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DOE OSTI2025

Progress Towards NQA-1 for Cardinal in FY25

Cardinal is a wrapping of the GPU-oriented spectral element Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code NekRS and the Monte Carlo particle transport code OpenMC within the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE). Cardinal provides high-resolution thermal-hydraulics and/or radiation transport feedback to MOOSE multiphysics simulations. Multiphysics feedback is implemented in a geometry-agnostic manner which eliminates the need for rigid one-to-one mappings. A generic data transfer implementation also allows NekRS and OpenMC to couple to any MOOSE application, enabling a broad set of multiphysics capabilities. Cardinal simulations can also leverage combinations of MPI, OpenMP, and GPU resources. Cardinal continuous development and improvement efforts have led to the software being considered as a high-fidelity design and licensing tool for key areas of nuclear reactor relevant physics, including neutron transport, fluid flow, heat transfer, and mechanical processes. The fast development and expansion of the software from a pure R&D framework towards its application in the nuclear industry and regulation require a focus on developing, enhancing,and maintaining Cardinal’s software quality through strict adherence to a Software Quality Assurance (SQA) framework and SQA program. To facilitate compliance with SQA standards, the Cardinal SQA Program was initiated during Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23). During the development of the Cardinal SQA Program, multiple gaps have been identified. These gaps are primarily related to model verification and code pedigree as they relate to the use of Cardinal as an analysis tool. These gaps were captured in a report published in 2023. A second report highlighted the progress made during Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) and described Argonne’s effort to document and integrate software verification within Cardinal’s software development process. This report documents the progress made towards NQA-1 for Cardinal in the Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25). All cases in the expanded Continuous Integration (CI) suite of NekRS are included in this report which test the solvers and modules available in NekRS exhaustively. The NekRS tests are integrated with the Cardinal CI suite and made available in publicly accessible Github documentation. Following the CI practice permits integrating of source code changes frequently and ensuring that the integrated codebase clears the verification testing for the software. Also in this report is a brief overview of the development of the Cardinal Software Quality Assurance Plan (SQAP) that was done in FY25, though it should be noted that the rest of the documentation for the SQA program needs to be developed in a future step of this task.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Empirical Validation of UBEM: An Assessment of Bias in Urban Building Energy Modeling for Chicago

Residential and commercial buildings currently account for 30% of total global final energy consumption. Urban-scale building energy modeling (UBEM) can enable scalable investments and unlock building improvements by quantifying energy, demand, emissions, and cost reductions of specific measures or packages for building-specific technologies in large geographic regions. While the sophistication of UBEM data sources and technologies have increased dramatically in the past decade, there remains a knowledge gap for empirical validation and sources of bias between building-specific energy models and measured data at varying geographic scales.As UBEM continues to develop, systemic analysis of accuracy, bias, and limitations of the resulting models is necessary to inform best practices and move toward standardization. These are characterized for the Automatic Building Energy Modeling (AutoBEM) software suite with an initial case study involving metered electricity consumption data from 247,188 buildings in Chicago, Illinois, USA - averaged across years 2019-2021 - compared to the following datasets: (1) the AutoBEM-generated nation-scale Model America version 2 (MAv2) data for 596,064 buildings, (2) tax assessor data for 579,829 buildings, (3) tax assessor data filled with MAv2, and (4) 102 representative dynamic archetypes. The accuracy is reported for every building type and vintage combination, along with multiple sources of bias for unique building descriptors. The AutoBEM simulation workflow produced energy consumption estimates that closely match aggregated metered electricity consumption data for different types of buildings constructed during various time periods at the city scale - with initial normalized mean bias error of 10.9%, and 1.1% after removing outliers. Contribution of statistically significant factors including building type, land use, age, and size to variance in UBEM bias is quantified.

Garg, Ankur↗

DOE OSTI2023

FIND: A Synthetic weather generator to control drought Frequency, Intensity, and Duration

Water systems worldwide are experiencing climate change-induced shifts in drought properties like frequency, intensity, and duration, affecting water security and reliability. To develop and test effective drought preparedness plans, researchers often use synthetic weather generators to create hydrological scenarios that explore drought variability beyond historical records. Existing weather generators typically allow users to adjust streamflow statistics like percentiles or temporal correlation but do not directly control drought properties of frequency, intensity, and duration. To fill this gap, we propose FIND (Frequency, INtensity, and Duration) synthetic weather generator. FIND incorporates a standardized drought index to directly and in dependently control drought frequency, intensity, and duration in generated streamflow time series while preserving observed hydrological variability. Use cases for FIND include i) water systems analysis applications that seek to train and test drought strategies under historical and plausible future drought conditions, and ii) bottom-up vulnerability studies relating system vulnerability outcomes to specific changes in drought properties of frequency, intensity, and duration. Here, we demonstrate FIND’s versatility through three experiments: replicating historically observed drought properties, generating streamflow scenarios for multiple sites preserving correlation between their drought conditions, and generating a set of scenarios with direct and independent changes in drought properties. FIND source code is openly available for applications beyond the scope of this paper.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2025

Software Quality Assurance for the MOOSE-Based Open-Source Multiphysics Code Cardinal - An Expanded CI Testing Suite

Cardinal is a wrapping of the GPU-oriented spectral element Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code NekRS and the Monte Carlo particle transport code OpenMC within the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE). Cardinal provides high-resolution thermal-hydraulics and/or radiation transport feedback to MOOSE multiphysics simulations. Multiphysics feedback is implemented in a geometry-agnostic manner which eliminates the need for rigid one-to-one mappings. A generic data transfer implementation also allows NekRS and OpenMC to couple to any MOOSE application, enabling a broad set of multiphysics capabilities. Cardinal simulations can also leverage combinations of MPI, OpenMP, and GPU resources. Cardinal continuous development and improvement efforts have led to the software being considered as a high-fidelity design and licensing tool for key areas of nuclear reactor relevant physics, including neutron transport, fluid flow, heat transfer, and mechanical processes. The fast development and expansion of the software from a pure R&D framework towards its application in the nuclear industry and regulation require a focus on developing, enhancing and, maintaining Cardinal’s software quality through strict adherence to a Software Quality Assurance (SQA) framework and SQA program. To facilitate compliance with SQA standards, the Cardinal SQA Program has been initiated during Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23). During the development of the Cardinal SQA Program, multiple gaps have been identified. These gaps are primarily related to model verification and code pedigree as they relate to the use of Cardinal as a safety analysis tool. These gaps have been captured in a report published in 2023. A second report highlighted the progress made during Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) and described Argonne’s effort to document and integrate software verification within Cardinal’s software development process. This report documents a snapshot of the verification test cases currently available for Cardinal and NekRS in their assimilation into a Continuous Integration (CI) platform. Following the CI practice permits the integrating of source code changes frequently and ensuring that the integrated codebase clears the verification testing for the software. It should be noted that the SQA program itself, including the program plans, procedures, configuration management, and testing strategies, need to be developed in a future step of this task.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

DOE OSTI2026

Cybersecurity Workforce Training for SMR Integration into Distribution Grids: A Competency Framework and Containerized Hands-On Lab for the SMR/DER/Microgrid Boundary

Small modular reactors (SMRs) and microreactors are entering the U.S. distribution grid as synchronous generation on feeders designed for loads and inverter-based distributed energy resources (DERs). No existing cybersecurity training program addresses this intersection of nuclear operations, DER management, and operational technology security. As subcontractor to Iowa State University on the CyDERMS Center, Argonne analyzed the relevant standards and training landscape, translated the resulting gaps into a twelve-objective competency framework across distribution-operator and graduate-analyst role tracks, and built a containerized training lab using a ∼400-bus composite grid model behind a realistically simulated Modbus TCP SCADA stack. The analysis isolates the balance-of-plant / energy-management-system (BOP/EMS) boundary as the critical jurisdictional seam where, as of March 2026, neither NRC nor NERC CIP cleanly claims cybersecurity responsibility for distribution-connected SMRs. The framework maps each objective across NIST CSF 2.0, ISA/IEC 62443, NIST NICE Task–Knowledge–Skill statements, and NRC RG 5.71 awareness-and-training controls. The training lab implements operator-recognition assessment scenarios spanning grid-side disturbances and telemetry-layer anomalies.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Corrosion Testing Of Additively Manufactured Stainless Steel 316H In Molten Salt Environments

The development of a new ASTM standard for evaluating the corrosion resistance of additive manufactured (AM) stainless steel (SS) 316H in chloride molten salts is critical for the use of these materials in extreme environments such as molten salt reactors (MSRs). This report pertains to a work package of the Advaned Materials and Manufacturing Technologies (AMMT) developing a systematic methodology to link changes in AM fabrication parameters, namely surface finishing, porosity, microstructure, and chemical heterogeneity, to corrosion performance in NaCl-MgCl2 salt, a proposed secondary coolant for MSRs. During Fiscal Year 2024, Idaho National Laboratory investigators in the AMMT program, utilized SS316H bars, fabricated with laser bed powder fusion at Los Alamos National Laboratory, to establish and optimize the workflow for evaluating these process-to-performance relationships. Standard practices for specimen preparation were established using these specimens, with particular focus on descaling and sectioning methods that align with ASTM guidelines. A comprehensive experimental design for static corrosion testing was developed, with pre- and post-exposure analysis utilizing optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. So far standard descaling techniques were optimized, one static corrosion test was conducted on the LANL AM SS316H specimens, and pre- and post-corrosion practices were established. In addition, the work package yielded a review paper on corrosion testing gaps for AM materials in nuclear applications and submitted a proposal for a rapid-turnaround experiment to the Nuclear Science User Facilities Program to investigate the combined effects of proton irradiation and corrosion on AM SS316H. This work package establishes a foundation for evaluating processing-to-performance relationships for AM SS316H in harsh conditions, contributing to the safe and efficient design of components for next-generation nuclear reactors. The creation of a standardized methodology and the generation of relevant publications and future research pathways represent significant strides towards integrating AM materials into critical applications where corrosion resistance is paramount.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2022

International Actions to Reduce Miscellaneous Electrical Loads Energy Consumption

Miscellaneous electric loads (MELs) research dates back over thirty years, with the earliest publications on MELs originating in the late 1980s. As the number and types of MELs grew over the subsequent decades, so did the body of minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) and regulations put in place to control what is now an ever-growing source of energy consumption in the residential and commercial sectors. In particular, these MEPS are designed to control off-mode, standby, and connected standby power consumption to prevent energy waste. Research on MELs focuses a great deal on analyzing the characteristics of MELs, approaches for measuring their consumption, and at a higher level what constitutes a MEL. Despite these advances, there has yet to be a comparison of different approaches across regulatory bodies of MELs – both between and within countries – to identify similarities, gaps, and opportunities for crafting common language and testing procedures. This study provides an international analysis of MELs-related voluntary and mandatory MEPS across 12 economies to address this gap. The analysis demonstrates that even while economies may participate in shared commitments to regulated MELs energy consumption, there remains no common language for framing MELs, nor is there a shared understanding of updating aging test procedures used globally for verifying MELs-related MEPS.

Miscellaneous Electric Loads, MELs, Appliance and ↗

DOE OSTI2025

Uniform field in microwave cavities through the use of effective magnetic walls

Wire medium (WM) resonators have emerged as a promising realization for plasma haloscopes—devices designed to detect axions, a potential component of dark matter. Key factors influencing the detection probability include cavity volume, resonance quality factor, and form factor. While the form factor has been explored for resonant frequency tuning, its optimization for axion detection remains unexplored. Here, in this work, we present an approach to significantly enhancing the form factor of WM plasma haloscopes. By shifting the metal walls of the resonator by a quarter wavelength, we effectively convert an electric wall boundary condition into a magnetic wall one, allowing for an almost uniform mode. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulations confirm that this modification improves the electric field profile and boosts the form factor, while also slightly enhancing the quality factor. We validate these findings through experimental results from two prototype resonators: one with a standard geometry and another with a quarter-wave air gap between the WM and the walls. Additionally, our method provides a simple way to control the field profile within WM cavities, which can be explored for further applications.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

DOE OSTI2022

First comprehensive identification of cardiac proteins with putative increased O-GlcNAc levels during pressure overload hypertrophy

Protein posttranslational modifications (PTMs) by O-GlcNAc globally rise during pressure-overload hypertrophy (POH). However, a major knowledge gap exists on the specific proteins undergoing changes in O-GlcNAc levels during POH primarily because this PTM is low abundance and easily lost during standard mass spectrometry (MS) conditions used for protein identification. Methodologies have emerged to enrich samples for O-GlcNAcylated proteins prior to MS analysis. Accordingly, our goal was to identify the specific proteins undergoing changes in O-GlcNAc levels during POH. We used C57/Bl6 mice subjected to Sham or transverse aortic constriction (TAC) to create POH. From the hearts, we labelled the O-GlcNAc moiety with tetramethylrhodamine azide (TAMRA) before sample enrichment by TAMRA immunoprecipitation (IP). We used LC-MS/MS to identify and quantify the captured putative O-GlcNAcylated proteins. We identified a total of 700 putative O-GlcNAcylated proteins in Sham and POH. Two hundred thirty-three of these proteins had significantly increased enrichment in POH over Sham suggesting higher O-GlcNAc levels whereas no proteins were significantly decreased by POH. We examined two MS identified metabolic enzymes, CPT1B and the PDH complex, to validate by immunoprecipitation. We corroborated increased O-GlcNAc levels during POH for CPT1B and the PDH complex. Enzyme activity assays suggests higher O-GlcNAcylation increases CPT1 activity and decreases PDH activity during POH. In summary, we generated the first comprehensive list of proteins with putative changes in O-GlcNAc levels during POH. Our results demonstrate the large number of potential proteins and cellular processes affected by O-GlcNAc and serve as a guide for testing specific O-GlcNAc-regulated mechanisms during POH.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2024

Comparison of effectiveness and energy use of airborne pathogen mitigation measures to meet clean air targets in a prototypical office building

Organizations such as ASHRAE and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have proposed guidelines for controlling infectious aerosols in buildings, which can be met through measures such as modified operation of the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system or incorporating air-cleaning technologies. However, more research is needed to understand the trade-offs between health, energy, and comfort aspects when designing measures for these guidelines. To address this gap, this paper presents an analysis using new models for air-cleaning technologies, including in-duct and in-room germicidal ultraviolet (GUV) systems and portable air cleaners (PACs). These models are incorporated into an existing prototypical office building model and six measures are designed to meet ASHRAE Standard 241 and CDC clean air targets: MERV 13 HVAC filtration, maximum outdoor air supplied to the building, PACs, and in-duct, upper-room, and whole-room GUV. The measures are simulated for an office building in a cool and humid climate compared against a baseline simulation using MERV 8 filtration. The results show that all measures, except for the maximum outdoor air case, can meet the ASHRAE 241 standard without significant impacts on energy or comfort. The HVAC system measures were not able to meet the CDC target with the default system sizing and lead to significant energy increases, while the in-room measures were able to meet the CDC target with small impacts on energy consumption. Finally, this paper consolidates the simulation findings and provides practical guidance for building operators to meet clean air targets while limiting energy and comfort impacts.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2024

Securing Solar for the Grid: Spring 2024 IAB Meeting

The Spring 2024 IAB meeting will focus on updates from the research team and collective feedback and inputs for an updated Roadmap for Solar Cybersecurity. Researchers from the four DOE National Laboratories will present with industry counterparts for the major research tasks within the S2G program, including: Solar Cybersecurity Standards and Certifications, Solar Risk Assessments & Mitigation, Solar Supply Chain Assessment, Network Monitoring Tools and Analysis, and Training and Workforce Development. Sandia National Laboratories developed an original Roadmap for PV Cybersecurity in 2017. This year, we are updating that roadmap to reflect the current state of research and industry and identify gaps and priorities still to be addressed. We look forward to the IAB’s input on key topics for the roadmap.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2020

Visualization of texture components using MTEX

Knowledge of the appearance of texture components and fibres in pole figures, in inverse pole figures and in Euler space is fundamental for texture analysis. For cubic crystal systems, such as steels, an extensive literature exists and, for example, the book by Matthies, Vinel & Helming [Standard Distributions in Texture Analysis: Maps for the Case of Cubic Orthorhomic Symmetry, (1987), Akademie-Verlag Berlin] provides an atlas to identify texture components. For lower crystal symmetries, however, equivalent comprehensive overviews that can serve as guidance for the interpretation of experimental textures do not exist. Here, this paper closes this gap by providing a set of scripts for the MTEX package [Bachmann, Hielscher & Schaeben (2010). Solid State Phenom.160, 63–68] that allow the texture practitioner to compile such an atlas for a given material system, thus aiding orientation distribution function analysis also for non-cubic systems.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2024

Site-specific Design Case Study for Wet Waste Hydrothermal Liquefaction and Biocrude Upgrading to Hydrocarbon Fuels

Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is a thermal process that converts wet biomass to renewable hydrocarbon fuel blendstocks (i.e., renewable naphtha, renewable diesel, and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF)). It can utilize a wide range of pure and blended wet feedstocks, including sewage sludge from water resource recovery facilities (WRRF), food and agriculture wastes, algae, fats, oils and greases (FOG) and blends of dry and wet wastes/feedstocks. Historically, techno-economic analysis (TEA) and annual state of technology (SOT) assessments with standard economic assumptions used by the Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) were conducted for the wet waste HTL pathway leveraging experimental data collected from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s (PNNL) continuous flow reactor systems. The objective of the SOT assessment has been to guide and track progress of BETO’s HTL research and development (R&D) toward reduced cost and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for the pathway. However, gaps exist between BETO’s traditional SOT updates and the needs of key external stakeholders that – if addressed – will accelerate technology adoption. This Business Case Study aims to bridge this gap by providing an updated design, TEA, and LCA based on PNNL’s FY23 R&D with added analyses and information that provide enhanced relevance for stakeholders of the HTL technology. This includes specific siting, regional wet waste resource inventory and transportation cost analyses, fuel market information, sustainable fuel policy impacts, economic metrics of net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR), greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions analysis, and statistical analysis of cost and technical uncertainties of the HTL plant design. The study focuses on the “Detroit combined statistical area (CSA)” region for siting of a wet waste HTL plant adjacent to the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) facility with guidance from industry participants. Regional resource and siting analyses were conducted to identify feedstock availability, scale, and cost, as well as a beneficial site location. TEA with detailed rigorous capital cost estimation for the specific site application was conducted to evaluate the key economic metrics of most value to industrial partners. These include total capital investment, operating costs, minimum fuel selling price (MFSP) of the biocrude and fuel blendstock, and NPV and internal rate of return IRR with sustainable fuel credits. Life cycle analysis was conducted to evaluate the supply chain greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for the wet waste HTL process as compared with petroleum derived diesel. This study is also informed by years of R&D and process de-risking learnings and was conducted with a basic engineering HTL plant design and costing that akin to a “first-of-a-kind” plant economics. This differs from our conventional “nth plant ” SOT assessments. Specifically, the HTL process model has been updated with more operationally reliable methods for feed heating and phase separations. Further, we have implemented additional spare equipment for redundancy, a more rigorous installed equipment cost estimation approach, and additional costs associated with feed formatting and delivery, building, piping and site development. An Excel-based cost sheet based on the basic engineering design is also released alongside the report that allows users to conduct customized TEA with their own feed composition and financial assumptions.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Supporting data for Site-specific Design Case Study for Wet Waste Hydrothermal Liquefaction and Biocrude Upgrading to Hydrocarbon Fuels

Li, Shuyun↗

DOE OSTI2023

Quantitative approaches for including equity in risk and resilience infrastructure planning analyses

Risk and resilience assessments for critical infrastructure focus on myriad objectives, from natural hazard evaluations to optimizing investments. Although research has started to characterize externalities associated with current or possible future states, incorporation of equity priorities at project inception is increasingly being recognized as critical for planning related activities. However, there is no standard methodology that guides development of equity-informed quantitative approaches for infrastructure planning activities. Here, to address this gap, we introduce a logic model that can be tailored to capture nuances about specific geographies and community priorities, effectively incorporating them into different mathematical approaches for quantitative risk assessments. Specifically, the logic model uses a graded, iterative approach to clarify specific equity objectives as well as inform the development of equations being used to support analysis. We demonstrate the utility of this framework using case studies spanning aviation fuel, produced water, and microgrid electricity infrastructures. For each case study, the use of the logic model helps clarify the ways that local priorities and infrastructure needs are used to drive the types of data and quantitative methodologies used in the respective analyses. The explicit consideration of methodological limitations (e.g., data mismatches) and stakeholder engagements serves to increase the transparency of the associated findings as well as effectively integrate community nuances (e.g., ownership of assets) into infrastructure assessments. Such integration will become increasingly important to ensure that planning activities (which occur throughout the lifecycle of the infrastructure projects) lead to long-lasting solutions to meet both energy and sustainable development goals for communities.

community-based↗

DOE OSTI2024

Combined search for electroweak production of winos, binos, higgsinos, and sleptons in proton-proton collisions at s = 13 TeV

A combination of the results of several searches for the electroweak production of the supersymmetric partners of standard model bosons, and of charged leptons, is presented. All searches use proton-proton collision data at s = 13 TeV recorded with the CMS detector at the LHC in 2016–2018. The analyzed data correspond to an integrated luminosity of up to 137 fb − 1 . The results are interpreted in terms of simplified models of supersymmetry. Two new interpretations are added with this combination: a model spectrum with the bino as the lightest supersymmetric particle together with mass-degenerate Higgsinos decaying to the bino and a standard model boson, and the compressed-spectrum region of a previously studied model of slepton pair production. Improved analysis techniques are employed to optimize sensitivity for the compressed spectra in the wino and slepton pair production models. The results are consistent with expectations from the standard model. The combination provides a more comprehensive coverage of the model parameter space than the individual searches, extending the exclusion by up to 125 GeV, and also targets some of the intermediate gaps in the mass coverage. © 2024 CERN, for the CMS Collaboration 2024 CERN

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Software Quality Assurance, Software Requirements and Gap Analysis for the MOOSE-Based Open-Source Multiphysics Code Cardinal

Cardinal continuous development and improvement efforts have led to the software being considered as a high-fidelity design and licensing tool for key areas of nuclear reactor relevant physics, including neutron transport, fluid flow, heat transfer, and mechanical processes. The fast development and expansion of the software from a pure R&D framework towards its application in the nuclear industry and regulation require a focus on maintaining and enhancing Cardinal’s software quality through strict adherence to a Software Quality Assurance (SQA) framework. To facilitate compliance with SQA standards, the Cardinal SQA Program has been initiated during Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23).

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2026

Portable and Cost-Effective Device for Reliable Detection of Counterfeit and Non-compliant Refrigerants in Diverse Applications

Counterfeit refrigerants pose significant challenges to safety, system reliability, and operational effectiveness due to their harmful contaminants or incompatible chemical compositions. Utilizing these noncompliant products can lead to reduced efficiency, equipment failures, and expensive repairs. Additionally, heightened demand for alternative refrigerants during the industry's transition has created supply gaps, enabling counterfeit products to proliferate. Accurate detection and analysis tools are therefore essential to verify refrigerant authenticity and ensure system integrity in diverse applications. This paper presents the development of a portable device designed for reliable identification and detailed analysis of refrigerant composition. By integrating precision gas sampling, controlled pressure regulation, and automated sensor technology, the device not only detects deviations from standard refrigerant properties but also provides a comprehensive composition breakdown. Pre-calibrated sensors measure the refrigerant gas to identify specific concentrations and contaminants, with an intuitive LED-based indicator system ensuring quick interpretation of results. The user-friendly interface enables operators to select refrigerant types for targeted testing, further enhancing accuracy and usability for field technicians. Comprehensive testing was conducted on mildly flammable A2L refrigerants, showcasing the device’s robustness and adaptability in analyzing composition and detecting discrepancies. The device demonstrated consistent accuracy across a range of refrigerant samples, affirming its reliability in diverse operational environments. Its design minimizes contamination risks during sampling and provides detailed composition results within 90 seconds, ensuring efficient and precise analysis. With a projected price point under $150, the proposed solution delivers affordability alongside its lightweight portability and straightforward operation. Unlike complex and costly alternatives, such as gas chromatography systems, this device provides an accessible option for technicians, customs personnel, and industry operators in need of quick and effective refrigerant verification. Compatible with both current formulations and emerging refrigerant technologies, the device addresses critical counterfeit detection needs across a range of applications. By delivering accurate composition analysis and counterfeit identification, this innovation enhances system performance, safety, and operational reliability in crucial industries.

Cheekatamarla, Praveen [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000248827↗