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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 451 records · Page 25
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

A Li-rich layered oxide cathode with negligible voltage decay

With high capacity at low cost, Li- and Mn-rich (LMR) layered oxides are a promising class of cathodes for next generation Li-ion batteries. However, substantial voltage decay during cycling, due to the unstable Li 2 MnO 3 honeycomb structure, is still an obstacle for their practical deployment. Here we report a Co-free LMR Li-ion battery cathode without voltage decay. The material has a composite structure consisting of layered LiTMO 2 and various stacked Li 2 MnO 3 components, where transition metal (TM) ions partially reside in the Li layers of Li 2 MnO 3 , serving as a “cap” to strengthen the stability of the honeycomb structure. This unique capped-honeycomb structure is persistent after high-voltage cycling and prevents TM migration and oxygen loss, as shown by experimental and computational results. Furthermore, this work demonstrates that the long-standing voltage decay problem in LMRs can be effectively eliminated by internally pinning the honeycomb structure, which opens an avenue to developing nextgeneration high-energy cathode materials.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2021

A medium-range structure motif linking amorphous and crystalline states

Amorphous materials have no long-range order, but there are ordered structures at short range (2–5 Å), medium range (5–20 Å) and even longer length scales. While regular and semiregular polyhedra are often found as short-range ordering in amorphous materials, the nature of medium-range order has remained elusive. Consequently, it is difficult to determine whether there exists any structural link at medium range or longer length scales between the amorphous material and its crystalline counterparts. Moreover, an amorphous material often crystallizes into a phase of different composition, with very different underlying structural building blocks, further compounding the issue. Here, we capture an intermediate crystalline cubic phase in a Pd-Ni-P amorphous alloy and reveal the structure of the medium-range order, a six-membered tricapped trigonal prism cluster (6M-TTP) with a length scale of 12.5 Å. We find that the 6M-TTP can pack periodically to several tens of nanometres to form the cube phase. Our experimental observations provide evidence of a structural link between the amorphous and crystalline phases in a Pd-Ni-P alloy at the medium-range length scale and suggest that it is the connectivity of the 6M-TTP clusters that distinguishes the crystalline and amorphous phases. These findings will shed light on the structure of amorphous materials at extended length scales beyond that of short-range order.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Trace benzene capture by decoration of structural defects in metal–organic framework materials

Abstract Capture of trace benzene is an important and challenging task. Metal–organic framework materials are promising sorbents for a variety of gases, but their limited capacity towards benzene at low concentration remains unresolved. Here we report the adsorption of trace benzene by decorating a structural defect in MIL-125-defect with single-atom metal centres to afford MIL-125-X (X = Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn; MIL-125, Ti 8 O 8 (OH) 4 (BDC) 6 where H 2 BDC is 1,4-benzenedicarboxylic acid). At 298 K, MIL-125-Zn exhibits a benzene uptake of 7.63 mmol g −1 at 1.2 mbar and 5.33 mmol g −1 at 0.12 mbar, and breakthrough experiments confirm the removal of trace benzene (from 5 to <0.5 ppm) from air (up to 111,000 min g −1 of metal–organic framework), even after exposure to moisture. The binding of benzene to the defect and open Zn(II) sites at low pressure has been visualized by diffraction, scattering and spectroscopy. This work highlights the importance of fine-tuning pore chemistry for designing adsorbents for the removal of air pollutants.

Chemistry↗
DOE OSTI2023

Hyperactive nanobacteria with host-dependent traits pervade Omnitrophota

Abstract Candidate bacterial phylum Omnitrophota has not been isolated and is poorly understood. We analysed 72 newly sequenced and 349 existing Omnitrophota genomes representing 6 classes and 276 species, along with Earth Microbiome Project data to evaluate habitat, metabolic traits and lifestyles. We applied fluorescence-activated cell sorting and differential size filtration, and showed that most Omnitrophota are ultra-small (~0.2 μm) cells that are found in water, sediments and soils. Omnitrophota genomes in 6 classes are reduced, but maintain major biosynthetic and energy conservation pathways, including acetogenesis (with or without the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway) and diverse respirations. At least 64% of Omnitrophota genomes encode gene clusters typical of bacterial symbionts, suggesting host-associated lifestyles. We repurposed quantitative stable-isotope probing data from soils dominated by andesite, basalt or granite weathering and identified 3 families with high isotope uptake consistent with obligate bacterial predators. We propose that most Omnitrophota inhabit various ecosystems as predators or parasites.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Electrochemical generation of liquid and solid sulfur on two-dimensional layered materials with distinct areal capacities

It has recently been shown that sulfur, a solid material in its elementary form S8, can stay in a supercooled state as liquid sulfur in an electrochemical cell. We establish that this newly discovered state could have implications for lithium–sulfur batteries. Here, through in situ studies of electrochemical sulfur generation, we show that liquid (supercooled) and solid elementary sulfur possess very different areal capacities over the same charging period. To control the physical state of sulfur, we studied its growth on two-dimensional layered materials. We found that on the basal plane, only liquid sulfur accumulates; by contrast, at the edge sites, liquid sulfur accumulates if the thickness of the two-dimensional material is small, whereas solid sulfur nucleates if the thickness is large (tens of nanometres). Correlating the sulfur states with their respective areal capacities, as well as controlling the growth of sulfur on two-dimensional materials, could provide insights for the design of future lithium–sulfur batteries.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Topological valley Hall polariton condensation

A photonic topological insulator features robust directional propagation and immunity to defect perturbations of the edge/surface state. Exciton-polaritons, that is, the hybrid quasiparticles of excitons and photons in semiconductor microcavities, have been proposed as a tunable nonlinear platform for emulating topological phenomena. However, mainly due to excitonic material limitations, experimental observations so far have not been able to enter the nonlinear condensation regime or only show localized condensation in one dimension. Here, in this study, we show a topological propagating edge state with polariton condensation at room temperature and without any external magnetic field. We overcome material limitations by using excitonic CsPbCl 3 halide perovskites with a valley Hall lattice design. The polariton lattice features a large bandgap of 18.8 meV and exhibits strong nonlinear polariton condensation with clear long-range spatial coherence across the critical pumping density. The geometric parameters and material composition of our nonlinear many-body photonic system platform can in principle be tailored to study topological phenomena of other interquasiparticle interactions. Polariton condensation of topological propagating edge states is demonstrated with halide perovskite microcavities.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Efficient and bright white light-emitting diodes based on single-layer heterophase halide perovskites

At present, electric lighting accounts for ~15% of global power consumption and thus the adoption of efficient, low-cost lighting technologies is important. Here, halide perovskites have been shown to be good emitters of pure red, green and blue light, but an efficient source of broadband white electroluminescence suitable for lighting applications is desirable. Here, we report a white light-emitting diode (LED) strategy based on solution-processed heterophase halide perovskites that, unlike GaN white LEDs, feature only one broadband emissive layer and no phosphor. Our LEDs operate with a peak luminance of 12,200 cd m –2 at a bias of 6.6 V and a maximum external quantum efficiency of 6.5% at a current density of 8.3 mA cm –2 . Systematic in situ and ex situ characterizations reveal that the mechanism of efficient electroluminescence is charge injection into the α phase of CsPbI 3 , α to δ charge transfer and α–δ balanced radiative recombination. Future advances in fabrication technology and mechanistic understanding should lead to further improvements in device efficiency and luminance.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Non-thermal electron acceleration from magnetically driven reconnection in a laboratory plasma

Magnetic reconnection rapidly converts magnetic energy into some combination of plasma flow energy, thermal energy and non-thermal energetic particles. Various reconnection acceleration mechanisms have been theoretically proposed and numerically studied in different collisionless and low-β environments, where β refers to the plasma-to-magnetic pressure ratio. These mechanisms include Fermi acceleration, betatron acceleration, parallel electric field acceleration along magnetic fields and direct acceleration by the reconnection electric field. However, none of them have been experimentally confirmed, as the direct observation of non-thermal particle acceleration in laboratory experiments has been difficult due to short Debye lengths for in situ measurements and short mean free paths for ex situ measurements. Here we report the direct measurement of accelerated non-thermal electrons from magnetically driven reconnection at low β in experiments using a laser-powered capacitor coil platform. We use kilojoule lasers to drive parallel currents to reconnect megagauss-level magnetic fields in a quasi-axisymmetric geometry. The angular dependence of the measured electron energy spectrum and the resulting accelerated energies, supported by particle-in-cell simulations, indicate that the mechanism of direct electric field acceleration by the out-of-plane reconnection electric field is at work. Scaled energies using this mechanism show direct relevance to astrophysical observations.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Ion and Electron Acoustic Bursts during Anti-Parallel Reconnection Driven by Lasers

Magnetic reconnection converts magnetic energy into thermal and kinetic energy in plasma. Among the numerous candidate mechanisms, ion acoustic instabilities driven by the relative drift between ions and electrons (or equivalently, electric current) have been suggested to play a critical role in dissipating magnetic energy in collisionless plasmas. However, their existence and effectiveness during reconnection have not been well understood due to ion Landau damping and difficulties in resolving the Debye length scale in the laboratory. We report a sudden onset of ion acoustic bursts measured by collective Thomson scattering in the exhaust of anti-parallel magnetically driven reconnection using high-power lasers. The ion acoustic bursts are followed by electron acoustic bursts with electron heating and bulk acceleration. We reproduce these observations with one- and two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations in which an electron outflow jet drives ion acoustic instabilities, forming double layers. These layers induce electron two-stream instabilities that generate electron acoustic bursts and energize electrons. Our results demonstrate the importance of ion and electron acoustic dynamics during reconnection when ion Landau damping is ineffective, a condition applicable to a range of astrophysical plasmas including near-Earth space, stellar flares and black hole accretion engines.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Electrostatic gating and intercalation in 2D materials

The doping or the alteration of crystals with guest species to obtain desired properties has long been a research frontier in materials science. However, the closely packed lattice structure in many crystals has limited the applicability of this strategy. The advent of 2D layered materials has led to revitalized interest in utilizing this approach through two important strategies, gating and intercalation, offering reversible modulation of the properties of the host material without breaking chemical bonds. In addition, these dynamically tunable techniques have enabled the synthesis of new hybrid materials. Here, we review how interactions between guest species and host 2D materials can tune the physics and chemistry of materials and discuss their remarkable potential for creating artificial materials and architectures beyond the reach of conventional methods.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

The PTPN2/PTPN1 inhibitor ABBV-CLS-484 unleashes potent anti-tumour immunity

Immune checkpoint blockade is effective for some patients with cancer, but most are refractory to current immunotherapies and new approaches are needed to overcome resistance. The protein tyrosine phosphatases PTPN2 and PTPN1 are central regulators of inflammation, and their genetic deletion in either tumour cells or immune cells promotes anti-tumour immunity. However, phosphatases are challenging drug targets; in particular, the active site has been considered undruggable. Here we present the discovery and characterization of ABBV-CLS-484 (AC484), a first-in-class, orally bioavailable, potent PTPN2 and PTPN1 active-site inhibitor. AC484 treatment in vitro amplifies the response to interferon and promotes the activation and function of several immune cell subsets. In mouse models of cancer resistant to PD-1 blockade, AC484 monotherapy generates potent anti-tumour immunity. We show that AC484 inflames the tumour microenvironment and promotes natural killer cell and CD8 + T cell function by enhancing JAK–STAT signalling and reducing T cell dysfunction. Inhibitors of PTPN2 and PTPN1 offer a promising new strategy for cancer immunotherapy and are currently being evaluated in patients with advanced solid tumours (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT04777994). More broadly, our study shows that small-molecule inhibitors of key intracellular immune regulators can achieve efficacy comparable to or exceeding that of antibody-based immune checkpoint blockade in preclinical models. Finally, to our knowledge, AC484 represents the first active-site phosphatase inhibitor to enter clinical evaluation for cancer immunotherapy and may pave the way for additional therapeutics that target this important class of enzymes.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Superconductivity in pressurized trilayer La 4 Ni 3 O 10-$δ$ single crystals

In this study, the pursuit of discovering new high-temperature superconductors that diverge from the copper-based model has profound implications for explaining mechanisms behind superconductivity and may also enable new applications. Here our investigation shows that the application of pressure effectively suppresses the spin–charge order in trilayer nickelate La 4 Ni 3 O 10-δ single crystals, leading to the emergence of superconductivity with a maximum critical temperature (T c ) of around 30 K at 69.0 GPa. The d.c. susceptibility measurements confirm a substantial diamagnetic response below T c , indicating the presence of bulk superconductivity with a volume fraction exceeding 80%. In the normal state, we observe a strange metal behaviour, characterized by a linear temperature-dependent resistance extending up to 300 K. Furthermore, the layer-dependent superconductivity observed hints at a unique interlayer coupling mechanism specific to nickelates, setting them apart from cuprates in this regard. Our findings provide crucial insights into the fundamental mechanisms underpinning superconductivity, while also introducing a new material platform to explore the intricate interplay between the spin–charge order, flat band structures, interlayer coupling, strange metal behaviour and high-temperature superconductivity.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Atomic lift-off of epitaxial membranes for cooling-free infrared detection

Recent breakthroughs in ultrathin, single-crystalline, freestanding complex oxide systems have sparked industry interest in their potential for next-generation commercial devices. However, the mass production of these ultrathin complex oxide membranes has been hindered by the challenging requirement of inserting an artificial release layer between the epilayers and substrates. Here we introduce a technique that achieves atomic precision lift-off of ultrathin membranes without artificial release layers to facilitate the high-throughput production of scalable, ultrathin, freestanding perovskite systems. Leveraging both theoretical insights and empirical evidence, we have identified the pivotal role of lead in weakening the interface. This insight has led to the creation of a universal exfoliation strategy that enables the production of diverse ultrathin perovskite membranes less than 10 nm. Our pyroelectric membranes demonstrate a record-high pyroelectric coefficient of 1.76 × 10 −2 C m −2 K −1 , attributed to their exceptionally low thickness and freestanding nature. Moreover, this method offers an approach to manufacturing cooling-free detectors that can cover the full far-infrared spectrum, marking a notable advancement in detector technology.

nanoscale materials↗
DOE OSTI2025

Super-resolution stimulated X-ray Raman spectroscopy

Propagation of intense X-ray pulses through dense media has led to the observation of phenomena such as atomic X-ray lasing, self-induced transparency and stimulated X-ray Raman scattering (SXRS)4. SXRS has been long predicted as a means to launch and probe valence-electron wavepackets and as a building block for nonlinear X-ray spectroscopies. However, experimental observations of SXRS to date have not provided spectroscopic information, and theoretical modelling has largely implemented hard-to-realize phase-coherent attosecond pulses. Here we demonstrate SXRS with spectroscopic precision, that is, detection of valence-excited states in neon with a near Fourier-limited joint energy–time resolution of 0.1 eV–40 fs. We used a new covariance analysis between statistically spiky broadband incident X-ray and scattered X-ray Raman pulses. Using 18,000 single shots, we beat not only the incident (about 8 eV) bandwidth but also the approximately 0.2 eV instrumental energy resolution, thus creating super-resolution conditions, in analogy to super-resolved fluorescence microscopy. Our experimental results, supported by ab initio propagation simulations, reveal the competition between lasing in the ion and stimulated Raman scattering in the neutral. We demonstrate enhanced signal collection efficiency and a broad excitation window, surpassing spontaneous Raman efficiencies by orders of magnitude. This stochastic SXRS approach represents a first step towards tracking elementary events that determine chemical outcomes.

nonlinear x-ray spectroscopy↗
DOE OSTI2022

Carbon-negative production of acetone and isopropanol by gas fermentation at industrial pilot scale

Many industrial chemicals that are produced from fossil resources could be manufactured more sustainably through fermentation. In this work, we describe the development of a carbon-negative fermentation route to producing the industrially important chemicals acetone and isopropanol from abundant, low-cost waste gas feedstocks, such as industrial emissions and syngas. Using a combinatorial pathway library approach, we first mined a historical industrial strain collection for superior enzymes that we used to engineer the autotrophic acetogen Clostridium autoethanogenum. Next, we used omics analysis, kinetic modeling and cell-free prototyping to optimize flux. Finally, we scaled-up our optimized strains for continuous production at rates of up to ~3 g/L/h and ~90% selectivity. Life cycle analysis confirmed a negative carbon footprint for the products. Unlike traditional production processes, which result in release of greenhouse gases, our process fixes carbon. These results show that engineered acetogens enable sustainable, high-efficiency, high-selectivity chemicals production. We expect that our approach can be readily adapted to a wide range of commodity chemicals.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Addendum: Carbon-negative production of acetone and isopropanol by gas fermentation at industrial pilot scale

In response to a reader’s questions, here we provide additional information about the life cycle analysis (LCA) performed in this paper. The goal of the LCA was to understand the potential environmental benefits of our reported synthetic biology pathways for producing acetone and isopropanol by comparing greenhouse gas emissions to those from conventional, virgin fossil production routes. Below we expand on the rationale and sources underlying the methodological choices we made in the LCA, including our use of a cradle-to-gate system boundary, an avoided emissions credit and the descriptor “carbon-negative.” Finally, we also discuss differences in carbon accounting between an LCA framework and a carbon dioxide removal (CDR) framework.

metabolic engineering↗
DOE OSTI2022

Year-round trace gas measurements in the central Arctic during the MOSAiC expedition

Despite the key role of the Arctic in the global Earth system, year-round in-situ atmospheric composition observations within the Arctic are sparse and mostly rely on measurements at ground-based coastal stations. Measurements of a suite of in-situ trace gases were performed in the central Arctic during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition. These observations give a comprehensive picture of year-round near-surface atmospheric abundances of key greenhouse and trace gases, i.e., carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, carbon monoxide, dimethylsulfide, sulfur dioxide, elemental mercury, and selected volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Redundancy in certain measurements supported continuity and permitted cross-evaluation and validation of the data. This paper gives an overview of the trace gas measurements conducted during MOSAiC and highlights the high quality of the monitoring activities. In addition, in the case of redundant measurements, merged datasets are provided and recommended for further use by the scientific community.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Community detection in hypergraphs via mutual information maximization

Abstract The hypergraph community detection problem seeks to identify groups of related vertices in hypergraph data. We propose an information-theoretic hypergraph community detection algorithm which compresses the observed data in terms of community labels and community-edge intersections. This algorithm can also be viewed as maximum-likelihood inference in a degree-corrected microcanonical stochastic blockmodel. We perform the compression/inference step via simulated annealing. Unlike several recent algorithms based on canonical models, our microcanonical algorithm does not require inference of statistical parameters such as vertex degrees or pairwise group connection rates. Through synthetic experiments, we find that our algorithm succeeds down to recently-conjectured thresholds for sparse random hypergraphs. We also find competitive performance in cluster recovery tasks on several hypergraph data sets.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗