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At least 1,279 records · Page 71

Thermal conductance measurements of bolted copper joints for SuperCDMS

Joint thermal conductance testing has been undertaken for bolted copper to copper connections from 60 mK to 26 K. This testing was performed to validate an initial design basis for the SuperCDMS experiment, where a dilution refrigerator will be coupled to a cryostat via multiple bolted connections. Copper used during testing was either gold plated or passivated with citric acid to prevent surface oxidation. Results obtained are well fit by a power law regression of joint thermal conductance to temperature and match well with data collected during a literature review.

Schmitt, R.↗

Production and Catalytic Upgrading of 2,3-Butanediol Fermentation Broth into Sustainable Aviation Fuel Blendstock and Fuel Properties Measurement

With the increasing demand for sustainable supplies of aviation fuel and need to address climate change, new conversion technologies are needed to efficiently process biomass, produce high quality jet fuel blendstock, and meet carbon emission targets. This study demonstrates the synthesis, conditioning, and catalytic upgrading of 2,3-butanediol (BDO) fermentation broth into a jet fuel blendstock candidate. A high-titer 2,3-BDO fermentation broth (i.e., ~90 g/L) was produced at a 100-L scale and pretreated via nanofiltration to decrease the impurities level in the broth from 4.6 to 0.6 wt%. A novel process for catalytic upgrading of aqueous 2,3-BDO into a jet fuel blendstock candidate was developed, and each step was efficiently demonstrated. The catalytic steps include 1) 2,3-BDO dehydration into methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) over AlPO4, 2) MEK conversion into olefins over Zn1Zr10Ox, 3) oligomerization of olefins over a zeolite beta, and 4) hydrogenation over platinum/carbon. Both the model feed and real 2,3-BDO fermentation broth were tested for upgrading 2,3-BDO to MEK. With the real feed, a continuous loss of conversion (i.e., >50% loss over ~140 h time-on-stream [TOS]) was partly attributed to reversible deactivation from coking species. However, the conversion remained stable with the model feed, which demonstrates the efficiency of the first step for converting aqueous 2,3-BDO (10 wt% in water). For upgrading MEK to olefins, high selectivity to olefins (i.e., 82.5%) was obtained at high conversion levels (i.e., 93-98%) with stable conditions being achieved for > 70-hours TOS. Oligomerization of light olefins, which was demonstrated for > 270 h TOS, mainly led to the formation of dimers (C8-10) and trimers (C13-14). The oligomerized product was hydrogenated and distilled to recover the jet fraction (35 mass% or 40.9% carbon based yield), which consists mostly of desired isoalkanes (31.7 wt%), n-alkanes (24.5 wt%), and cycloalkanes (29.6 wt%). While some improvement is still needed to meet ASTM D7566 specifications for viscosity and final boiling point temperature, freezing point, density, aromatics content, and sulfur content of the jet blendstock candidate were within acceptable ranges, thus highlighting the potential of this process for production of jet fuel blendstock.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,BIOMASS FUELS↗

CHILI – the Chicago Instrument for Laser Ionization – a new tool for isotope measurements in cosmochemistry

We describe CHILI, the Chicago Instrument for Laser Ionization, a new resonance ionization mass spectrometer developed for isotopic analysis at high spatial resolution and high sensitivity of small samples like contemporary interstellar dust grains returned by the Stardust spacecraft. We explain how CHILI addresses the technical challenges associated with such analyses by pushing most technical specifications towards their physical limits. As an initial demonstration, after many years of designing and developing CHILI, we have analyzed presolar silicon carbide grains for their isotopic compositions of strontium, zirconium, and barium. Subsequently, after further technical improvements, we have used CHILI to analyze, for the first time without interference, all stable isotopes of iron and nickel simultaneously in presolar silicon carbide grains. With a special timing scheme for the ionization lasers, we separated iron and nickel isotopes in the time-of-flight spectrum such that the isobaric interference between Fe-58 and Ni-58 was resolved. In-depth discussion of the astrophysical implications of the presolar grain results is deferred to dedicated later publications. Here we focus on the technical aspects of CHILI, its status quo, and further developments necessary to achieve CHILI's ultimate goals, similar to 10 nm lateral resolution and 30-40% useful yield.

Stephan, Thomas (ORCID:0000000163778731)↗