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At least 1,207 records · Page 67

Effect of Concentration, Temperature, and Interelectrode Gap on the Voltage Drop in an Electrochemical System of GdCl{sub 3}-LiCl-KCl

One of the most common conversations for those in the nuclear field and the public when discussing nuclear power is the issue of nuclear waste. When used nuclear fuel (UNF) is removed from a reactor, it contains fission products, some of which are long lived isotopes that will continue to irradiate for hundreds of years. One of several solutions to this issue is reprocessing, a process where minor actinides and other fission products are separated from still fissile and fertile materials. In the United States, there is no reprocessing of UNF at an industrial scale; however, one of the methods that universities and national labs are currently researching is known as pyro-processing. Pyro-processing utilizes electrochemistry in a molten salt environment to treat UNF and remove uranium and plutonium. The heart of the pyro-processing system is an electrorefining process, where most of the U in the UNF is selectively collected on a solid cathode in molten lithium-potassium chloride (LiCl-KCl) at high temperatures (723 K - 773 K). To model the behavior of materials in the electro-refiner, small bench-scale electrochemical experiments are being performed at many research universities and national labs to better understand material behavior. Within the electrochemical cell, there is a small resistance to current between the cathode and anode. This results in a voltage drop, which can affect the results of the experiments. This voltage drop varies based upon concentration of the salt, the temperature, the distance between the anode and cathode, and the scan rate. For this study, cyclic voltammetry will be performed on GdCl{sub 3}-LiCl-KCl at various temperatures (723 K - 798 K), various sample concentrations (1, 5, and 10 wt%), various scan rates (50, 100, 200, and 300 mV/s), and two different electrode spacing configurations. The resulting cyclic voltammograms will be compared for both electrode configurations to see the impact of interelectrode gap on the voltage drop.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Cost of automotive lithium-ion batteries operating at high upper cutoff voltages

Here, the potential for operating automotive battery packs at high upper cutoff voltages (UCV) has been explored using preliminary data on eight cathode materials. The pack level energy density, specific energy, and battery cost are calculated using the spreadsheet tool BatPaC. The tool used experimental data for some cathode materials such as the lithiated oxides of nickel manganese cobalt (NMC), nickel cobalt aluminum (NCA), layered lithium- and manganese-rich nickel manganese cobalt (LMRNMC). The half-cell data were obtained at UCVs between 4.2 and 4.7 V vs. Li/Li + . The experimental data showed LMRNMC with the highest lithiation capacity gain, increasing from 176 mAh·g –1 at 4.2 V to 260 mAh·g –1 at 4.7 V; this advantage is partly offset by its lower average voltage. Assuming optimized cell materials/design and an area-specific impedance of 12 Ω•cm 2 for all the materials, the BatPaC results indicate that the specific energies or energy densities of the battery electric vehicle (BEV) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) battery packs with the LMRNMC and NMC cathodes can exceed 180 (BEV) and 160 (PHEV) Wh·kg –1 at UCV>4.6 V vs. Li/Li + . The costs of these battery packs are lowest at UCV = 4.7 V (vs. Li/Li + ); estimated at 135–145 and 210–220 $·kWh –1 for BEV and PHEV packs, respectively.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Literature Survey on Operational Voltage Control and Reactive Power Management on Transmission and Sub-Transmission Networks

Voltage and reactive power system control is generally performed following usual patterns of loads, based on off-line studies for daily and seasonal operations. This practice is currently challenged by the inclusion of distributed renewable generation, such as solar. There has been focus on resolving this problem at the distribution level; however, the transmission and sub-transmission levels have received less attention. This paper provides a literature review of proposed methods and solution approaches to coordinate and optimize voltage control and reactive power management, with an emphasis on applications at transmission and sub-transmission level. The conclusion drawn from the survey is that additional research is needed in the areas of optimizing switch shunt actions and coordinating all available resources to deal with uncertain patterns from increasing distributed renewable generation in the operational time frame. These topics are not deeply explored in the literature.

capacitors↗

The North American Josephson Voltage Interlaboratory Comparison

The ninth North American Josephson voltage standard (JVS) interlaboratory comparison (ILC) at 10 V was completed in 2011. An on-site comparison was conducted between the National Institute of Standards and Technology compact JVS and the pivot laboratory system. A set of four traveling Zener voltage standards was then shipped from the pivot laboratory to the other participants. Here, we give the results from the 2011 ILC and review recent comparisons which have used the same traveling standards and similar procedures.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Medium Voltage Integrated Drive and Motor

The objective of this program was to design, build, and test a medium voltage (4,160VAC) high speed permanent magnet machine (HSPMM) and variable speed drive (VSD) that incorporates next generation 10kV silicon carbide (SiC) modules. The use of a HSPMM allows for high efficiency, small footprint, maintenance free operation while the SiC modules enable higher voltage operating conditions, improved efficiency, and small footprint.

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION↗

Measurement of shunt resistance and conduction band offset in Cu(In,Ga)Se 2 solar cells through joint analysis of temperature and intensity dependence of open-circuit voltage and photoluminescence

Joint analysis studies of open-circuit voltage and photoluminescence intensity (PL-I) are reported for CuIn 1-x GaxSe 2 (CIGSe) solar cells. A range of compositions are investigated, including constant x=0.35 and x=0.55 as well as a graded composition profile having a minimum of x=0.25. Both the open circuit voltage and PL-I are measured as functions of temperature and illumination intensity. With these two measurements, a full model-based fitting of the temperature and illumination dependence allows extraction of the effects of window layer band offset and shunt resistance, in addition to bulk and interface recombination parameters. Finally, to quantitatively analyze the two distinct measurements jointly, the absolute PL-I is measured to obtain quasi-Fermi-level splitting.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

A Surface Se-Substituted LiCo[O 2-δ Se δ ] Cathode with Ultrastable High-Voltage Cycling in Pouch Full-Cells

Cycling LiCoO 2 to above 4.5 V for higher capacity is enticing; however, hybrid O anion- and Co cation-redox (HACR) at high voltages facilitates intrinsic O α - (α < 2) migration, causing oxygen loss, phase collapse, and electrolyte decomposition that severely degrade the battery cyclability. Hereby, commercial LiCoO 2 particles are operando treated with selenium, a well-known anti-aging element to capture oxygen-radicals in the human body, showing an “anti-aging” effect in high-voltage battery cycling and successfully stopping the escape of oxygen from LiCoO 2 even when the cathode is cycled to 4.62 V. Furthermore, ab initio calculation and soft X-ray absorption spectroscopy analysis suggest that during deep charging, the precoated Se will initially substitute some mobile O α - at the charged LiCoO 2 surface, transplanting the pumped charges from O α - and reducing it back to O 2- to stabilize the oxygen lattice in prolonged cycling. As a result, the material retains 80% and 77% of its capacity after 450 and 550 cycles under 100 mA g -1 in 4.57 V pouch full-cells matched with a graphite anode and an ultralean electrolyte (2 g Ah -1 ).

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Structure/Interface Coupling Effect for High-Voltage LiCoO 2 Cathodes

LiCoO 2 (LCO) is widely applied in today's rechargeable battery markets for consumer electronic devices. However, LCO operations at high voltage are hindered by accelerated structure degradation and electrode/electrolyte interface decomposition. To overcome these challenges, co-modified LCO (defined as CB-Mg-LCO) that couples pillar structures with interface shielding are successfully synthesized for achieving high-energy-density and structurally stable cathode material. Benefitting from the "Mg-pillar" effect, irreversible phase transitions are significantly suppressed and highly reversible Li + shuttling is enabled. Interestingly, bonding effects between the interfacial lattice oxygen of CB-Mg-LCO and amorphous Co x B y coating layer are found to elevate the formation energy of oxygen vacancies, thereby considerably mitigating lattice oxygen loss and inhibiting irreversible phase transformation. Meanwhile, interface shielding effects are also beneficial for mitigating parasitic electrode/electrolyte reactions, subsequent Co dissolution, and ultimately enable a robust electrode/electrolyte interface. As a result, the as-designed CB-Mg-LCO cathode achieves a high capacity and excellent cycle stability with 94.6% capacity retention at an extremely high cut-off voltage of 4.6 V. We report these findings provide new insights for cathode material modification methods, which serves to guide future cathode material design.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Conformal LiF Stabilized Interfaces via Electrochemical Fluorination on High Voltage Spinel Cathodes (≈4.9 V) for Lithium-Ion Batteries

The high voltage LiNi 0.5 Mn 1.5 O 4 (LNMO) spinel is one of the promising cathodes for the lithium-ion batteries due to its high energy densities, good rate performance. However, its high operating potential (≈4.75 V) causes extensive oxidation of conventional carbonate electrolytes, resulting an unstable and thick cathode electrolyte interphase (CEI) layer with a large irreversible capacity and low coulombic efficiency. In this work, we report the formation of thin LiF stabilized interfaces on LNMO via electrochemical fluorination that significantly improves the cycling stability and enhanced the capacity. An electrochemically induced conformal LiF layer acts as a part of a robust CEI by reducing the leakage of electrons and allowing the conduction of Li ions through it. Because of the robust LiF stabilized CEI, LNMO delivers a discharge capacity of ≈148.5 and ≈117.1 mAh g -1 at 0.1 and 1 C rate, respectively. It exhibits excellent cyclability with 80% capacity retention (CR) after 600 cycles in lithium-half cell and ≈90% CR after 200 cycles in full cell with only 0.03% and 0.05% capacity decay per cycle in conventional carbonate electrolytes without additives. Such an excellent electrochemical performance could lead to the potential development of high energy density batteries with high voltage cathodes for grid-based applications.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Solid electrolyte: The key for high-voltage lithium batteries

A solid-state high-voltage (5 V) lithium battery is demonstrated to deliver a cycle life of 10 000 with 90% capacity retention. Furthermore, the solid electrolyte enables the use of high-voltage cathodes and Li anodes with minimum side reactions, leading to a high Coulombic efficiency of 99.98+%.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

On the Interplay between CT and Singlet Exciton Emission in Organic Solar Cells with Small Driving Force and Its Impact on Voltage Loss

The interplay between free charge carriers, charge transfer (CT) states and singlet excitons (S 1 ) determines the recombination pathway and the resulting open circuit voltage (V OC ) of organic solar cells. By combining a well-aggregated low bandgap polymer with different blend ratios of the fullerenes PCBM and ICBA, the energy of the CT state (E CT ) is varied by 130 meV while leaving the S 1 energy of the polymer (E S 1 ) unaffected. It is found that the polymer exciton dominates the radiative properties of the blend when approaches E CT , while the V OC remains limited by the non-radiative decay of the CT state. It is concluded that an increasing strength of the exciton in the optical spectra of organic solar cells will generally decrease the non-radiative voltage loss because it lowers the radiative V OC limit (V OC,rad ), but not because it is more emissive. The analysis further suggests that electronic coupling between the CT state and the S 1 will not improve the V OC , but rather reduce the V OC,rad . It is anticipated that only at very low CT state absorption combined with a fairly high CT radiative efficiency the solar cell benefit from the radiative properties of the singlet excitons.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

A High Energy–Density, Cobalt–Free, Low–Nickel LiNi 0.7 Mn 0.25 Al 0.05 O 2 Cathode with a High–Voltage Electrolyte for Lithium–Metal Batteries

Cobalt-free cathode materials have garnered increased attention for applications in next-generation batteries for electric vehicles, as cobalt is considered to have at a high supply chain risk. Here, the use of a localized saturated electrolyte (LSE) to enable stable cycling of a cobalt-free, low-nickel layered-oxide cathode LiNi 0.7 Mn 0.25 Al 0.05 O 2 (NMA-70) to higher voltages (4.6 V) in a lithium-metal battery is demonstrated. Compared to the baseline LP57 electrolyte, the LSE extends the cycle life from ≈100 cycles to ≈400 cycles before reaching 80% capacity retention. Visual indicators of cell degradation, such as product deposition, are observed on electrodes cycled in LP57. It is shown that cycling NMA-70 in LSE reduces the overall active material loss and overpotential growth during extended cycling. This is attributed to the formation of a beneficial fluorinated interphase layer, a lower degree of rock-salt phase formation, and a reduction in the gas evolution from the cathode surface. The decrease in gas evolution from the cathode cycled in LSE reflects a lower degree of electrolyte reactivity and an overall improvement in the safety characteristics of the cell. Furthermore, this study highlights the importance of a stable electrolyte to enable the high-voltage cycling of alternative, lower nickel, and cobalt-free cathodes.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Structural Stabilization of P2-type Sodium Iron Manganese Oxides by Electrochemically Inactive Mg Substitution: Insights of Redox Behavior and Voltage Decay

Layered P2-type Na 0.8 Mn 0.5 Fe 0.5 O 2 cathode material is a promising candidate for next-generation sodium-ion batteries due to the economical and environmentally benign characteristics of Mn and Fe. The poor cycling stability of the material, however, is still a problem that must be solved. To address the problem, here, electrochemically inactive Mg 2+ was introduced into the structure by substituting some of the Fe ions. It was shown that Mg substitution led to a smoother voltage profile with improved cycling performance and rate capability. These observations were attributed to the suppressed structural changes during electrochemical processes. Detailed redox mechanisms, associated local structural changes, and phase transitions were investigated by X-ray absorption spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. From the detailed analysis of electrochemical behaviors, it was also identified how the redox reactions and structural disordering occurred in the high-and low-voltage regions and how Mg substitution stabilized the structure.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

MgZnO High‐Voltage Transparent Thin‐Film Transistors Built on Glass

Recently, there has been increasing interest in building‐integrated photovoltaic (BIPV), which enables harvesting solar energy effectively. Large‐area glass components such as windows are widely used in modern constructions. In addition to the PV on opaque components such as walls and roofs, the transparent photovoltaic (TPV) directly built on glass is complementary to fully utilize the PV energy in BIPV. A high‐voltage transparent thin‐film transistor (HVTTFT) built on glass is an ideal option for distributed microinverters for TPV modules. A wide‐bandgap oxide‐based HVTTFT on glass for this purpose is reported. The HVTTFT on glass uses ZnO‐based materials with different functions for two roles: a semiconductor Mg 0.01 Zn 0.99 O (MZO) as TFT channel and Al‐doped ZnO (AZO) as transparent conductive oxide (TCO) electrodes. The centrosymmetric circular structure of the MZO HVTTFT with a high‐k‐stacking gate dielectric enables a blocking voltage as high as ≈1 kV and an on/off ratio of 10 6 . The device exhibits an average optical transmittance of 81% over the visible spectrum.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Large-Area (Ag,Cu)(In,Ga)Se 2 Thin-Film Solar Cells with Increased Bandgap and Reduced Voltage Losses Realized with Bulk Defect Reduction and Front-Grading of the Absorber Bandgap

The 1.24 eV bandgap, 18.8% power conversion efficiency Ag-alloyed chalcopyrite (Ag,Cu)(In,Ga)Se 2 (ACIGS) solar cells are characterized to relate voltage and efficiency improvements to electro-optical (EO) characteristics. Shockley-Read-Hall recombination center defect density, identified and characterized through deep level transient spectroscopy and time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL), is reduced through potassium and copper treatment optimization. Concomitantly, longer minority carrier lifetimes are achieved, which increases open-circuit voltage (V OC ). Near-conduction band defects associated in earlier studies with light-induced current instability are also mitigated. Analysis of charge-carrier dynamics after single- and two-photon excitation is used to separate recombination at the front interface and in the absorber bulk. From TRPL decay simulations, the authors estimate ranges of key solar cell material characteristics: bulk carrier lifetime T bulk = 110-210 ns, charge-carrier mobility u = 110-160 cm 2 V -1 s -1 , and front interface recombination velocity S front = 700-1050 cm s -1 . This lowest-reported S front for ACIGS absorbers originates from the notched conduction band grading, which also makes the impact of the back interface recombination negligible. It is suggested in the results that solar cell performance enhancements can be made most readily with two distinct strategies: improving device architecture and reducing semiconductor defect densities. Using these approaches, power conversion efficiency in large-area solar cells is improved by 1.1% absolute.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Application of Thévenin equivalent sensitivity equations for reliable voltage stability assessment

In this paper, sensitivity equations for the Thévenin equivalent parameters, voltage and reactance, are derived using the duality between the Thévenin parameters from two consecutive PMU measurements. Using the sensitivity equation for the Thévenin reactance, a robust adaptive X-Th algorithm is developed aiming to extend a well-known adaptive E-Th approach by being able to accurately estimate the parameters for a wider range of loading conditions. In the performed case studies the resulting accuracy is evaluated when estimating the Thévenin parameters for large disturbances, for two sides with respect to a boundary bus, accommodating sensitivity to topology changes and nonlinearities in power systems. In conclusion, the results can be used for accurate voltage stability assessment using the Thévenin parameters.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Improved sensing of vertical velocity for vertical position control using loop voltage signals on EAST

Vertical position control of shaped plasma is critical for all elongated tokamaks to achieve safe and stable plasma discharge. In EAST, the in-vessel coil (IC) is employed for fast control of plasma vertical motion which power supply capabilities limits the controllability of vertical instability. Moreover, adequate signal-to-noise ratio of vertical position measurement can also realize an improvement in vertical control. In EAST, plasma vertical position Z p is produced nearly by all integrated magnetics, fast Z error signal is obtained by filtering from Zp. Then this fast Z error and its derivative term (dz/dt) are controlled by IC with a separate PD controller. Yet, it has a low signal-to-noise ratio which limits the gains that can be used successfully in the PD control loops. To provide less noisy dz/dt signal, the successful use of multiple up/down loop voltage pairs instead of derivative of z derived from magnetic probe signals will be discussed. Experiment show that even a single pair of loop voltage signal has better signal-to-noise ratio than differentiation of Z p . In addition, flux loop pickup signals from the IC current are also measured with series of positive and negative IC current pulses.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Stabilizing magnesium plating by a low-cost inorganic surface membrane for high-voltage and high-power Mg batteries

Mg batteries with halide-free electrolytes suffer from poor stability of the Mg metal anode due to electrolyte decomposition. Here, we report a low-cost zeolite membrane supported on Mg to address this challenge. It vastly reduces the population (hence decomposition) of free diglyme at the Mg/electrolyte interface, while allowing facile transport of Mg 2+ cations through the membrane. We demonstrate dendrite-free Mg plating/stripping performance in a magnesium tetrakis(hexafluoroisopropyloxy)borate/diglyme electrolyte with a 750-fold extended lifetime (over 6,000 h) and a high coulombic efficiency of ~98%. The prototype Mo 3 S 4 cathode paired with the protected Mg anode shows 91% capacity retention over 200 cycles. Importantly, this membrane protects soluble species in a high-voltage organic polymer cathode from being reduced at the anode via shuttling, achieving a full cell with a 3.5 V cutoff voltage. This results in a high specific energy density of 320 Wh kg –1 and a power density of 1,320 W kg –1 based on cathode mass.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗