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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 109 records · Page 6
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

A Pathway Analysis Framework for Evaluating the Economic and Environmental Viability of Biomass-Based Plastic Production

Plastic production from fossil feedstocks (e.g., naphtha, coal, and natural gas) is not sustainable and causes known environmental impacts such as global warming. A possible solution is to shift production pathways to use biomass, which is a sustainable feedstock that can sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide. This study presents an optimization-based pathway analysis framework for evaluating the carbon footprints of the production of mainstream plastics from biomass and fossil feedstocks. We use the modeling framework to quickly navigate complex interdependencies that exist between the production pathways of different plastics and to determine pathways of minimum production cost under a range of carbon pricing scenarios. The framework interprets carbon prices as an exogenous taxation scheme or an endogenous negative value perceived by producers. The proposed approach reveals the biomass feedstock quantities needed to displace fossil counterparts and the plastics and technologies that should be prioritized. The framework can also be used for evaluating system-wide trade-offs between production costs and carbon footprints that arise from pathway interdependencies. We also evaluate hidden environmental impacts associated with the large-scale use of biomass as a feedstock, such as land use and water eutrophication that results from a significant increase in fertilizer use. Therefore, it is important to highlight that there are trade-offs between decarbonization and other environmental issues. Here, the proposed framework provides an integrative platform for basic techno-economic and life-cycle data that can be used for analyzing diverse scenarios and determining necessary technology targets (e.g., yields, footprints, and costs) to achieve required levels of decarbonization.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2025

Stability and Viability of Off-Axis Photoemission Geometries in 4D Ultrafast Electron Microscopy

Femtosecond (fs) laser-based 4D ultrafast electron microscopy (UEM) commonly makes use of photoelectron emission from a source material in the electron gun region of an otherwise conventional TEM. For TEMs equipped with thermionic guns, the source material is often LaB 6 , the same as used for thermionic operation. Here, such thermionic-based UEMs have proven useful for applications requiring large electron fluxes (i.e., high beam currents) often at the expense of beam coherence and brightness, which is especially important for single-shot nanosecond applications. Importantly, for fs-based UEMs, beam currents can be controlled over a broad range of parameter space through the properties of the fs laser and the photon pulses produced therefrom.

Willis, Simon A. [University of Minnesota, Minneap↗
DOE OSTI2020

Predicting the viability of beta-lactamase: How folding and binding free energies correlate with beta-lactamase fitness

One of the long-standing holy grails of molecular evolution has been the ability to predict an organism’s fitness directly from its genotype. With such predictive abilities in hand, researchers would be able to more accurately forecast how organisms will evolve and how proteins with novel functions could be engineered, leading to revolutionary advances in medicine and biotechnology. In this work, we assemble the largest reported set of experimental TEM-1 β-lactamase folding free energies and use this data in conjunction with previously acquired fitness data and computational free energy predictions to determine how much of the fitness of β-lactamase can be directly predicted by thermodynamic folding and binding free energies. We focus upon β-lactamase because of its long history as a model enzyme and its central role in antibiotic resistance. Based upon a set of 21 β-lactamase single and double mutants expressly designed to influence protein folding, we first demonstrate that modeling software designed to compute folding free energies such as FoldX and PyRosetta can meaningfully, although not perfectly, predict the experimental folding free energies of single mutants. Interestingly, while these techniques also yield sensible double mutant free energies, we show that they do so for the wrong physical reasons. We then go on to assess how well both experimental and computational folding free energies explain single mutant fitness. We find that folding free energies account for, at most, 24% of the variance in β-lactamase fitness values according to linear models and, somewhat surprisingly, complementing folding free energies with computationally-predicted binding free energies of residues near the active site only increases the folding-only figure by a few percent. This strongly suggests that the majority of β-lactamase’s fitness is controlled by factors other than free energies. Overall, our results shed a bright light on to what extent the community is justified in using thermodynamic measures to infer protein fitness as well as how applicable modern computational techniques for predicting free energies will be to the large data sets of multiply-mutated proteins forthcoming.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Preliminary Environmental and Financial Viability Analysis of Circular Economy Scenarios for Satisfying PV System Service Lifetime

PV deployment has grown rapidly in recent decades, and this growth is expected to continue. At the same time, the rapid increase in PV panel efficiencies offers the opportunity to repower/revamp existing installations - replacing operational, lower-efficiency panels before the end of their 30-year service lifetime with newer, higher-efficiency panels. As a result, an increasing volume of PV panels could be decommissioned well before reaching the end of their 30-year service lifetime. Two broad strategies can be applied to manage the expected increase in decommissioned PV panels: (i) recycle prematurely decommissioned panels, and (ii) prevent recycling of these panels by satisfying the typical service lifetime of 30 years through circular economy strategies such as repair and reuse. Each strategy presents an environmental and economic trade-off. Retaining and satisfying the lifetime of the older, lower-efficiency panels avoids environmental burdens from recycling or landfilling but incurs burdens from additional repair and forgoing the opportunity to install newer panels with greater electricity-generation capabilities. This study assesses whether satisfying the expected service lifetime of a PV system through circular economy scenarios generates a greater environmental and financial benefit than recycling used panels and installing newer panels with higher efficiencies. The circular economy scenarios include repair and reuse of the PV system. Specifically, the study determines whether it is better for the environment to keep a PV panel in use for its 30-year service life after accounting for potential repair and additional transportation, or to replace older panels with more efficient new ones. In addition, we explore whether satisfying the service lifetime of PV panels proves competitive with the recycling route from a financial perspective.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Improving the Economic Viability of Biological Utilization of Coal Power Plant CO 2 by Improved Algae Productivity and Integration with Wastewater Treatment

The overall goal of this project was to improve the cost-effectiveness of systems using algae to capture and beneficially utilize CO 2 from the flue gas of coal-fired power plants. Algal biomass cultivation is an attractive alternative for carbon capture and utilization because it can uptake more CO 2 per land area than any other photosynthetic crop. Also, the resulting biomass can be used to make valuable large-market commodity products, such as biofuels and animal feed. However, the use of algal carbon capture has been limited by several factors including: (1) high costs for growing algae (>$\$1,300$/ton), (2) large land requirements for algae cultivation, and (3) environmental concerns about the large amount of water and nutrient inputs needed for growing algae. This project has taken direct aim at resolving these key limitations and demonstrated several viable approaches to improve the economic and environmental feasibility of algal carbon capture. In particular, this project demonstrated a significant increase in average annual algal productivity from baseline values of 8 g/m 2 -day to above 20 g/m 2 -day. This supports a much lower projected cost of algae production (<$\$500$/ton) and reduces land requirements by more than 50%. Additionally, this project confirmed the ability to grow multiple algae species with wastewater nutrients, which facilitates the potential for substantial new revenue streams for algae cultivation based on tipping fees for nutrient laden wastewater. This study highlighted that there is more potential value in wastewater nutrient treatment credits than in the primary commodity products made from algae. The use of wastewater inputs also mitigates the concerns associated with the large amount of water needed for growing algae. The algal biomass grown for this project using wastewater and simulated flue gas inputs were characterized for potential use as an animal feed ingredient. The algae had a protein content in the range of 35-40%, which is between some common commodity animal feed products— distiller’s grains (~25-30% protein) and soybean meal (45-50% protein). In-vitro digestion tests using cattle rumen fluids, showed that this algae biomass was best suited for use as “bypass protein”, which is digested in the animal intestine. Based on the protein content and amino acid profile of the algae grown in this study, it was estimated to have market value in the range of $\$190$-$\$280$/ton. There is potential for higher value feed products if the algae content of omega-3 fatty acids or antioxidants is accounted for. This project also did small scale demonstration of forward osmosis algae dewatering and nanofiltration of hydrothermal liquefaction aqueous products, which were shown to improve the cost and energy balance for producing algal products. When all the improvements demonstrated in this study were included in techno-economic analysis, it showed there was a viable pathway to profitable algal CO 2 utilization with a payback period in the range of six to ten years.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2022

Viability of S3 Object Storage for the ASC Program at Sandia

Recent efforts at Sandia such as DataSEA are creating search engines that enable analysts to query the institution’s massive archive of simulation and experiment data. The benefit of this work is that analysts will be able to retrieve all historical information about a system component that the institution has amassed over the years and make better-informed decisions in current work. As DataSEA gains momentum, it faces multiple technical challenges relating to capacity storage. From a raw capacity perspective, data producers will rapidly overwhelm the system with massive amounts of data. From an accessibility perspective, analysts will expect to be able to retrieve any portion of the bulk data, from any system on the enterprise network. Sandia’s Institutional Computing is mitigating storage problems at the enterprise level by procuring new capacity storage systems that can be accessed from anywhere on the enterprise network. These systems use the simple storage service, or S3, API for data transfers. While S3 uses objects instead of files, users can access it from their desktops or Sandia’s high-performance computing (HPC) platforms. S3 is particularly well suited for bulk storage in DataSEA, as datasets can be decomposed into object that can be referenced and retrieved individually, as needed by an analyst. In this report we describe our experiences working with S3 storage and provide information about how developers can leverage Sandia’s current systems. We present performance results from two sets of experiments. First, we measure S3 throughput when exchanging data between four different HPC platforms and two different enterprise S3 storage systems on the Sandia Restricted Network (SRN). Second, we measure the performance of S3 when communicating with a custom-built Ceph storage system that was constructed from HPC components. Overall, while S3 storage is significantly slower than traditional HPC storage, it provides significant accessibility benefits that will be valuable for archiving and exploiting historical data. There are multiple opportunities that arise from this work, including enhancing DataSEA to leverage S3 for bulk storage and adding native S3 support to Sandia’s IOSS library.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2022

The Viability of Selected Vacuum Furnace Quench Methods for Heat Treatment of Uranium

Recent developments in high-pressure gas-quench furnaces have allowed them, in many applications, to achieve heat transfer coefficients similar to those of oil-quench furnaces. Simultaneously, high-pressure gas quench furnaces offer many attractive qualities including a smaller footprint, limited waste generation, and a more consistent quench rate across a range of temperatures. With these benefits in mind, an experimental matrix was developed to assess the feasibility of implementing a high-pressure gas quenching furnace in the Sigma facility for processing of uranium alloys. The details of this experimental matrix, as well experimental results gathered during FY21 and FY22, will be presented.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Technical Assessment of Potential Climate Impact and Economic Viability of Biochar Technologies for Small-Scale Agriculture in the Pacific Northwest

The goal of this study is to evaluate the state of biochar technology and determine the feasibility of integrating small-scale biochar production in ways that benefit smaller, diversified producers. Because of the emergence of carbon markets, this innovative climate and agricultural solution may be financed externally, making biochar more accessible to the growers that could benefit. In this report, we review the current state of biochar technology (Section 2), methods for assessing the potential climate impacts derived from its implementation (Section 3), and the current state of carbon-offset mechanisms for biochar technology (Section 4). In Section 5, we apply this knowledge to several specific biochar technology scenarios involving combinations of different feedstocks, production methods, and economic incentives to arrive at estimates of climate-mitigation impacts and costs per carbon credit generated. We conclude with a summary in Section 6.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Biofuel Viability for the Ocean-Going Marine Sector

Marine transport contributes significantly to global carbon dioxide emissions but is one of the most difficult sectors to decarbonize because full electrification is infeasible. Renewable, low–carbon biofuels offer a potential path to decarbonization of the marine sectors but the understanding of the effects of new biofuels on engine performance and emissions is limited. In this document we report on the results of a series of studies on the techno-economic, life cycle and technical feasibility of biofuels as replacements for heavy fuel oils currently used to fuel large ocean-going vessels.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Cements and a Modeling Tool to Calculate their Viability under Various Exploitation Conditions of HT RTES Systems

Primary cementing is the most important operation performed on a subterranean reservoir. Cement, placed in the annulus between the casing and the formations serves as a hydraulic seal preventing fluids and gas migrations, protecting steel casing from corrosion and supporting the well structure. Poor cementing jobs can be directly responsible for wells not reaching their full capacity, casing corrosion, compromised well integrity and, in the worst-case scenarios, well collapse.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Viability of Miniature Discs in LFA-427

Miniature disc samples pose challenging measuring conditions for laser flash analysis. With reductions in signal from lower radiosity and lower half-rise times from low thicknesses, optimal selections of coatings and laser parameters are critical in a successful measurement. This report explains the methodology in successfully measuring two different material types—metals and ceramics—in proper coating selection, laser parameters, and post analysis for each material, as well as applying it to un-irradiated uranium samples of each type (U-metal, UO 2 ). This was done through a combination of analysis techniques combining automatic commercial methods (Neztech) and manual methods for correcting laser pulse impact aberrations.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Improving and Measuring Water Oxidation Catalyst Viability

A major challenge that limits the efficiency of the overall water splitting reaction is the oxidation half-reaction, a process that releases oxygen and electrons, which in turn can reduce either protons or carbon dioxide to make hydrogen or carbon-based fuel. In this project, the major objectives are to increase the stability of water oxidation catalysts (WOCs), to develop ways to study catalyst stability, and to enable WOC performance in acidic media.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2025

Long Duration Energy Storage Viability Survey

Energy storage technologies that can economically store and provide electricity over multi-day and seasonal timescales are likely to be a critical component of a sustainable and resilient energy system. This analysis performs a broad survey of energy storage technologies to find storage media that are promising for these long-duration energy storage applications.

levelized cost of storage↗
DOE OSTI2022

On the Viability of Quantum Annealers to Solve Fluid Flows

This paper explores the suitability of upcoming novel computing technologies, particularly adiabatic annealing based quantum computers, to solve fluid dynamics problems that form a critical component of several science and engineering applications. For our experiments, we start with a well-studied one-dimensional simple flow problem, and provide a framework to convert such problems in continuum to a form amenable for deployment on such quantum annealers. Since the DWave annealer returns multiple states sampling the energy landscape of the problem, we explore multiple solution selection strategies to approximate the solution of the problem. We analyze the continuum solutions obtained both qualitatively and quantitatively as well as their sensitivities to the particular solution selection scheme.

42 ENGINEERING↗