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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 415 records · Page 23
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2013

Transport Phenomena and Interfacial Kinetics in Planar Microfluidic Membraneless Fuel Cells

Our work is focused on membraneless laminar flow fuel cells, an unconventional fuel cell technology, intended to create a system that not only avoids most typical fuel cell drawbacks, but also achieves the highest power density yet recorded for a non-H 2 fuel cell. We have employed rigorous electrochemistry to characterize the high-energy- density fuel BH 4 - , providing important mechanistic insight for anode catalyst choice and avoiding deleterious side reactions. Numerous fuel cell oxidants, used in place of O 2 , are compared in a detailed, uniform manner, and a powerful new oxidant, cerium ammonium nitrate (CAN), is described. The high-voltage BH 4 - /CAN fuel/oxidant combination is employed in a membraneless, room temperature, laminar-flow fuel cell, with herringbone micromixers which provide chaotic-convective flow which, in turn, enhances both the power output and efficiency of the device. We have also been involved in the design of a scaled-up version of the membraneless laminar flow fuel cell intended to provide a 10W output.

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION↗
DOE OSTI2015

Portable Microfluidic Raman System for Rapid, Label-free Early Disease Signature Detection

In the early stages of infection, patients develop non-specific or no symptoms at all. While waiting for identification of the infectious agent, precious window of opportunity for early intervention is lost. The standard diagnostics require affinity reagents and sufficient pathogen titers to reach the limit of detection. In the event of a disease outbreak, triaging the at-risk population rapidly and reliably for quarantine and countermeasure is more important than the identification of the pathogen by name. To expand Sandia's portfolio of Biological threat management capabilities, we will utilize Raman spectrometry to analyze immune subsets in whole blood to rapidly distinguish infected from non-infected, and bacterial from viral infection, for the purpose of triage during an emergency outbreak. The goal of this one year LDRD is to determine whether Raman spectroscopy can provide label-free detection of early disease signatures, and define a miniaturized Raman detection system meeting requirements for low- resource settings.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2017

Summer 2017 Microfluidics Research Report

Liquid-liquid Extraction (LLE), also known as solvent extraction, represents a large subset of chemistry where one or more solutes are transferred across an interface between two immiscible liquids. This type of chemistry is used in industrial scale processes to purify solvents, refine ore, process petroleum, treat wastewater, and much more. Although LLE has been successfully employed at the macroscale, where many liters/kgs of species are processed at large flow rates, LLE stands to benefit from lab-on-a-chip technology, where reactions take place quickly and efficiently at the microscale. A device, called a screen contactor, has been invented at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to perform solvent extraction at the microscale. This invention has been submitted to LANL’s Feynman Center for Innovation, and has been filed for provisional patent under U.S. Patent Application No. 62/483,107 1. The screen contactor consists of a housing that contains two different screen materials, flametreated stainless steel and polyether ether ketone (PEEK) thermoplastic, that are uniquely wetted by either an aqueous or an organic liquid phase, respectively. Liquids in this device flow longitudinally through the screens. The fine pore size of the screens (tens of microns) provide large capillary/adhesional forces while maintaining small hydraulic pressure drops. These physical characteristics are paramount to efficient microscale liquid phase separation. To demonstrate mass transfer using the screen contactor, a well-known chemical system 2 consisting of water and n-decane as solvents and trimethylamine (TEA) as a solute was selected. TEA is basic in water so its concentration can easily be quantified using a digital pH meter and an experimentally determined base dissociation constant. Characterization of this solvent system and its behavior in the screen contactor have been the focus of my research activities this summer. In the following sections, I have detailed experimental results that have been gathered.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗