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NASA NTRS1974

Optical radiation from the Crab pulsar

Possible mechanisms for producing the optical radiation from the Crab pulsar are proposed and discussed. There are severe difficulties in interpreting the radiation as being produced by an incoherent process, whether it be synchrotron radiation, inverse-Compton radiation or curvature radiation. It is proposed therefore that radiation in the optical part of the spectrum is coherent. In the polar cap model, a small bunch of electrons and positrons forms near each primary electron as a result of the pair-production cascade process. Ambient electric fields give rise to energy separation, as a result of which either the electrons or positrons will dominate the radiation from each bunch. The roll-off in the infrared is ascribed to synchrotron absorption by electrons and positrons located between the surface of the star and the force-balance radius. Various consequences of this model, which may be subjected to observational test, are discussed.

Sturrock, P. A.↗

NASA NTRS1975

Optical radiation from the Crab pulsar

Possible mechanisms for producing the optical radiation from the Crab pulsar are proposed and discussed. There are severe difficulties in interpreting the radiation as being produced by an incoherent process, whether it be synchrotron radiation, inverse-Compton radiation, or curvature radiation. It is proposed, therefore, that radiation in the optical part of the spectrum is coherent. In the polar cap model, a small bunch of electrons and positrons forms near each primary electron as a result of the pair-production cascade process. Turbulent electric field components associated with large-scale bunching may lead to separation of the electrons and positrons in space and in energy, with the result that coherent radiation may be produced by the electrons, the positrons, or both. Calculations, which involve a number of simplifying assumptions, indicate that the optical radiation from the Crab pulsar can be understood in this way if the mass of the star is approximately 0.3 solar mass. Various consequences of this model, which may be subjected to observational test, are discussed.

Sturrock, P. A.↗

DOE OSTI2026

Comparative life cycle assessment of bioenergy in Japan from residual biomass-based wood pellets produced in the US Pacific Northwest

The US Pacific Northwest (PNW) faces an increase in wildfires due to forest overcrowding and climate change, posing significant environmental and public health risks. Traditional methods of managing surplus biomass, including prescribed burning, have increased air pollution and global warming. While in the PNW, residual woody biomass is being treated as waste, Japan’s growing demand for bio-based energy presents an opportunity to export value-added biomass as energy pellets. This study investigates whether producing wood pellets from the residual woody biomass from forest operations and sawmills for electricity generation in Japan is truly environmentally beneficial. Accordingly, we conducted a cradle-to-grave Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to evaluate the environmental impact of residual pellets vs. coal for electricity generation. The assessment covered feedstock production, pellet processing, transportation, and combustion phases. Our findings indicate that replacing coal-based electricity in Japan with PNW residual pellet-based electricity can lower the Global Warming Potential (GWP) by about 90% for every unit of electricity displaced. Furthermore, the results show that repurposing the otherwise burnt harvest slash residues for pellet production would improve local air quality by reducing PM 2.5 and smog in the PNW. However, substituting coal with residual pellets marginally increased carcinogenic and ecotoxicity-related emissions. Based on these results, we conclude that substituting coal with residual wood pellets for electricity generation, particularly harvest-slash residual pellets, is environmentally beneficial across most impact categories, including the GWP. This research underscores how an export‑oriented pellet industry can help address the environmental challenges within the regional US wood products industry and global renewable energy supply.

Velappan, Hemalatha [Univ. of Washington, Seattle,↗

NASA NTRS2013

Certification-Based Process Analysis

Space mission architects are often challenged with knowing which investment in technology infusion will have the highest return. Certification-based analysis (CBA) gives architects and technologists a means to communicate the risks and advantages of infusing technologies at various points in a process. Various alternatives can be compared, and requirements based on supporting streamlining or automation can be derived and levied on candidate technologies. CBA is a technique for analyzing a process and identifying potential areas of improvement. The process and analysis products are used to communicate between technologists and architects. Process means any of the standard representations of a production flow; in this case, any individual steps leading to products, which feed into other steps, until the final product is produced at the end. This sort of process is common for space mission operations, where a set of goals is reduced eventually to a fully vetted command sequence to be sent to the spacecraft. Fully vetting a product is synonymous with certification. For some types of products, this is referred to as verification and validation, and for others it is referred to as checking. Fundamentally, certification is the step in the process where one insures that a product works as intended, and contains no flaws.

Knight, Russell L.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Towards a mature measurement environment: Creating a software engineering research environment

Software engineering researchers are building tools, defining methods, and models; however, there are problems with the nature and style of the research. The research is typically bottom-up, done in isolation so the pieces cannot be easily logically or physically integrated. A great deal of the research is essentially the packaging of a particular piece of technology with little indication of how the work would be integrated with other prices of research. The research is not aimed at solving the real problems of software engineering, i.e., the development and maintenance of quality systems in a productive manner. The research results are not evaluated or analyzed via experimentation or refined and tailored to the application environment. Thus, it cannot be easily transferred into practice. Because of these limitations we have not been able to understand the components of the discipline as a coherent whole and the relationships between various models of the process and product. What is needed is a top down experimental, evolutionary framework in which research can be focused, logically and physically integrated to produce quality software productively, and evaluated and tailored to the application environment. This implies the need for experimentation, which in turn implies the need for a laboratory that is associated with the artifact we are studying. This laboratory can only exist in an environment where software is being built, i.e., as part of a real software development and maintenance organization. Thus, we propose that Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL) type activities exist in all organizations to support software engineering research. We describe the SEL from a researcher's point of view, and discuss the corporate and government benefits of the SEL. The discussion focuses on the benefits to the research community.

Basili, Victor R.↗

NASA NTRS2015

Recognizing Sulfate and Phosphate Complexes Adsorbed onto Nanophase Weathering Products on Mars

Nanophase weathering products (i.e., secondary phases that lack long-range atomic order) have been recognized on the martian surface via orbital observations and in-situ measurements from landed missions. Allophane, a poorly crystalline, hydrated aluminosilicate, has been identified at the regional scale in models of thermal-infrared (TIR) data from the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) and at the local scale from visible/near-IR (VNIR) data from the Compact Reconnaissance Impact Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) instrument and phase calculations of Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) data of rocks encountered by the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) Spirit and Opportunity. Nanophase iron oxides (npOx) have been recognized in rocks and soils measured by the Mössbauer Spectrometer on Spirit and Opportunity. Furthermore, analyses of X-ray diffraction data measured by the CheMin instrument onboard the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity indicate rock and soil samples are comprised of approx. 20-50 wt.% X-ray amorphous materials. Chemical measurements by landed missions indicate the presence of sulfur and phosphorus in martian rocks in soils, and APXS data from Gusev crater demonstrate abundances of up to approx. 5 wt.% P2O5 and approx. 30 wt.% SO3. However, the speciation of phosphorus and sulfur is not always evident. On Earth, phosphate and sulfate anions can be chemisorbed onto the surfaces of nanophase weathering products. This process may also occur on Mars, and calculations of the composition of the amorphous component at Gale crater using CheMin mineral models and APXS data show that amorphous material is enriched in volatiles, including S. Here, we examine the ability to detect chemisorbed sulfate and phosphate complexes by analyzing sulfate- and phosphate-adsorbed nanophase weathering products using instruments similar to those on landed and orbital missions.

Rampe, E. B.↗

DOE OSTI2021

Chemical Recycling of Mixed Plastics and Valuable Metals in the Electronic Waste Using Solvent-Based Processing

Annually, 20-55 million tons of electronic waste (e-waste) is produced worldwide (5% of all municipal solid waste). Although e-waste embodies only 2% of America’s municipal waste, it accounts for a significantly larger proportion of the heavy metals and flame retardants present in the waste stream. Currently, less than 20% of all e-waste is recycled in the United States because the heterogeneity of the feedstock limits the opportunity for reuse in high value products and processing of the waste itself is often too costly to justify handling. To address this concern, the aims of this study are: 1) to identify the major plastic and metal compositions within electronic shredder residue (ESR), 2) to formulate solvents and processing conditions to separate 90% of the plastics targeted from consumer shred ESR, and 3) to develop a process design model to estimate the cost and energy efficiency of the proposed solvent-based processing. In this study, a pre-sorted heterogeneous ESR feedstock (one where aluminum, magnetic components, and hazardous battery materials removed by an e-waste recycling facility) was used, with the major compositions of the ESR characterized. It was found that 25 wt.% of the feedstock was composed of plastics, 6 wt.% rubber, 27 wt.% printed circuit boards, 23% wire, and the remainder metals and capacitors. Within the plastic portion, polystyrene (PS, 40 wt.%), acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS, 25 wt.%), and styrene-acrylonitrile (SAN, 9wt.%) were identified to compose the majority of the screened plastics using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Next, selective solvents were screened using Hansen Solubility Parameter Theory (HSP) for dissolving PS and ABS. The pre-screening results show that methylene chloride (dichloromethane, DCM) and tetrahydrofuran (THF) are capable of dissolving the most PS and ABS, while methanol (MeOH) and ethylene glycol (EG) are capable of precipitating the most PS and ABS. These solvents were subsequently used to recover polymers and remove. flame retardants within the ESR feedstock. By optimizing the dissolution time and the solvents used, the highest polymer dissolution yield (99 wt.%%) was achieved using DCM for 48 hr. Both pre-screened anti-solvents (MeOH and EG) showed the highest polymer precipitation yield (71 wt.%). In terms of flame retardant removal rate, EG was found to have a high phosphorus-containing flame retardant removal rate (up to 98%). Characterization shows that the proposed solvent-based processing can preserve a high molecular weight fraction of the polymers and effectively remove flame retardants. Cost analysis indicates that the amount of the solvent/anti-solvent recovered after the reaction would play a critical role in reducing the operating costs. The energy analysis shows that the proposed solvent-based processes can save up to 60% of the embodied energy used to manufacture plastics used in electronics (PS and ABS were used for calculations). The results from this project prove the potential of solvent-based processing to produce secondary materials (plastics and metals) from e-waste for cross-industry reuse.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

NASA NTRS2002

TRMM Data Mining Service at the Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) DISC DAAC Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM)

TRMM has acquired more than four years of data since its launch in November 1997. All TRMM standard products are processed by the TRMM Science Data and Information System (TSDIS) and archived and distributed to general users by the GES DAAC. Table 1 shows the total archive and distribution as of February 28, 2002. The Utilization Ratio (UR), defined as the ratio of the number of distributed files to the number of archived files, of the TRMM standard products has been steadily increasing since 1998 and is currently at 6.98.

Source record↗

DOE OSTI2023

Chapter 6: TEA and LCA of Bio-Based Polyurethanes

For bio-based polyurethane (PU) to replace its conventional petroleum-based counterpart, it must be cost-competitive while providing a positive environmental benefit. Techno-economic analysis (TEA) and life cycle assessment (LCA) provide tools to quantify the economic and environmental viability of bio-based PU and to identify key drivers. Here we describe TEA and LCA methodologies for assessing bio-based PU, including an example case study for producing a flexible PU foam. This process has the potential to be cost-competitive with traditional PU based on a published study using a linseed oil proxy feedstock. Bio-based PU also demonstrates environmental advantages in some categories considered but faces challenges in others compared to petroleum-based PU. Further TEA and LCA beyond the case study may enable assessment for alternative product and process variations that are possible for bio-based PU.

bio-based polyurethane↗

NASA NTRS1995

Entrepreneurship within General Aviation

Many modern economic theories place great importance upon entrepreneurship in the economy. Some see the entrepreneur as the individual who bears risk of operating a business in the face of uncertainty about future conditions and who is rewarded through profits and losses. The 20th century economist Joseph Schumpter saw the entrepreneur as the medium by which advancing technology is incorporated into society as businesses seek competitive advantages through more efficient product development processes. Due to the importance that capitalistic systems place upon entrepreneurship, it has become a well studied subject with many texts to discuss how entrepreneurs can succeed in modern society. Many entrepreneuring and business management courses go so far as to discuss the characteristic phases and prominent challenges that fledgling companies face in their efforts to bring a new product into a competitive market. However, even with all of these aids, start-up companies fail at an enormous rate. Indeed, the odds of shepherding a new company through the travails of becoming a well established company (as measured by the ability to reach Initial Public Offering (IPO)) have been estimated to be six in 1,000,000. Each niche industry has characteristic challenges which act as barriers to entry for new products into that industry. Thus, the applicability of broad generalizations is subject to limitations within niche markets. This paper will discuss entrepreneurship as it relates to general aviation. The goals of this paper will be to: introduce general aviation; discuss the details of marrying entrepreneurship with general aviation; and present a sample business plan which would characterize a possible entrepreneurial venture.

Ullmann, Brian M.↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Creating IR-verified Gridded Fire Burn Maps using Public NASA and Satellite Data

Even though fire can be devastating, wildland fire is a natural and integral force on our landscapes, providing value by decreasing fuels at the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) to promote safe communities. However, uncontained wildfires can devastate communities, threaten our health, and result in substantial economic losses. There has been greater than a $50B increase in wildfire insurance claims from 2017-2021, which has been exacerbated by climate change. Our partners at Kettle reinsurance are focused on building a smarter reinsurance model for protecting today’s globalized world from the catastrophic effects of climate change. Our objective is to develop a high-confidence grid-based wildfire burn product using multiple sources of satellite data to determine whether a ‘conflagration' (fire larger than 999+ acres) has ‘breached’ a grid cell. This product will substantially decrease the time it takes for homeowners to receive payouts, from over a year to a couple months. Working with our partners at Kettle reinsurance, we use VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) 375 m fire detections and Sentinel-2 10 m satellite imagery to create a 20-m gridded fire burn product. Our process is based on the level of confidence in the data source and takes into account vegetation change throughout the life of the fire. For example, Sentinel-2 vegetation-change indices have a higher level of confidence when congruent with VIIRS active-fire detection data, rather than VIIRS detections alone. We have also verified our fire burn product against MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER) Infrared (IR) data from the Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments Experiment - Air Quality (FIREX-AQ) 2019 campaign, with 88% overall agreement. The first iteration has been developed for responding to wildfires in California, with the possibility to expand nationwide and globally.

Emily Gargulinski↗

DOE OSTI2026

CMIP7 Data Request: atmosphere priorities and opportunities

This paper presents a comprehensive overview of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 7 (CMIP7) request for data unlocking key research avenues in atmospheric science and provides justification for the resources needed to produce this data. Topics within the CMIP7 Atmosphere Theme centre around processes and feedbacks in atmospheric science such as clouds, aerosols and atmospheric chemistry, atmospheric circulation, temperature variability and extremes, radiative forcings, and Earth system model evaluation. These topics are summarised in this paper as scientific “opportunities” which will be realised through CMIP7 experiments and Earth system model outputs. These opportunities were submitted by a thematic group of atmospheric science community representatives combined with an extended consultation process. The production of these variables will close key gaps and uncertainties identified during previous rounds of CMIP, and will be broadly used by scientific, policy, governmental, industry, and other communities that rely on climate model projections for research and decision making, including supporting the 7th Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report (AR7). As an author group, we also reflect on the process used to collate this data request and make recommendations to future CMIP governance on implementing a consultation on this scale in the future.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

NASA NTRS1992

The limits of crop productivity

The component processes that govern yield limits in food crops are reviewed and how each process can be individually measured is described. The processes considered include absorption of photosynthetic radiation by green tissue, carbon-fixation efficiency in photosynthesis, carbon use efficiency in respiration, biomass allocation to edible products, and efficiency of photosynthesis and respiration. The factors limiting yields in optimal environments are considered.

Bugbee, Bruce↗

NASA NTRS2011

Stress-Driven Selection of Novel Phenotypes

A process has been developed that can confer novel properties, such as metal resistance, to a host bacterium. This same process can also be used to produce RNAs and peptides that have novel properties, such as the ability to bind particular compounds. It is inherent in the method that the peptide or RNA will behave as expected in the target organism. Plasmid-born mini-gene libraries coding for either a population of combinatorial peptides or stable, artificial RNAs carrying random inserts are produced. These libraries, which have no bias towards any biological function, are used to transform the organism of interest and to serve as an initial source of genetic variation for stress-driven evolution. The transformed bacteria are propagated under selective pressure in order to obtain variants with the desired properties. The process is highly distinct from in vitro methods because the variants are selected in the context of the cell while it is experiencing stress. Hence, the selected peptide or RNA will, by definition, work as expected in the target cell as the cell adapts to its presence during the selection process. Once the novel gene, which produces the sought phenotype, is obtained, it can be transferred to the main genome to increase the genetic stability in the organism. Alternatively, the cell line can be used to produce novel RNAs or peptides with selectable properties in large quantity for separate purposes. The system allows for easy, large-scale purification of the RNAs or peptide products. The process has been reduced to practice by imposing sub-inhibitory concentrations of NiCl2 on cells of the bacterium Escherichia coli that were transformed separately with the peptide library and RNA library. The evolved resistant clones were isolated, and sequences of the selected mini-gene variants were established. Clones resistant to NiCl2 were found to carry identical plasmid variants with a functional mini-gene that specifically conferred significant nickel tolerance on the host cells. Sequencing of the selected mini-gene revealed a propensity of the encoded peptide to bind transient metal ions. Expression of the mini-gene markedly improved growth parameters of the evolved clones at sub-inhibitory concentrations of NiCl2 while being slightly detrimental in the absence of stress. Similar results have been obtained with the RNA libraries. Overall, the results demonstrate a very natural outcome of the selection experiments in which the mini-genes were expected to be either successfully integrated into bacterial genetic networks, or rejected depending upon their effect on host fitness. This described approach can be useful as a laboratory model to study the dynamics of bacterial adaptive evolution on the molecular level. It can also provide a strategy for screening expressed DNA libraries in search of novel genes with desirable properties.

Fox, George E.↗

DOE OSTI2020

Functionally graded coatings and claddings

A shear assisted extrusion process for producing cladded materials wherein a cladding material and a material to be cladded are placed in sequence with the cladded material positioned to contact a rotating scroll face first and the material to be cladded second. The two materials are fed through a shear assisted extrusion device at a preselected feed rate and impacted by a rotating scroll face to generate a cladded extrusion product. This process allows for increased through wall strength and decreases the brittleness in formed structures as compared to the prior art.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2022

Shear assisted extrusion process

Joshi, Vineet V.↗

DOE OSTI2025

Development of an Energy-Efficient and High-Productivity Ammonia Recovery and Removal Process Using Resin-Wafer Electrodeionization

As efforts to develop various energy resources, ammonia energy is emerging as a promising carbon-free fuel alternative. Recovering high-concentration ammonia and ammonium from wastewater potentially offers significant environmental and economic benefits. However, research on recovery technologies for industries such as semiconductors remains limited. This study develops an efficient, energy-saving ammonia recovery technology using Resin Wafer Electrodeionization (RW-EDI), specifically for the semiconductor industry. RW-EDI shows promise for recovering ammonia from high-concentration wastewater. By optimizing parameters, such as voltage and initial concentration, a balance between productivity and energy consumption is achieved. Results indicate that ammonium and fluoride ion transport kinetics are similar, with minimal competition and selectivity values between 0.95 and 1.08. As the initial ammonia/ammonium concentration increases from 500 to 8000 ppm, reaction rate constants and the overall mass transfer coefficient decrease. Increasing the voltage can enhance mass transfer and eliminate barriers. Ion transport primarily occurs in the RW solid phase, accounting for 93.89% of the total current. Additionally, RW-EDI shows superior specific energy consumption within a concentration range of 500 ppm to 8000 ppm, outperforming technologies like electrodialysis by reducing specific energy consumption from 8−15 kWh/kg-NH 4 + to 1.2−2.5 kWh/kg-NH 4 + . This study highlights RW-EDI’s potential for ammonia recovery, providing valuable insights for future applications in wastewater treatment.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

DOE OSTI2022

Carbon Intensities of Refining Products in Petroleum Refineries with Co-Processed Biofeedstocks

Petroleum refineries increasingly seek to generate fuels with lower carbon intensities (CIs; a measure of life cycle greenhouse gas [GHG] emissions per unit of energy of fuel; well-to-wheel [WTW]) to meet growing demand. Co-processing refers to a process that adds biomass-derived feedstocks to the fossil-based feedstocks of existing petroleum refinery process units. With the use of biofeedstocks, it is expected that co-processed fuels would have lower CIs than their petroleum counterparts without requiring changes in the existing infrastructure for producing, transporting, and using fuels. To quantify the GHG emissions reduction benefits of co-processing, this study uses a linear programming model to simulate petroleum refinery conditions with and without co-processing. The co-processing cases include three biofeedstocks (soy oil, tallow, and used cooking oil or UCO) used as 10 vol.% of the feedstock to a hydrotreater or hydrocracker since these lipid-based feedstocks have favorable properties to be treated in a hydrotreater or hydrocracker. In addition, we considered pyrolysis oil used as 10 vol.% of the feedstock to a fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) unit in the modeled refinery due to its higher oxygen content compared to other lipid-based feedstocks. Life cycle analysis (LCA) using two distinct approaches—process-level energy allocation and a refinery-level marginal approach—has been conducted for each case. The LCA results using process-level allocation show that there are no noticeable changes in emissions or energy use impacts at the facility level. The life cycle GHG emission reductions of co-processing cases are mainly related to the fraction of biogenic carbon embedded in each fuel product. For example, co-processed jet fuels (a mixture of fossil and biogenic fuels) made via hydrotreating or hydrocracking have higher biogenic carbon, which results in jet fuel CI reductions of 3.9%–8.6% compared to the CI of baseline petroleum jet fuels on a WTW basis. However, analysis of co-processed pyrolysis oil in an FCC shows that a higher fraction of biofeedstocks (29%) becomes process emissions (i.e., CO and CO 2 ), mainly due to the oxygenates in pyrolysis oil, and so it generates less renewable fuel than biofeedstocks co-processed via hydrotreating or hydrocracking. Using the refinery-level marginal approach, the changes in energy use and emissions of co-processing cases compared to the petroleum-only baseline case are allocated to the changes in fuel production (assuming renewable fuels). This approach generates the life cycle GHG emission values of co-processed renewable fuels, which are comparable to the CIs of standalone biofuel production pathways. However, as this approach relies on a rough assumption that product yields and emissions from co-processing units on fossil feedstocks remain the same with and without biofeedstock inputs, co-processing cases like FCC pyrolysis oil may generate quite skewed results.

02 PETROLEUM↗