wing Body (HWB) aircraft concepts to minimize control power, hinge moments, and actuator forces, while keeping system weights within acceptable limits. The main objective of this project is to develop a proof-of-concept process suitable to demonstrate the potential of using neurocomputing for optimizing actuation power for aircraft featuring multiple independently actuated control surfaces. A Nastran aeroservoelastic finite element model is used to generate a learning database of hinge moment and actuation power characteristics for an array of flight conditions and control surface deflections. An artificial neural network incorporating a genetic algorithm then uses this training data to perform control allocation optimization for the investigated aircraft configuration. The phase I project showed that optimization results for the sum of required hinge moments are improved by more than 12% over the best Nastran solution by using the neural network optimization process.

Gern, Frank↗
DOE OSTI2021

Textured Electrodes: Manipulating Built-In Crystallographic Heterogeneity of Metal Electrodes via Severe Plastic Deformation

Control of crystallography of metal electrodeposit films has recently emerged as a key to achieving long operating lifetimes in next-generation batteries. It is reported that the large crystallographic heterogeneity, e.g., broad orientational distribution, that appears characteristic of commercial metal foils, results in rough morphology upon plating/stripping. On this basis, an accumulative roll bonding (ARB) methodology—a severe plastic deformation process—is developed. Zn metal is used as a first example to interrogate the concept. It is demonstrated that the ARB process is highly effective in achieving uniform crystallographic control on macroscopic materials. After the ARB process, the Zn grains exhibit a strong (002) texture (i.e., [002] Zn //ND). The texture transitions from a classical bipolar pattern to a nonclassical unipolar pattern under large nominal strain eliminate the orientational heterogeneity of the foil. The strongly (002)-textured Zn remarkably improves the plating/stripping performance by nearly two orders of magnitude under practical conditions. The performance improvements are readily scaled to achieve pouch-type full batteries that deliver exceptional reversibility. The ARB process can, in principle, be applied to any metal chemistry to achieve similar crystallographic uniformity, provided the appropriate temperature and accumulated strains are employed. Here this concept is evaluated using commercial Li and Na foils, which, unlike Zn (HCP), are BCC crystals. The simple process for creating strong textures in both hexagonal and cubic metals and illustrating the critical role such built-in crystallography plays underscores opportunities for developing highly reversible thin metal anodes (e.g., hexagonal Zn, Mg, and cubic Li, Na, Ca, Al).

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRS1993

Radial basis function network learns ceramic processing and predicts related strength and density

Radial basis function (RBF) neural networks were trained using the data from 273 Si3N4 modulus of rupture (MOR) bars which were tested at room temperature and 135 MOR bars which were tested at 1370 C. Milling time, sintering time, and sintering gas pressure were the processing parameters used as the input features. Flexural strength and density were the outputs by which the RBF networks were assessed. The 'nodes-at-data-points' method was used to set the hidden layer centers and output layer training used the gradient descent method. The RBF network predicted strength with an average error of less than 12 percent and density with an average error of less than 2 percent. Further, the RBF network demonstrated a potential for optimizing and accelerating the development and processing of ceramic materials.

Cios, Krzysztof J.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Exploring the effects of policy on stakeholder adoption and deployment of agrivoltaics: A case study of Massachusetts

Further deployment of agrivoltaics is likely to require a better understanding of how policies and agreements can shape the outcomes of solar siting on farmland. This study evaluates the Massachusetts agrivoltaics policy in terms of its implications on deployment and stakeholder experiences in adoption. We present findings from interviews with 26 state policymakers, Extension agents, representatives of non-governmental organizations, farm owners and operators, and solar developers. Our findings demonstrate how the policy has mixed effects on deployment processes and outcomes—in some instances, the policy enables deployment by formalizing cross-sector collaboration, increasing farm owner and operator participation in development, and facilitating novel business models. In other instances, the policy constrains deployment by prescribing operational requirements, creating liability risk, and developing dependency on empirical data to inform eligibility decisions. Interviewees explained how these mixed policy effects create both benefits and burdens for adopters, particularly farm owners and operators. These insights indicate the value of cross-sector collaboration during all phases of agrivoltaic policy implementation and project development; the importance of coordination across policy, research, and commercial activities; and the significant role of regulators and policy design in deployment. The evidence presented in this paper can inform decision making for emerging agrivoltaic policies and markets, both in the United States and internationally.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Abstract for CRADA between NETL and West Virginia University Research Corporation

The National Energy Technology Lab (NETL) will collaborate with West Virginia University to develop and demonstrate a dynamically operated modular, microwave-enhanced catalytic process for the co-production of ammonia and olefins. Ammonia and olefins (e.g., ethylene) are the most widely produced chemicals in the U.S. by volume, but their processes are also the most carbon and energy intensive as they rely on fossil-based feedstocks and combustion of fossil fuels for heating. The project will leverage the unique ability of microwaves to intensify process heating by providing pulsed, targeted energy to active sites of a mixed catalyst bed to convert a mixture of CH 4 /N 2 into ethylene and ammonia. The collaboration will facilitate the development of microwave technology that has the potential to utilize distributed waste resources like shale gas or biogas as well as renewable electricity to produce these valuable chemicals. It is expected that the results will decarbonize chemical production by using renewable energy and waste feedstocks, improve efficiency by reducing unit operations (H 2 production), and de-risk microwave technology for chemical production by demonstrating long-term and dynamic operability. This project was funded by an award from the Department of Energy’s EERE IEDO.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗