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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 775 records · Page 43
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Latticed-Confined Conversion Chemistry of Battery Electrode

The electrochemical conversion reaction, usually featured by multiple redox processes and high specific capacity, holds great promise in developing high energy rechargeable battery technologies. However, the complete structural change accompanied by spontaneous atomic migration and volume variation during the charge/discharge cycle leads to electrode disintegration and performance degradation, therefore severely restricting the application of conventional conversion-type electrodes. Herein, latticed-confined conversion chemistry is proposed, where the “intercalation-like” redox behavior is realized on the electrode with a “conversion-like” high capacity. By delicately formulating the high-entropy compounds, the pristine crystal structure can be preserved by the inert lattice framework, thus enabling an ultra-high initial Coulombic efficiency of 92.5% and a long cycling lifespan over a thousand cycles after the quasistatic charge–discharge cycle. This lattice-confined conversion chemistry unfolds a ubiquitous insight into the localized redox reaction and sheds light on developing high-performance electrodes toward next-generation high-energy rechargeable batteries.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2018

Pre-ADS superpotential from confined monopoles

According to the standard lore only single monopoles contribute to the superpotential on the Coulomb branch of 3D N=2 SUSY gauge theories. However we argue that multi-monopole configurations can also generate superpotential terms in the presence of squark VEVs on the mixed Higgs-Coulomb branch. The new ingredient is the confinement of monopoles via Nielsen-Olesen flux tubes. Such confined multi-monopoles will yield a pre-ADS superpotential which depends both on the local Coulomb moduli and matter superfields but has no fractional powers. Once the lifted moduli are integrated out the familiar ADS superpotential is obtained. Our results demonstrate the important role multi-monopoles can play in generating non-perturbative effects and also sheds light on the still somewhat mysterious dynamical origin of the general 4D ADS superpotential.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2024

Line operators, vortex statistics, and Higgs versus confinement dynamics

We study a 2+1D lattice gauge theory with fundamental representation scalar fields which has both Higgs and confining regimes with a spontaneously-broken U(1) 0-form symmetry. We show that the Higgs and confining regimes may be distinguished by a natural gauge invariant observable: the phase Ω of a correlation function of a vortex line operator linking with an electric Wilson line. We employ dualities and strong coupling expansions to analytically explore parameter regimes which were inaccessible in previous continuum calculations, and discuss possible implications for the phase diagram.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Muon g -2 from millicharged hidden confining sector

We provide a novel explanation to the muon g - 2 excess with new physics contributions at the two-loop level. In this scenario, light millicharged particles are introduced to modify the photon vacuum polarization that contributes to muon g - 2 at one additional loop. The muon g - 2 excess can be explained with the millicharged particle mass m χ around 10 MeV and the product of the multiplicity factor and millicharge squared of N χ ε 2 ~ 10 -3 . The minimal model faces severe constraints from direct searches at fixed-target experiments and astrophysical observables. However, if the millicharged particles are also charged under a hidden confining gauge group SU(N χ ) with a confinement scale of MeV, hidden-sector hadrons are unstable and can decay into neutrinos, which makes this scenario consistent with existing constraints. This explanation can be well tested at low-energy lepton colliders such as BESIII and Belle II as well as other proposed fixed-target experiments.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2024

Pore confinement enhances but surface adhesion reduces bacterial cell-to-cell conjugation

As the habitats of bacteria, soil pore network and surface properties control the distribution, adhesion, and motility of bacteria in soils. These physical processes in turn influence bacterial accesses to nutrients and bacterial interactions. Our understanding on the pore- and surface-mediated bacterial interactions is currently limited. In this research, we evaluated the effects of soil pore confinement and surface adhesion on conjugation-based bacterial interactions. The interaction was measured by plasmid transfer between donor and recipient cells within the population of soil bacterium Pseudomonas putida. We found that the presence of porous sand media led to a net increase in conjugation frequency compared to sand-free liquid control. The increase is attributed to the facilitated effect of pore confinement on the collision of bacteria within pores. In contrast, bacterial adhesion to sand surfaces under elevated ionic strength conditions decreased the conjugation frequency as a result of mobility reduction on the surface. Such collision and adhesion mechanisms jointly drive the conjugation as a function of pore and surface properties of porous media. Finally, these results provide valuable insights into the roles of soil pores and surfaces in regulating horizontal gene transfer, an essential cell-to-cell interaction sustaining key processes of soil ecology and health.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2013

Microscale Confinement features in microfluidic devices can affect biofilm

Biofilms are aggregations of microbes that are encased by extra-cellular polymeric substances (EPS) and adhere to surfaces and interfaces. Biofilm development on abiotic surfaces is a dynamic process, which typically proceeds through an initial phase of adhesion of plankntonic microbes to the substrate, followed by events such as growth, maturation and EPS secretion. However, the coupling of hydrodynamics, microbial adhesion and biofilm growth remain poorly understood. Here, we investigate the effect of semiconfined features on biofilm formation. Using a microfluidic device and fluorescent time-lapse microscopy, we establish that confinement features can significantly affect biofilm formation. Biofilm dynamics change not only as a function of confinement features, but also of the total fluid flow rate, and our combination of experimental results and numerical simulations reveal insights into the link between hydrodynamics and biofilm formation.

biofilm↗
DOE OSTI2019

Electromagnetic energy flow in confined regions of evanescent waves: wavelength-scale analysis by the method of single expression

An alternative expression for the Poynting vector for monitoring electromagnetic energy flow in confined regions of evanescent waves is presented. This expression is an intrinsic integrable function of the boundary problem solution in the method of single expression (MSE). The peculiarity of the MSE is the fact that it does not exploit the superposition principle by representing solutions of the Helmholtz equation as a sum of counter propagating waves in the medium, but rather considers resulting wave with certain amplitude and phase by solving special set of the MSE equations with backward calculation approach. This permits to have a universal expression for the Poynting vector appropriate both for media of a positive product of permittivity and permeability and of a negative product of these values that is relevant to the region of evanescent waves. For the boundary problem solution carried out numerically by the MSE it is possible to observe distributions of not only electric and magnetic field amplitudes, but also the Poynting vector in any confined media including regions of evanescent waves. The presented alternative expression for the Poynting vector in the MSE is in complete agreement with the traditional representation of the Poynting vector for the medium where it is defined.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

Confined martensitic phase transformation kinetics and lattice dynamics in Ni–Co–Fe–Ga shape memory alloys

Here we describe insights into the phase transformation kinetics and lattice dynamics associated with the newly discovered confined martensitic transformation, which are of great significance to the in-depth understanding of the phase transformation behavior responsible for the rich new physical phenomena in shape memory alloys and could shed light on the design of novel multifunctional properties through tuning the confined martensitic transformation.

Cong, Daoyong↗
DOE OSTI2015

Lateral carrier confinement in InGaN quantum-well nanorods

We review our studies on lateral carrier diffusion in micro-fabricated samples of InGaN nanorods and their parent quantum wells. The carrier diffusion is observed to be strongly confined in nanorods, as manifested by the reduction in the delayed-rise component of time-resolved photoluminescence traces. We further argue that the confinement of carrier diffusion can be applied to suppress the efficiency droop related to defect state recombination and to assist in the energy transfer between InGaN nanorods and nanocrystal phosphors for color conversion.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

On the harmonic-type and linear-type confinement of a relativistic scalar particle yielded by Lorentz symmetry breaking effects

Based on the Standard Model Extension, we investigate relativistic quantum effects on a scalar particle in backgrounds of the Lorentz symmetry violation defined by a tensor field. We show that harmonic-type and linear-type confining potentials can stem from Lorentz symmetry breaking effects, and thus, relativistic bound state solutions can be achieved. We first analyse a possible scenario of the violation of the Lorentz symmetry that gives rise to a harmonic-type potential. In the following, we analyse another possible scenario of the breaking of the Lorentz symmetry that induces both harmonic-type and linear-type confining potentials. In this second case, we also show that not all values of the parameter associated with the intensity of the electric field are permitted in the search for polynomial solutions to the radial equation, where the possible values of this parameter are determined by the quantum numbers of the system and the parameters associated with the violation of the Lorentz symmetry.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2017

Properties of immobile hydrogen confined in microporous carbon

The mobility of H2 confined in microporous carbon was studied as a function of temperature and pressure using inelastic neutron scattering, and the translational and rotational motion of H2 molecules has been probed. At low loading, rotation of H2 molecules adsorbed in the smallest carbon pores (~6 ) is severely hindered, suggesting that the interaction between H2 and the host matrix is anisotropic. At higher loading, H2 molecules behave as nearly free rotor, implying lower anisotropic interactions with adsorption sites. At supercritical temperatures where bulk H2 is a gas, the inelastic spectrum of confined H2 provides evidence of a significant fraction of immobile, solid-like hydrogen. The onset temperature for molecular mobility depends strongly on the loaded amount. The fraction of immobile molecules increases with pressure and attains a plateau at high pressures. Surprisingly, immobile H2 is present even at temperatures as high as ~110 K. This research at ORNL s Spallation Neutron Source was sponsored by the Scientific User Facilities Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, U. S. Department of Energy. This research was supported in part by the ORNL Postdoctoral Research Associates Program, administered jointly by the ORNL and the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education. CIC and NCG acknowledge support from the Materials Science and Engineering Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2026

Adsorption-based direct air capture using hierarchical porous composites prepared via confined-space crystallization

Capturing CO₂ at trace concentration remains a critical challenge in sustainable carbon management via adsorption, as conventional adsorbents suffer from low CO₂ selectivity, poor moisture tolerance, and energy-intensive regeneration requirements. Here, we report a hierarchical Ba²⁺-exchanged silicoaluminophosphate (Ba²⁺-CSAPO-34) composite synthesized via confined-space crystallization within an activated carbon matrix. Comprehensive characterization revealed a confined nucleation mechanism and the successful incorporation of Ba²⁺ active sites within the SAPO-34 framework, achieved via a two-step liquid ion-exchange protocol. The core-shell architecture combines the selective CO₂ binding of Ba²⁺-functionalized SAPO-34 with the hydrophobic protection of the carbon shell. Fixed-bed adsorption tests demonstrated strong CO₂ binding (at 500-2500 ppm), no roll-up, and effective suppression of water affinity, while maintaining high selectivity even at 90% relative humidity. A phenomenological adsorption model, validated against dynamic breakthrough data, accurately predicted dynamic adsorption behavior under real-world operating conditions, enabling rational process design for direct air capture (DAC) and closed-loop life support systems. Furthermore, these results establish Ba²⁺-CSAPO-34 as a scalable, moisture-resistant adsorbent that addresses key limitations in trace CO₂ capture, advancing practical implementation of carbon removal technologies.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2016

Controlling Carrier Dynamics using Quantum-Confined Semiconductor Nanocrystals

The articles included in this special issue of Chemical Physics explore the use of quantum-confined semiconductor nanocrystals to control the flow of energy and/or charge. Colloidal quantum-confined semiconductor nanostructures are an emerging class of functional materials being developed for novel opto-electronic applications. In the last few years numerous examples in the literature have emerged where novel nanostructures have been tailored such as to achieve a specific function thus moving the field from the stage of discovery of novel behaviors to that of control of nanostructure properties. In addition to the internal structure of the NCs their assemblies can be tailored to achieve emergent properties and add additional control parameters that determine the final opto-electronic properties. These principles are explored via variations in shape, size, surface ligands, heterostructuring, morphology, composition, and assemblies and are demonstrated through measurements of excited state processes, such as Auger recombination; photoluminescence; charge separation and charge transport.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2018

Influence of molecular shape on self-diffusion under severe confinement: A molecular dynamics study

In this study, we have investigated the effect of molecular shape and charge asymmetry on the translation dynamics of confined hydrocarbon molecules having different shapes but similar kinetic diameters, inside ZSM-5 pores using molecular dynamics simulations. The mean square displacement of propane, acetonitrile, acetaldehyde, and acetone in ZSM-5 exhibit two different regimes – ballistic and diffusive/sub-diffusive. All the molecules except propane exhibit sub-diffusive motion at time scales greater than 1 ps. The intermediate scattering functions reveal that there is a considerable rotational-translational coupling in the motion of all the molecules, due to the strong geometrical restriction imposed by ZSM-5. Overall the difference in shape and asymmetry in charge imposes severe restriction inside the ZSM-5 channels for all the molecules to different extents. Additionally, the behavior of molecules confined in ZSM-5 in the present study, quantified wherever possible, is compared to their behavior in bulk or in other porous media reported in literature.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2022

Wellbore cement fracture permeability as a function of confining stress and pore pressure

Cemented annulus fractures are a major leakage path in a wellbore system, and their permeability plays an important role in the behavior of fluid flow through a leaky wellbore. The permeability of these fractures is affected by changing conditions including the external stresses acting on the fracture and the fluid pressure within the fracture. Laboratory gas flow experiments were conducted in a triaxial cell to evaluate the permeability of a wellbore cement fracture under a wide range of confining stress and pore pressure conditions. For the first time, an effective stress law that considers the simultaneous effect of confining stress and pore pressure was defined for the wellbore cement fracture permeability. Here the results showed that the effective stress coefficient (λ) for permeability increased linearly with the Terzaghi effective stress ( -p) with an average of λ = 1 in the range of applied pressures. The relationship between the effective stress and fracture permeability was examined using two physical-based models widely used for rock fractures. The results from the experimental work were incorporated into numerical simulations to estimate the impact of effective stress on the interpreted hydraulic aperture and leakage behavior through a fractured annular cement. Accounting for effective stress-dependent permeability through the wellbore length significantly increased the leakage rate at the wellhead compared with the assumption of a constant cemented annulus permeability.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2019

Tunable catalytic activity of cobalt-intercalated layered MnO2 for water oxidation through confinement and local ordering

We report that the lowering of reaction overpotentials is a persistent and universal goal in the development of catalysts for (photo)electrochemistry, which can usually be facilitated by selectively stabilizing one reaction inter-mediate over another. In this mechanistic study of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalyzed by cobalt-intercalated layered MnO 2 , we show that confinement effects and local cobalt atomic ordering in the interlayer space can be synergistically used to tune the adsorption energies of O, OH, and OOH reaction intermediates and the scaling relationship between them. In general, the interlayer confinement destabilizes the adsorption of intermediates for the OER, but clustering Co atoms can selectively stabilize the adsorption of OOH in particular. After considering both effects, our model predicts an overpotential of 0.30 V for the Co-intercalated MnO 2 catalyzed OER, in excellent agreement with the experimental result of 0.36 V. These new insights explain the enhanced catalytic performance of MnO 2 by intercalating atoms and illuminate a route for engineering non-toxic precious-metal-free catalysts through designed layered materials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Lithium splashing from flowing liquid lithium limiter and its effect on high confinement plasma performance in EAST tokamak

To study the potential applications of liquid lithium (Li) as plasma facing material, the third generation of flowing liquid Li (FLiLi) limiter has been designed and successfully tested in EAST tokamak H-mode discharges in the 2018 run campaign. Here, the stability of liquid Li on FLiLi surface, and Li splashing and its effect on the plasma performance are investigated in detail. Li splashing was observed in L-mode and H-mode discharges due to Rayleigh-Taylor (R-T) instability, resulting from electromagnetic forces J → x B → . Li splashing in low-parameter plasma decreased both core and edge electron temperatures, resulting in the degradation of plasma energy confinement and even H-L back transition, however, it almost did not influence plasma confinement performance in high-parameter plasma. These findings indicate that high-parameter plasma has higher tolerance to Li impurities than low-parameter plasma. By contrast, tungsten splashing from the melted layer on the upper divertor was also induced by the R-T instability but generally resulted in plasma disruption, which suggests lower tolerance to tungsten impurities in EAST tokamak.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2019

Effects of hydration on fractures and shale permeability under different confining pressures: An experimental study

Water-rich fracturing fluids are injected into gas shale formations to promote the effective development of gas. However, the relationship between gas production decreases and the variability flow-back fluid behavior (rate and amount) remains a significant challenge to the industry. This study focused on the effects of water hydration on the rock fracture properties of a major gas shale formation in China. Shale from hydration experiments was characterized for a number of key parameters including length, volume, width, surface area, thickness and fracture frequency. X-ray computed tomography (CT) scanning was conducted on shale reservoir samples exposed to water at zero overburden stress and under three different confining pressures (725 psi, 2175 psi, and 2900 psi). CT scanning images were obtained to evaluate fracture evolutions during hydration for both the connected and unconnected fracture networks. In addition, permeabilities before and after hydration were also quantified. Results from the ambient condition experiment revealed the propagation of fractures, the formation of new fractures, and the formation of better connectivity caused by a more complicated fracture network. However, the fracture evolution of the other three samples under confining pressures are markedly different, including: more unconnected fracture networks, less fracture volume, and a poorer connectivity of fractures.

bio-inspired, mechanical behavior, carbon sequestr↗