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At least 289 records · Page 16

Electrical Characteristics of the Mars Electrostatic Precipitator

NASA's next generation Mars missions will include chemical processing plants to convert the Martian atmosphere into consumable products needed to support astronaut activities. The thin, mostly carbon dioxide atmosphere of Mars is estimated to have 5-10 particles/cu. cm which have a radius of 1.6-2.27 microns on average. These dust particles could potentially foul the chemical process or reduce the purity of the products. Electrostatic precipitation is one possible solution to remove dust particles from the ingested Mars atmosphere. The Electrostatics and Surface Physics Laboratory at NASA's Kennedy Space Center has developed an electrostatic precipitator testbed to understand the intricacies of corona discharges in dusty flows simulating Mars atmospheric conditions. Current-voltage trends have been established for a number of precipitator flow conditions. Corona onset voltage and streamer onset voltage trends versus pressure are also established.

Johansen, Michael R.↗

Numerical Model of the Mars Electrostatic Precipitator

NASA's future human exploration missions will require chemical processing plants to convert local resources into consumables to support astronaut activities. The thin and mostly carbon dioxide atmosphere of Mars is estimated to have 1 - 10 particles/cu.cm with diameters of 1 - 10 m and up to 1000 particles/cu.cm during storms. The dust in the Martian atmosphere can foul chemical reactors and pose a risk to life support systems. Electrostatic precipitation (ESP) removes dust particles from the Martian atmosphere. The Electrostatics and Surface Physics Laboratory at NASA's Kennedy Space Center has developed a COMSOL Multiphysics(Registered Trademark) model of an ESP for dust filtration on Mars. The fundamental principles of an ESP can be simulated by four physics modules: plasma, AC/DC electromagnetics, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), and particle tracing. In the ESP model presented here, the plasma module was solved to estimate particle charge. The AC/DC and CFD module were solved for the electrostatic force and fluid force. The particle-tracing module was solved for particle collection efficiency.

Wang, Jerry J.↗

Continuous Electrode Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion

The NIAC Phase I project on Inertial Electrostatic Confinement was a continuation of early stage research that was funded by an NSTRF. The student on the project, Andrew Chap, was funded by the NSTRF from Fall 2013 through the Summer of 2017, and then was funded on the NIAC through the completion of his PhD. A significant amount of work targeting the plasma confinement physics was the focus of his NSTRF, and over the course of that effort he developed a number of analyses and computational tools that leveraged GPU parallelization. A detailed discussion of these models can be found in his dissertation, which has been included as Appendix D in this report. As a requirement for the NSTRF, Andrew's full dissertation was submitted at the end of the program.Having developed the computational tools, a substantial amount of simulation and analyses leveraging those tools were conducted during the Fall of 2017, under the auspices of the NIAC funded research. Much of this work targeted optimization of the confinement fields, investigating their structure and the possible advantages of having them be time-varying. The results of these simulations can also be found in Appendix D.One of the main results from this research is that the density of ions electrostatically confined within the system can indeed be increased by several orders of magnitude by optimizing the radial potential distribution, and by dynamically varying these fields to maintain compressed ion bunches. An electron population can also be confined within the core by a static radial cusped magnetic field,which helps to support a greater ion density within the core. The issue with the confinement mechanism is that as the ion densities are increased toward fusion-relevant levels, the electrostatic forces generated by the confined electron population become so great that the ions are no longer energetic enough to leave the device core. As their excursions into the outer channels are diminished, the mechanism that is used to maintain their non-thermal velocity distributions becomes ineffective, and eventually the ions become fully confined within the core, where they thermalize. A possible fix to the problem comes by discarding the active ion control (a main pillar of the concept)but retaining the structure of the permanent magnet confinement of the electron population. Such cusped field confinement has been the focus of other IEC approaches (e.g. Polywell), but the high transparency of the permanent magnet structure lends itself to better ion extraction and power conversion (a second pillar of the concept). The question then becomes whether any influence on the ion evolution within the core can be achieved to slow the thermalization of the ions. Such approaches have been studied in highly idealized analytic models, but face major criticisms within the literature. While this is a possible path forward, the uncertainty in the approach did not warrant committing NIAC Phase II resources to investigating the concept at this time.

Sedwick, Raymond↗

Electrostatic Discharges from Conductive Thermal Coatings

Selecting the correct thermal control coating for a spacecraft can be a significant challenge. From the start, the process includes balancing conflicting needs. Thermal control paints must have the ability to either absorb or emit heat as desired and this property cannot change beyond a set point over the life of the mission. When the mission involves operating in a heavy charging environment, the control coating must be static dissipative enough to bleed away absorbed energetic electrons to minimize induced electric fields and the risk of electrostatic discharges. Finding the right balance of thermal performance and electrical performance can be difficult for spacecraft designers. In an effort to aid in spacecraft design, a number of white and black thermal control coatings were tested at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory using a two-part test campaign. These tests involved an initial screening test to determine the bulk resistivity of the material using a traditional parallel plate test, but placed in a vacuum chamber immersed in a bath of liquid nitrogen to obtain data over a range of temperatures. The most promising materials were then exposed to a stream of energetic electrons and monitored for the production of electrostatic discharges. Results from these tests indicated that only a few of the common thermal control coatings have a resistivity below 109 ohm-cm as suggested in NASA-HDBK-4002A. Of those that meet this criterion, most will still produce electrostatic discharges when exposed to electrons with energies from 20keV to 60keV while held at cryogenic temperatures. Additional testing is required to characterize additional coatings to create a database that designers may use when selecting an appropriate coating for their application.

Chinn, James↗

Using Electrostatic Principles to Separate Out Nutrients from ECLSS Wastewater Brines

This project will study the use electrostatics to perform electrostatic separation and recovery of Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) waste brines. Currently we have no way to perform nutrient recovery on ECLSS waste brines. This process can give us a competing way to separate sodium from potassium to allow tandem production of acids, bases, and plant fertilizers to run upstream operations and hydroponic systems respectively (when combined with electrodialysis). If we can recover valuable chemicals from brine, then this will decrease resupply from earth, which will allow tremendous (multiple kilograms a day up-mass reduction) cost savings. In addition, using electrostatics for regolith enrichment allow much reduced mining costs for metal production on celestial bodies and allow a smaller mining footprint.

Michael D. Hogue↗

Investigating Particle-Particle Electrostatic Effects on Charged Lunar Dust Transport via Discrete Element Modeling

NASA surface exploration missions have always seen negative effects of dust including the Apollo missions. The astronaut-witnessed unusual behavior of the dust particles that surround the vehicle after engine cutoff has the potential to have more of an influence on surface systems dust loading than the high velocity lunar rocket plume ejecta in the landing process. The levitation and transport of the fine components of regolith on lunar surface has been linked to electrostatic effects and electric field, but so far there is no accurate model considering the inter-particle electrostatic interactions, especially when the particles are charged by rocket plume or other mechanical interactions due to exploration activities. This study is proposed to investigate the dynamics of charged lunar regolith with a discrete element method (DEM) approach focusing on the inter-particle interactions and contact charge transfer. The grain dynamics is coupled with mechanical and electrical particle interactions, and both short- and long-range interactions between spherical particles are incorporated. A tribo-charging model based on instantaneous collisions between particles is adopted and validated by comparing the simulation results to existing experimental data. Sensitivity analysis is conducted to quantify the effects of initial charge, tribo-charging, and E-field on transport of lunar dust based on JSC-1 simulants with a radius of 50 lm. DEM simulations are also conducted in a near realistic lunar environment with the estimations of initial conditions that shows the difference in position and velocity distributions between charged particles and uncharged particles. The results indicate that the charged dust particles have higher dispersion of position and velocity by several orders of magnitude due to electrostatic effects. This provides a potential explanation for the phenomena of the approximately 30 s dust lofting following Apollo Lunar Module landing.

Lunar dust↗

Surface Charge Distribution Mapping Using an Electrostatic Probe

Undesired accumulation of charge on dielectric materials causing electrostatic discharges can be an issue in pulsed power systems and electrical systems in general. As such, an understanding of surface charge distribution, charge accumulation, and decay is required. An in-house no-contact electrostatic probe designed with a 2 mm resolution was fabricated to measure and map surface charge distribution. Designed as a contactless instrument, the probe consisting of a metal rod and low leakage amplifier circuit probes the electric potential near the surface. A scan of the surface then provides the raw data, a potential distribution. The actual probe response - i.e., the surface charge to voltage transfer function, is accounted for in post-processing. This is accomplished via an Inverse Wien Filter - a technique often applied in image processing - to deconvolve the probe response from the measured data. A commercially available electrostatic probe, the Trek 341B meter with a 3455ET probe, capable of measuring +/- 20 kV was compared to the in- house probe that is designed to cover a wider range from +/- 35 kV. A resolution better than the simple probe resolution is achieved through the distribution’s scanning voltage method and deconvolution. Applying repeated scans, surface charge decay was tracked on various polymer materials to determine the material and environment dependence; materials included were PA6, PTFE, and others. As an example of material dependence, samples charged to 20 kV at 65% humidity experience full charge decay in approximately 45 seconds for PA5 (152 mm dia.), while it took about 100 times longer for PTFE (51 mm dia.) to observe the same decay/redistribution of charge.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

GUI Control System for the Mu2e Electrostatic Septum High Voltage at Fermilab

The Mu2e Experiment has stringent beam structure requirements; namely, its proton bunches with a time structure of 1.7 $\mu$s in the Fermilab Delivery Ring. This beam structure will be delivered using the Fermilab 8-GeV Booster, the 8-GeV Recycler Ring, and the Delivery Ring. The 1.7-$\mu$s period of the Delivery Ring will generate the required beam structure by means of a third order resonant extraction system operating on a single circulating bunch. The electrostatic septum (ESS) for this system is particularly challenging, requiring mechanical precision in a ultra high vacuum of 1 x 10$^-8$ Torr to generate 100 kV across 15 mm. This paper describes a graphical user interface that has been developed to automate the conditioning and commissioning process for the electrostatic septa. It is based on an interface to the Fermilab ACNET system using the ACSys Python Data Pool Manager (DPM) Client produced and maintained by Fermilab Accelerator Controls. Network interfacing between data pool managers made by the application and ACNET devices introduce an inherent (approximately 1 s) latency in throughput of the readouts. This delay is utilized to process and graph incoming data events of devices crucial to conditioning of a electrostatic septum (ESS). 'Ramping' and 'Monitoring' modes adjust settings of the power supply based on internal logic to efficaciously increase and maintain the high voltage (HV) in the ESS, easing the voltage setting on incidence of sparking or other possibly damaging events. A timestamped log file is produced as the application runs.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Thermodynamic Model and Initial Experimental Investigation of Air Dehumidification through Electrically Charged Vapor Capturing Electrostatic Droplets

The removal of water vapor from the air to reduce relative humidity is a well known indoor environmental comfort requirement. Common dehumidification approaches require a substantial amount of energy and usually involve the cooling of atmospheric humid air below its dew point or the use of absorbent/adsorbent materials to extract water vapor out of the air. More recently, researchers investigated the effect of electrostatic forces for enhancing water vapor condensation with the goal to reduce the energy consumption associated with dehumidification. However, the studies are limited, and there is a lack of correlations that can predict the dehumidification rate. In this thesis, a broad theoretical investigation to study the electrostatically enhanced condensation processes was carried out. These processes consist of the use of highly charged particles, preferably highly charged water droplets to attract polar water vapor molecules to their surfaces and promote condensation, a phenomenon known as dielectrophoresis. The electrical charge promotes the reduction of the vapor pressure on the droplets' surface with respect to the saturated pressure predicted by the Kelvin equation on curved surfaces and, consequently, the equilibrium between evaporation and condensation is shifted towards condensation. This investigation resulted in the development of a thermodynamics model, which was able to predict an effective size range of the charged droplets for optimal dehumidification, under ideal conditions. The range resulted in about 2 to 4 m in diameter, while the electrical charge was kept to the maximum limit predicted by the Rayleigh model. A sensitivity analysis on the variation of the size and the charge of the charged droplets was also performed. In terms of dehumidification rates, when six electrospray heads, i.e. the maximum number of heads tested in the experimental campaign, were considered, the model predicted very limited rates, way lower than the target of this research, i.e. a dehumidification rate in terms of relative humidity of 5 % with an air flow rate of 5 cfm. While ways to increase this rate existed, their implementation proved difficult for this initial investigation. According to the requirements predicted by the model, the use of electrosprays appeared the most suitable solution for the production of small but highly charged droplets. The electrospray features and operational modes were studied in detail and an electrospray assembly was designed to be tested in this initial experimental investigation. For this initial investigation, an experimental system was designed and built to validate the thermodynamics model and with the goal to achieve a dehumidification rate of 5 % in terms of relative humidity with an air flow rate of 5 cfm. The experimental system consisted of a wind tunnel test apparatus, dew point sensors, thermocouples for temperature measurements, pressure sensors and other devices. The experimental system was equipped with a computerized data acquisition and storage system. The system was suitable to evaluate the air water content differential before and after the test section where the electrospray heads were installed. The air water content differential was evaluated in terms of the ∆ω/ω_1 ratio, to eliminate the dependence on the dry bulb temperature along the test apparatus. This work presented initial experimental data for electrostatically enhanced dehumidification processes. Working parameters, such as air and water flow rates, high voltage potentials and polarity, deionized water types with different electrical conductivity, were varied to find the best combination for an improved dehumidification. With the set up used and the conditions considered, it was never possible to achieve a 5 % dehumidification rate with 5 cfm. In general, the dehumidification rate was always limited and lower than 1 % for all the air flow rates considered and mainly within the uncertainty of the dew point sensors. These results confirmed the already limited predictions of the thermodynamics model, for ideal conditions and the interesting and promising results obtained in some experimental investigations available in the open literature were not achievable in this thesis. The more probable reasons were the higher air flow rates considered and the complete absence of the use of cooling power, which was mainly implemented to facilitate the vapor condensation.

Morcelli, Stefano↗

Screening Ionic Liquids Based on Ionic Volume and Electrostatic Potential Analyses

Ionic liquids are known to have tunable solvation properties, based on the pairing of different anions and cations, but the compositional landscape is vast and challenging to navigate efficiently. Some computational screening protocols are available, but they can be either time-consuming or difficult to implement. Herein, we perform a detailed investigation of the fundamental role of electrostatic interactions in these systems. We effectively develop a bridge between the previous volume-based approach (VBA) with a quantum structure–property relationship (QSPR) approach to create fast, simple screening guidelines. We propose a new parameter that is applicable to both monovalent and multivalent ions, the ionic polarity index (IPI), which is defined as the ratio of the average electrostatic surface potential ($\bar{V}$) of the ion to the net charge of the ion (q). The IPI correlation has been tested on a diverse dataset of 121 ions and reliable predictions can be obtained within a homologous series of ionic liquid compounds.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Efficiency of Tungsten Dust Collection of Different Types of Dust Particles by Electrostatic Probe

Formation of dust particles and clusters is observed in almost every modern thermonuclear facility. Accumulation of dust in the next generation thermonuclear installations can dramatically affect the plasma parameters and lead to the accumulation of unacceptably large amounts of tritium. Experiments on collection of dust particles by a model of electrostatic probe developed for collection of metallic dust at ITER are described in the article. Experiments on the generation of tungsten dust consisting of flakes formed during the destruction of tungsten layers formed on the walls of the plasma chamber sputtered from the surface of the tungsten target by plasma ions were conducted. The nature of dust degassing at elevated temperatures and the behavior of dust in an electric field were studied. The results obtained are compared with the results of the experiments with dust consisting of crystal particles of simple geometric shapes. The effectiveness of collection of both types of dust using the model of an electrostatic probe is determined.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Saddle-Shaped Third Component with Out-of-Plane Electrostatic Dipole for Realizing High-Performance Photovoltaic Donor Terpolymers

Terpolymer fabrication is an effective methodology for molecular engineering and generating high-performance organic photovoltaic materials to construct highly efficient polymer solar cells. Modification of the polymer PM6 by incorporating a third component resulting in the formation of a ternary copolymer is reported to outperform PM6 in achieving enhanced device performances. However, one of the major challenges in constructing high-performance terpolymers is to counter the molecular disorder caused by the backbone entropy induced by the third moiety. Here, in this work, double B←N bridged bipyridine (BNBP) is used as the third component, which possesses a strong out-of-plane electrostatic dipole owing to the saddle-shaped B←N fused ring structure. The out-of-plane dipole moment introduced in the modified PM6 terpolymer can be used as a means for tuning and optimizing the nanostructures of the blended films. The prepared PM6-BNBP-4 blend polymer with 4% of the benzodithiophene dione monomers replaced by BNBP results in excellent power conversion efficiency of 19.13%. This work demonstrates that the out-of-plane electrostatic dipole moment in saddle-shaped molecules is valuable for achieving high-performance organic photovoltaic donor materials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Cation Translocation around Single Polyoxometalate-Organic Hybrid Cluster Regulated by Electrostatic and Cation-π Interactions

We report herein an interesting dynamic translocation process of countercations around one polyoxometalate(POM)–organic hybrid anionic cluster at various concentrations and temperatures. It was found that both electrostatic interactions and cation–π interactions regulate the position of small countercations around single clusters. The dynamic geometry and the symmetry of the hybrid macroions are largely affected by the type of counterions, as shown by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy studies and all-atom molecular dynamics simulation. It is also shown that electrostatic interactions dominate over cation–π interactions in determining the locations of the counterions in the current system.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Electrostatic-Assisted Liquefaction of Porous Carbons

Porous liquids are a newly developed porous material that combine unique fluidity with permanent porosity, which exhibit promising functionalities for a variety of applications. However, the apparent incompatibility between fluidity and permanent porosity makes the stabilization of porous nanoparticle with still empty pores in the dense liquid phase a significant challenging. For this study, by exploiting the electrostatic interaction between carbon networks and polymerized ionic liquids, we demonstrate that carbon-based porous nanoarchitectures can be well stabilized in liquids to afford permanent porosity, and thus opens up a new approach to prepare porous carbon liquids. Furthermore, we hope this facile synthesis strategy can be widely applicated to fabricate other types of porous liquids, such as those (e.g., carbon nitride, boron nitride, metal–organic frameworks, covalent organic frameworks etc.) also having the electrostatic interaction with polymerized ionic liquids, evidently advancing the development and understanding of porous liquids.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Effective Electrostatic Interactions Between Two Overall Neutral Surfaces with Quenched Charge Heterogeneity Over Atomic Length Scale

Using Monte Carlo results as a reference, a classical density functional theory (CDFT) is shown to reliably predict the forces between two heterogeneously charged surfaces immersed in an electrolyte solution, whereas the Poisson–Boltzmann (PB) theory is demonstrated to deteriorate obviously for the same system even if the system parameters considered fall within the validity range of the PB theory in the homogeneously charged surfaces. By applying the tested CDFT, we study the effective electrostatic potential of mean force (EPMF) between two face–face planar and hard surfaces of zero net charge on which positive and negative charges are separated and considered to present as discontinuous spots on the inside edges of the two surfaces. Main conclusions are summarized as follows: (i) strength of the EPMF in the surface charge separation case is very sensitively and positively correlated with the surface charge separation level and valency of the salt ion. Particularly, the charge separation level and the salt ion valency have a synergistic effect, which makes high limit of the EPMF strength in the surface charge separation case significantly go beyond that of the ideal homogeneously charged surface counterpart at average surface charge density similar to the average surface positive or negative charge density in the charge separation case. (ii) The surface charge distribution patterns mainly influence sign of the EPMF: symmetrical and asymmetrical patterns induce repulsive and attractive (at small distances) EPMF, respectively; but with low valency salt ions and low charge separation level the opposite may be the case. With simultaneous presence of both higher valency cation and anion, the EPMF can be repulsive at intermediate distances for asymmetrical patterns. (iii) Salt ion size has a significant impact, which makes the EPMF tend to become more and more repulsive with the ion diameter regardless of the surface charge distribution patterns and the valency of the salt ion; whereas if the 1:1 type electrolyte and the symmetrical patterns are considered, then the opposite may be the case. All of these findings can be explained self-consistently from several perspectives: an excess adsorption of the salt ions (induced by the surface charge separation) serving to raise the osmotic pressure between the plates, configuration fine-tuning in the thinner ion adsorption layer driven by the energy decrease principle, direct Coulombic interactions operating between charged objects on the two face-to-face plates involved, and net charge strength in the ion adsorption layer responsible for the net electrostatic repulsion.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Determination of Collision Cross Sections Using a Fourier Transform Electrostatic Linear Ion Trap Mass Spectrometer

Collision cross sections (CCSs) were determined from the frequency-domain linewidths in a Fourier transform electrostatic linear ion trap. With use of an ultrahigh-vacuum precision leak valve and nitrogen gas, transients were recorded as the background pressure in the mass analyzer chamber was varied between 4× 10{sup -8} and 7 × 10{sup -7} Torr. The energetic hard-sphere ion–neutral collision model, described by Xu and coworkers, was used to relate the recorded image charge to the CCS of the molecule. In lieu of our monoisotopically isolating the mass of interest, the known relative isotopic abundances were programmed into the Lorentzian fitting algorithm such that the linewidth was extracted from a sum of Lorentzians. Although this works only if the isotopic distribution is known a priori, it prevents ion loss, preserves the high signal-to-noise ratio, and minimizes the experimental error on our homebuilt instrument. Six tetraalkylammonium cations were used to correlate the CCS measured in the electrostatic linear ion trap with that measured by drift-tube ion mobility spectrometry, for which there was an excellent correlation (R{sup 2} ≈ 0.9999). Although the absolute CCSs derived with our method differ from those reported, the extracted linear correlation can be used to correct the raw CCS. With use of [angiotensin II]{sup 2+} and reserpine, the corrected CCSs (334.9 ± 2.1 and 250.1 ± 0.5, respectively) were in good agreement with the reported ion mobility spectrometry CCSs (335 and 254.3, respectively). With sufficient signal-to-noise ratio, the CCSs determined are reproducible to within a fraction of a percent, comparable to the uncertainties reported on dedicated ion mobility instruments. .

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Reconstructing the membrane detection of a 1D electrostatic-driven MEMS device by the shooting method: convergence analysis and ghost solutions identification

In this paper, in the domain of 1D-membrane micro-electro-mechanical systems in which the electrostatic field is expressed in terms of geometric curvature of the membrane, we present a numerical approach based on shooting techniques to reconstruct the membrane profile in the device in steady-state case. In particular, starting from known results in literature about existence achieved by Schauder–Tychonoff’s fixed point approach and uniqueness, and focusing on two physical–mathematical parameters appropriately indicative of the applied voltage and electromechanical properties of the membrane, respectively, we will discuss what operation parameters (applied voltage, amplitude of electrostatic field) and for which electromechanical membrane characteristic of the device is permitted or not a convergence of the method with respect to analytical results. Finally, we will discuss in detail the detected ghost solutions.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Continuum Electrostatics Approaches to Calculating pKas and Ems in Proteins

Proteins change their charge state through protonation and redox reactions as well as through binding charged ligands. The free energy of these reactions are dominated by solvation and electrostatic energies and modulated by protein conformational relaxation in response to the ionization state changes. Although computational methods for calculating these interactions can provide very powerful tools for predicting protein charge states, they include several critical approximations of which users should be aware. This chapter discusses the strengths, weaknesses, and approximations of popular computational methods for predicting charge states and understanding their underlying electrostatic interactions. The goal of this chapter is to inform users about applications and potential caveats of these methods as well as outline directions for future theoretical and computational research.

biomolecules↗