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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 991 records · Page 55
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2017

Improvement of Alstom's Limestone-Based Chemical Looping Combustion Process for Higher Purity Flue Gas Production

Alstom Power Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of the General Electric Company (GE), is developing Limestone-based Chemical Looping (LCL™) Processes, utilizing limestone derived calcium sulfate as an oxygen carrier to transport oxygen from air to the fuel. The LCL™ process is a breakthrough technology with the potential to capture CO 2 and SO 2 from new and existing coal-fired power plants at reduced costs while maintaining high plant power generation efficiency. Chemical looping is a next generation advancement to oxy-combustion which would not require the significant investment in a cryogenic distillation type oxygen production plant. Instead of the energy-consuming oxygen plant, chemical looping uses a benign material to directly remove oxygen from the air and bring that oxygen into contact with the fuel. This "game changing" technology is the lowest cost-of-electricity technical approach that GE Power has identified to date for coal power with carbon capture. The technology has significantly lower capital costs compared to a conventional steam power plant with first generation carbon capture technologies. This new power plant concept is based on a hybrid combustion-gasification process utilizing high temperature chemical and thermal looping technology. In the air reactor, a solid oxygen carrier picks up oxygen from air through an oxidation reaction and leaves nitrogen behind. The hot oxygen-carrying solid carrier is then transported to a fuel reactor, where it releases oxygen. The released oxygen then converts the coal in the fuel reactor into combustion gases. The solid carrier is recycled back to the air reactor for regeneration completing the “chemical loop.” The regeneration step produces heat from which steam is produced for power generation while the process results in a concentrated carbon dioxide stream in which the carbon is captured for use or sequestration (CCUS). Limestone as a precursor for the oxygen carrier is abundant, benign, low cost, and is used in CFB and PC boilers for sulfur control. Challenges associated with this carrier include a complex reaction mechanism with possible side reactions leading to the release of SO 2 . The present project (DOE/NETL Cooperative Agreement No. DE-FE0025073) report focuses on coal-fired Limestone Chemical Looping Combustion (LCL-C™) processes that can produce a higher purity flue gas stream and achieve an improved overall performance that will meet the stated DOE goal of generating power from coal while achieving greater than 90% CO2 removal at less than 35% increase in the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE). It builds on the concurrent and synergistic limestone-based chemical looping combustion (LCL-C™) and gasification (LCL-G™) projects with the Department of Energy, that were executed in parallel with the present project. In this report, the LCL-C™ experimental testing from the electrically-heated, once-through, 100 kW Pilot-Scale Test Facility (PSTF) is analysed and reviewed. The PSTF Oxidizer is a 50-foot tall, 100-mm diameter transport reactor, while the PSTF Reducer reactor is based upon a bubbling-bed design. The experimental data from designated test periods (denoted “Weeks”) are reviewed and discussed. The application of high sulfur release in the Reducer (with proper sulfur management) exceeded the LCL-CTM performance targets. Furthermore, the ilmenite blend came within 1 percentage point of meeting all of the performance targets.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2018

M4FT:18OR110102182-Develop a new composite molten salt fluid exhibiting an increased heat capacity of 10%

We were able to purify as-bought MgCl 2 by vacuum distillation and KCl by high-temperature drying. It allowed us to remove MgO and H 2 O contamination and use pure salts in the heat capacity experiments. We observed that various carbon-based particles in the molten salt glow red even at temperatures as low as 800°C. We used that property to qualitatively analyze the dispersion of particles in the salt. It is clear that hollow carbon spheres disperse in the molten salt to a higher degree than any other particles. Nanodiamonds and onion-like carbon nanoparticle are heavier than the salt and without nay favorable interaction they just sediment. Hollow carbon spheres on the other hand allow the salt into the cavity, leading to density-matching and their dispersion. Preliminary heat capacity measurements are being performed by Linseis Inc. and encountered unexpected delays. The measurement results will be shown later.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2018

Gear Test Assembly - Status Report FY2018

The gear test assembly completed testing in air and distilled water successfully under a range of loading conditions. An external torque sensor assembly was designed and added to confirm the torque readings provided by the Parker control system. Hand calculations were performed to determine the time range that the heaters could be turned on without exceeding the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel code Fatigue Stress Limits for 1,000,000 cycles. Transient computational fluid dynamics analyses were performed to determine the heater cycle on/off time. Steady state computational fluid dynamics analyses were performed to determine the final temperature distribution throughout the insulated assembly using a thinner but more effective insulation configuration. The initial heating tests were completed (without insulation installed) to check the heater control system. Testing of the argon pressurized seal chambers were performed and indicated the need for re-machining of several components to eliminate some leaks. Nondestructive examination of the gears continued successfully using eddy current and ultrasonic inspection techniques.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2016

High Performance Computing Metrics to Enable Application-Platform Communication

Sandia has invested heavily in scientific/engineering application development and in the research, development, and deployment of large scale HPC platforms to support the computational needs of these applications. As application developers continually expand the capabilities of their software and spend more time on performance tuning of applications for these platforms, HPC platform resources are at a premium as they are a heavily shared resource serving the varied needs of many users. To ensure that the HPC platform resources are being used effciently and perform as designed, it is necessary to obtain reliable data on resource utilization that will allow us to investigate the occurrence, severity, and causes of performance-affecting contention between applications. The work presented in this paper was an initial step to determine if resource contention can be understood and minimized through monitoring, modeling, planning and infrastructure. This paper describes the set of metric definitions, identified in this research, that can be used as meaningful and potentially actionable indicators of performance-affecting contention between applications. These metrics were verified using the observed slowdown of IOR, IMB, and CTH in operating scenarios that forced contention. This paper also describes system/application monitoring activities that are critical to distilling vast amounts of data into quantities that hold the key to understanding for an application's performance under production conditions and that will ultimately aid in Sandia's efforts to succeed in extreme-scale computing.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2019

Developing a Map Catalog to Display Water Right Information from Washington State Department of Ecology Database

The procedure for developing an ArcGIS Map catalog is described using Data Driven Pages ArcGIS extension for depicting wells and associated water rights by township and range in eastern Washington intersecting Franklin, Adams, Benton, Walla Walla, Yakima, and Klickitat counties. A series of queries against a geodatabase were written to distill the most relevant information by each well for mapping purposes. A labeling system was designed using the advanced Maplex Label Engine to account for the dense spatial distribution of wells in certain areas, and to ensure this information was legible at mapped extents and zoom level. A total of 110 maps were generated.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2018

Machine Learning Algorithms for Matching Theories, Simulations, and Observations in Cosmology (Final Project)

The search for simple and elegant equations to explain and predict observable natural phenomena has been a driving force in scientific theory for several centuries. The great successes of Newton's laws, Maxwell's equations, the Schrodinger equation, and the theory of General Relativity have encouraged this perspective, and perhaps a beautiful equation comprising a “theory of everything” remains to be discovered. But now scientists are grappling with systems of ever-increasing complexity, fraught with nonlinearity, and with the quantities of interest often only indirectly observed. Nature may resist a simple description, and the most important discoveries of the next century may be complex theories with countless variables and parameters. The era of big data opens up a promising new approach to scientific discovery in this setting. The predictions of modern theories, even if complex or nonlinear, can be examined through detailed and computationally-intensive simulations that take days or weeks to run and fill petabytes of disk space. The upcoming generation of scientific instruments will provide petabytes of observations at unprecedented resolution and depth. The challenge is to compare data to simulations so as to test theories and identify those that best match the observations. The data are numerous and rich but are subject to noise and various systematic biases. The simulations are large and detailed but are so costly that the effective sample size is small. Moreover, the mapping from data to simulation to the parameters of interest is typically complicated and ill-conditioned. Although these challenges, and the solutions we propose, apply across the sciences, we will ground our efforts by focusing on cosmology. Here, we are truly entering the era of big data in several senses. Ever larger experiments survey larger and larger cosmological volumes, resulting in enormous amounts of pixel data to process and extract the information of cosmological interest. These include large imaging surveys, which collect all the light in broad wavelength ranges over significant fractions of the sky, and spectroscopic surveys, which measure the light as a function of wavelength to map out 3D distances. These experiments are designed to shed light on the big unanswered questions in cosmology. Distilling the petabytes of data into observed quantities for comparison with theory is a daunting task. But these large experiments do not only result in large amounts of data to analyze: if we wish to compare to theories of physics, then we need increasingly extensive predictions for the observed quantities as well, which requires ever-larger cosmological simulations that take substantial -- and at times prohibitive -- computational resources to produce. Our goal is to develop statistical and machine learning methods for using observed and simulated data to advance machine learning with applications cosmology. In particular, we focus our research efforts on the following tasks: The challenge for automated science is that it is computationally impossible and statistically dangerous to consider every possible model in order to find the best one. We will develop Bayesian Optimization based active-learning methods that accelerate both the execution of the simulations and the search for best-fitting parameters. The key idea is to make the simulations adaptive -- across resolutions, time, and parameters -- using the data to search as the simulation runs; Most ML methods operate on simple finite dimensional feature vectors. However, many cosmology and other science applications require ML methods that can operate on more complex objects as inputs or outputs such as functions, distributions, or sets and point clouds. Our goal is to develop efficient ML methods for this problem and demonstrate their applicability in Cosmology, Astrophysics, and other science problems.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Production of Radiohalogens: Bromine and Astatine for Imaging and Therapy (Final Report)

The UAB team focused our efforts on Project 1: Production and Characterization of 76,77 Br and has completed all milestones. We have conducted irradiations using novel cobalt selenide targets prepared in house and by our collaborators at UWisc. A distillation apparatus for the purification of the produced radiobromine has been constructed and radiobromine is in routine production at UAB. The gas target route is under final optimization for routine production. A chemistry graduate student, Samuel Ferran, led the project for both the gas and solid target experiments this work will be included in his thesis project. Two manuscripts are in preparation based on this work. Additionally, an undergraduate student Retta El Sayed assisted with this project and is now enrolled in graduate school. Monthly collaborative meetings took place as well as several in person team meetings with all participating sites.

38 RADIATION CHEMISTRY, RADIOCHEMISTRY, AND NUCLEA↗
DOE OSTI2020

Supercritical Reforming of Wet Ethanol for High Efficiency Direct-injection Heavy-duty Compression-ignition Engines

The purpose of the research was to investigate the potential of using a mature bio-fuel in heavy-duty compression ignition engines. By co-optimizing both the fuel characteristics and engine system the potential for a superior outcome was demonstrated. The use of wet bio-ethanol eliminates the majority of the energy intensive distilling and dehydrating fuel production processes, which moves the fuel towards carbon neutral and also lowers the fuel costs. The relatively high water content of the resulting fuel is leveraged in the proposed novel combustion system by incorporating an integrated high efficiency exhaust waste heat recovery system. This results in significantly higher thermal efficiency. In addition the combustion system features low criteria pollutant emissions and the potential to reduce the initial cost of the engine system hardware. Substantial societal benefits are demonstrated through the co-optimization of the fuel and engine system. A computational proof-of-concept study has been performed to demonstrate the potential benefits of a novel wet ethanol heavy-duty compression ignition combustion system featuring integrated exhaust waste heat recovery. A combined in-cylinder closed cycle 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) - 1D engine system simulation approach was used. The models were validated to baseline engine data using diesel fuel and then applied to the wet ethanol study. The original concept was to maximize exhaust waste heat recovery through supercritical reforming of the wet ethanol fuel. Phase I simulation results indicated that the optimal solution for maximum engine efficiency gains were realized through maximizing thermo-mechanical recuperation with negligible fuel reformation. The results show the potential to achieve impressive gains in brake thermal efficiency (BTE) over the base diesel engine. The potential to increase BTE up to 20.9% over the base diesel engine was demonstrated, with even larger gains possible through reduced in-cylinder heat transfer losses. The majority of the efficiency gains were realized through integrated high efficiency exhaust waste heat recovery. The concept also has the potential to achieve future ultra-low NO x emissions standards and negligible engine-out soot emissions. The mixing controlled combustion of high temperature wet ethanol features relatively low engine-out NO x emissions without the need for exhaust gas recirculation (EGR). The soot free combustion enabled by the relatively high oxygen content of ethanol also allows for the use of stoichiometric mixing controlled combustion, which is not practical with diesel fuel. When stoichiometric combustion is used a simple passive 3-way catalyst can be used for exhaust emissions after-treatment and near zero tailpipe emissions. The Phase I simulations results have defined the system layout and requirements in preparation for the Phase II experimental proof-of-concept study. The potential applications of the research include most current applications of diesel engines. The Phase I study focused on heavy-duty on-highway class 8 trucks. However, virtually any application that requires highly efficient clean power generation would benefit from the novel engine system proposed. The results indicate substantial fuel cost savings and reduced greenhouse gas emissions with similar or reduced initial system hardware costs compared to modern diesel engine systems.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2020

HPC4Mfg with ACS

Distillation in the chemical industry accounts for roughly 10% of energy use in the U.S. While porous mass separating agents (MSAs) appear capable of achieving the same separations for a fraction of the energy, the fundamental lack of a well-understood relationship between the behavior of fluid mixtures confined in MSA pores and the selectivity of MSA-based processes presents a major barrier to their widespread industrial application. This work is the first study to systematically and self-consistently explore a range of parameters describing various molecule-material interactions in MSA-based separations. Through high performance computing (HPC), this study has yielded a fundamental understanding of the influence of confined fluid behavior on selectivity. The results also serve as a knowledge base for subsequent investigations needed to transform the framework for rational design of MSA-based separation processes. This will significantly reduce the energy required for separations central to chemical manufacturing.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Physics Division Strategic Plan Fiscal Years 2020-2024

The vision of the Physics Division (PHY) at Argonne National Laboratory is to continue enhancing its role as a world-leading institution in basic nuclear physics research and its applications. Key to this vision is for PHY to continue to safely and effectively operate and evolve the capabilities of the Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System (ATLAS) facility to best serve its users. ATLAS is the Department of Energy (DOE) accelerator facility for low-energy nuclear physics research. The research carried out by PHY covers many themes in contemporary science but can be distilled into five areas of focus. These themes are interconnected, with continuously evolving synergies between the various groups and facilities in PHY and the broader Laboratory. This five-year strategic plan serves to illustrate our current capabilities and new directions related to these five areas of focus (ATLAS also develops an independent strategic plan): Accelerator research and design. The goal of this theme is to design, fabricate, test, and implement novel accelerator systems, with a focus on high-intensity ion and electron systems. These R&D activities have led to enhancements in the ATLAS accelerator system. Among others, the division’s accelerator systems are in use or planned for use at Fermilab, the Advanced Photon Source, and in a broad variety of applications at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB). Atom trapping and fundamental symmetries. The goal of this theme is to explore and exploit the uses of advanced laser cooling and trapping techniques to manipulate atoms. There are three main areas of focus. First is in the application of the atom trap trace analysis (ATTA) technique for age determination of groundwater and ice by using radio-krypton dating. The next two trapping-based programs involve tests of fundamental symmetries in nature: the cooling and trapping of radium-225 with the aim of determining limits on an observation of its electric dipole moment and precision measurements of the beta decay properties of helium-6 to set limits on the tensor coupling constant. This is complemented by measurements of similar properties in lithium-8 and boron-8. Nuclear astrophysics. The goal of this theme is to enhance our understanding of how elements are created in the universe via explosive nucleosynthesis and how stars evolve. To meet the challenges of this theme, many of the capabilities of ATLAS are being enhanced, including the development of new beams through a new in-flight separator (RAISOR) and the anticipated neutron-generator upgrade of the Californium Rare Isotope Breeder Upgrade facility (nuCARIBU). These are coupled to state-of-the-art instruments such as the Canadian Penning Trap, Helical Orbit Spectrometer, Gammasphere, GRETINA, Multi-Sampling Ionization Chamber, the Fragment Mass Analyzer, and Argonne Gas-filled Fragment Analyzer, and a new low-background experimental area for decay studies. Nuclear structure. The goal of this theme is to understand the structure of nuclei, both stable and radioactive, in terms of single-particle properties, their shapes, and the dynamics governing reactions between them. These include questions such as what are the limits of nuclear stability and what are the properties of super heavy nuclei. As with the nuclear astrophysics theme, the capabilities of ATLAS, guided by the ATLAS user community, are continuously being enhanced to this end. The Division has strategic initiatives to play a leading role in the development of instrumentation and research programs at the FRIB. Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and hadron physics. The goal of this theme is to lead major research programs focused on revealing the quark and gluon structure of protons, neutrons, nuclei, and short-lived mesons and baryons. These involve major programs at Jefferson Lab, Fermilab, and smaller facilities. They are complemented by theoretical endeavors centered on the question of how hadrons and their properties emerge from QCD. Out of these activities arise strategic initiatives to play a major role in the forthcoming Electron-Ion Collider (EIC).

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Accelerated Testing of Selected Filler Compositions

The fillers R&D program, mostly experimental, is part of a broader R&D program that includes new process modeling and performance assessment of criticality effects and the overall importance of criticality to repository performance (consequence screening). A literature research and consultation effort with experts by Hardin and Brady (2018) identified several potentially effective and workable filler materials including cements (primarily phosphate based), molten-metal alloys, and low-temperature glasses. Filler attributes were defined and the preliminary lists were compared qualitatively. Further comparative analysis will be done (e.g., cost estimates) after experimental screening has narrowed the list of alternatives. The following cement filler compositions were selected for experimental development work and accelerated testing in FY19: Aluminum phosphate cements (APCs); more specifically aluminum oxide / aluminum phosphate (Al 2 O 3 / AlPO 4 ) cements in which Al 2 O 3 serves as the filler material bound by an AlPO 4 binder formed by the reaction of Al 2 O 3 with H 3 PO 4 ; Calcium phosphate cements (CPCs); more specifically composed of pure or nearly pure hydroxyapatite (Ca 5 (PO 4 ) 3 (OH)); Magnesium potassium phosphate cements (MKPs) composed of magnesium oxide / magnesium potassium phosphate (MgO / MgKPO 4 ) cements in which MgO serves as the filler and MgKPO 4 serves as the binder formed by the reaction of MgO with monopotassium phosphate (KH 2 PO 4 ) and tricalcium phosphate ((Ca 3 (PO 4 ) 2 ); Two additional potential cement materials were explored preliminarily as the result of: (1) continued literature investigations into other filler candidates (wollastonite-based phosphate ceramic) and (2) the experimental discovery of a well-consolidated fly ash phosphate cement during the evaluation of fly ash as a potential filler material with Al 2 O 3 in APCs. Fly ash phosphate cements, more specifically in which a fly ash material composed primarily of mullite and quartz serves as the filler and is reacted with H 3 PO 4 to form amorphous phosphate phase(s) as the binder; Wollastonite aluminum phosphate cements (WAPC), specifically wollastonite / aluminum phosphate (CaSiO 3 / AlPO 4 ) in which CaSiO 3 serves as the filler material and AlPO 4 serves as the binder formed by Al(OH) 3 or metakaolin as Al sources and H 3 PO 4 or ammonium dihydrogen phosphate (ADP) (NH 4 H 2 PO 4 ) as phosphate sources. The FY19 effort focused on the optimization of compositions and subsequent processing of these five materials to achieve dense and well-consolidated monolithic samples with relatively low porosity. Once these goals were met basic material properties screening evaluations were performed including an assessment of dissolution resistance in water at elevated temperature (200 °C) and mechanical testing including unconfined compressive strength (UCS) testing. To date, the aluminum phosphate cements (APCs) appear to show the most promise for continued development. They are easily prepared and form smooth pourable slurries that remain stable for days with relatively low viscosities of several thousand centipoise (cP). They are then set at elevated temperatures (e.g., 170 °C) under ambient (0.1 MPa) or elevated pressure (~1MPa). Overall, they demonstrate the best dissolution resistance in water at elevated temperature (200 °C) and good compressive strengths. However, additional effort is required to optimize the APC slurry formulations and the process used for thermal curing these materials. The calcium phosphate cements (CPCs) can be formed at room temperature to produce a well-consolidated body. However, their slurry viscosities are very high (and difficult to measure) and they exhibit relatively short cure times of 2 to 3 hours. Also, dissolution resistance is very poor, the poorest of all the cements examined The same is the case for the small number of MKP cements fabricated; they cure very quickly (10 minutes or less) and disintegrate within a few hours upon immersion in distilled water. Surprisingly, fly ash reacts with phosphoric acid to form dense and well-consolidated cements but the mixture rapidly sets at room temperature (less than 30 minutes) and the subsequent conversion of the binder to an amorphous phosphate phase(s) as a function of temperature is complicated. Finally, the wollastonite aluminum phosphate cements (WAPC) are easily prepared and form smooth pourable slurries that remain stable for several hours. They are then set at 130 °C. A WAPC sample exhibited the highest compressive strengths of all the materials we evaluated but in general their dissolution resistance to water is poor.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Facility Cybersecurity Framework Best Practices

Federal facilities are increasingly adopting automation and connecting to the Internet creating an energy-internet-of-things environment that converges operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT). Today's buildings increasingly weave together networked sensors and cyber and physical systems that enable data to be collected, aggregated, exchanged, stored and monetized in new ways. Building technological advances have created new energy technology, services, markets and value creation opportunities (e.g. transactive energy, two-way grid communications, machine learning, and increased use of renewable and distributed energy resources). But as larger data sets are being exchanged at faster speeds between an increasing number of OT systems, it becomes more difficult to protect the security of the data lifecycle and the physical equipment it interacts with. These challenges are especially difficult to overcome because the economic and environmental gain (interoperability, big data, social networks and ubiquitous information sharing) are driving these prominent trends in the digital age. Often cybersecurity is an afterthought. The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) funded the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to develop various cybersecurity tools, trainings, and reports to aid federal facility managers – and other building owners and operators – in better applying frameworks and lessons learned from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework (CSF), risk management framework (RMF), DOE’s cybersecurity capability maturity model (C2M2), and a wide variety of industry best practices and guidance documents (i.e., NIST 800 series, Department of Defense United Facilities Criteria). This set of tools, collectively known as the FEMP Facility-Related Control System Cyber Toolkit (FRCS Cyber Toolkit)2, is focused on cybersecurity concerns from facility-related control systems and other operational technology (OT), such as industrial control systems (ICS). The FRCS Cyber Toolkit can be applied across six of the sixteen critical infrastructure sectors designated by the Department of Homeland Security, including government facilities, healthcare and public health, commercial facilities (e.g., public assembly, offices, lodging), financial services (e.g., banking and insurance), emergency services (e.g., fire and police stations), and information technology. With increasingly converged IT and OT systems, it is crucial to address OT cybersecurity considerations and assess how the seam of these two systems could impact the overall cybersecurity posture of a facility. The objective of this report is to provide an overview of the best possible method to use FRCS Cyber Toolkit (section 2.0) and distilled cybersecurity best practices for the federal facilities to address growing non-linear cyber threats (section 3.0). Recommendations in this document are aggregated from several NIST and other documents (see Appendix A for additional details).

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Re-Additization of Commercial Biodiesel Blends During Long-Term Storage

Commercial biodiesel blends representative of the U.S. market were aged following procedure ASTM D4625, Standard Test Method for Middle Distillate Fuel Storage Stability at 43°C (110°F), with periodic monitoring of fuel properties indicative of oxidation. The oxidation stability—or oxidation reserve expressed as Rancimat induction period (IP)—gradually decreased from its initial value, as expected. At a predetermined IP threshold, an antioxidant was used to restore IP to the ASTM D7467 specification minimum of 6 six hours, referred to as re-additization. At lower IP values, the amount of antioxidant required increased significantly, and the effectiveness tended to be reduced. Once IP fell to essentially zero, the acid content increased to above the allowable limit. Insoluble material was detectable after the acid number increased out of specification. Storage life was increased with re-additization relative to the as-received fuels, as evidenced by longer time to produce acids. Experience in the field may vary based on storage conditions; however, these results indicate re-additization can significantly increase the storage life of biodiesel blends when used with regular monitoring of IP and acid number. An assessment of property changes during long-term storage showed the initial IP did not predict storage behavior, although fuels above the specification minimum remained stable for greater than 12 weeks of D4625 accelerated aging (1 one year simulated).

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Deformation and Fracture in Complex-Shaped Energetic Particles

A new technical basis on the mechanics of energetic materials at the individual particle scale has been developed. Despite these particles being in most of our Sandia non-nuclear explosive components, we have historically lacked any understanding of particle behavior. Through the novel application of nanoidentation methods to single crystal films and single particles of energetic materials with complex shapes, discovery data has been collected elucidating phenomena of particle strength, elastic and plastic deformation, and fracture. This work specifically developed the experimental techniques and analysis methodologies to distill data into relationships suitable for future integration into particle level simulations of particle reassembly. This project utilized experimental facilities at CINT and the Explosive Components Facility to perform ex-situ and in-situ nanoidentation experiments with simultaneous scanning electron microscope (SEM) imaging. Data collected by an applied axial compressive load in either force-control or displacement-control was well represented by Hertzian contact theory for linear elastic materials. Particle fracture phenomenology was effectively modeled by an empirical damage model.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Lessons Learned Based on SNL Experience in Reviews of SPA Controls Awardees

This report summarizes the key contributions and lessons learned from SNL experience in technical reviews of Controls awardees in the DOE SPA program from 2013 - 2020. The purpose of this report is to provide observations and technical suggestions that are likely to be beneficial to the WEC industry as a whole. Over the course of the SPA FOA program, SNL has engaged in technical review for a total of 5 different Controls awardees. The awardees represent a diversity of WEC devices and the application of different control design approaches. The report begins with a summary of key performance metrics results reported by the 5 Controls awardees. This is followed by a summary of observations and lessons learned distilled from the technical reviews of the awardees . The report concludes with a list of general technical suggestions for future WEC controls projects.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗
DOE OSTI2021

Use of the Magnetic Isotope Effect for Silicon Isotopomer Chemical Separation

The goal of the Phase I work was to develop a novel approach to silicon isotope separation that will use the difference in chemical reactivity of the three naturally-occurring silicon isotopes. The 'magnetic isotope effect' (MIE) will be employed to differentially react 29Si from 28Si and 30Si. The difference in reactivity to either directly deplete 29Si to the required sub-ppm levels or deplete 29Si sufficiently to allow final purification with distillation or centrifugation.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Conversion of CO 2 into Synthetic Graphite

Carbon Dioxide (CO 2 ) can be utilized as a source for producing synthetic graphite. Our method converts CO 2 into solid carbon. These CO 2 -sourced solid carbon have an anisotropic property that allow them to be graphitized into synthetic graphite. Our patented thermal catalytic process uses carbon dioxide and hydrogen as the feedstocks for the reaction, producing solid carbon material, with distilled water as the sole byproduct. The process is designed as a closed loop, where all feedstock gases entering the reactor are converted into durable bulk carbons and water, with no emissions. These carbons materials can be sintered into a solid structure and then thermally annealed, taking the carbon atoms from a disordered state to a highly ordered state of graphitic material – producing synthetic graphite structures. Phase 1 will prove that these bulk carbons can be sintered into a machinable solid carbon structure, which will then be annealed into a fully graphitic solid structure. Standard analytics will be done to verify the extent of graphitization (Raman, XRD). Proving this CO 2 -sourced carbon pathway to synthetic graphite structures will give the US a domestic supply route for this critical material and remove reliance on foreign sources. In addition, since the synthetic graphite structure is made from CO 2 -sourced carbon, this is also a method to mitigate CO 2 . Graphite structures are used in high temperature and high friction applications, for example, as anodes for steel refining, for brake pad linings, as neutron reflectors in nuclear reactors.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Literary review and modeling outlook for radiation damage in fused-silica optical fibers

The purpose of this document is to distill, from literature, the effects of radiation damage in fused-silica optical fibers. This information will be used to design a theoretical framework capable of predictive modeling that will be published elsewhere. By inspection of the relevant literature, the devised method is calculation of defect amorphous structures by molecular dynamic techniques, and computation of the macroscopic dielectric function using density functional theory. The dielectric function is then used to directly compute the transmittance of the core material before and after irradiation via solution of Maxwell’s equations in a homogeneous medium.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗