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DOE OSTI2013

Using Plasmon Peaks in Electron Energy-Loss Spectroscopy to Determine the Physical and Mechanical Properties of Nanoscale Materials

In this program, we developed new theoretical and experimental insights into understanding the relationships among fundamental universality and scaling phenomena, the solid-state physical and mechanical properties of materials, and the volume plasmon energy as measured by electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS). Particular achievements in these areas are summarized as follows: (i) Using a previously proposed physical model based on the universal binding-energy relation (UBER), we established close phenomenological connections regarding the influence of the valence electrons in materials on the longitudinal plasma oscillations (plasmons) and various solid-state properties such as the optical constants (including absorption and dispersion), elastic constants, cohesive energy, etc. (ii) We found that carbon materials, e.g., diamond, graphite, diamond-like carbons, hydrogenated and amorphous carbon films, exhibit strong correlations in density vs. E p (or maximum of the volume plasmon peak) and density vs. hardness, both from available experimental data and ab initio DFT calculations. This allowed us to derive a three-dimensional relationship between hardness and the plasmon energy, that can be used to determine experimentally both hardness and density of carbon materials based on measurements of the plasmon peak position. (iii) As major experimental accomplishments, we demonstrated the possibility of in-situ monitoring of changes in the physical properties of materials with conditions, e.g., temperature, and we also applied a new plasmon ratio-imaging technique to map multiple physical properties of materials, such as the elastic moduli, cohesive energy and bonding electron density, with a sub-nanometer lateral resolution. This presents new capability for understanding material behavior. (iv) Lastly, we demonstrated a new physical phenomenon - electron-beam trapping, or electron tweezers - of a solid metal nanoparticle inside a liquid metal. This phenomenon is analogous to that of optical trapping of solid microparticles in solution known as "optical tweezers", which is currently being used to manipulate molecules and inorganic materials in a variety of nanotechnology applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2013

Report on Assessment of Environmentally Assisted Fatigue for LWR Extended Service Conditions

This report provides an update on an earlier assessment of environmentally assisted fatigue for light water reactor (LWR) materials under extended service conditions. This quarterly report is a deliverable in FY13 under the work package for environmentally assisted fatigue in the Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) program. The overall objective of this LWRS project is to assess the degradation by environmentally assisted cracking/fatigue of LWR materials such as various alloy base metals and their welds used in reactor coolant system piping. This effort is to support the Department of Energy LWRS program for developing tools to predict the aging/failure mechanism and to correspondingly predict the remaining life of LWR components for anticipated 60-80 year operation.

Mohanty, Subhasish↗

DOE OSTI2012

NYSEG Seneca Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) Demonstration Project

Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) is a hybrid energy storage and generation concept that has many potential benefits especially in a location with increasing percentages of intermittent wind energy generation. The objectives of the NYSEG Seneca CAES Project included: for Phase 1, development of a Front End Engineering Design for a 130MW to 210 MW utility-owned facility including capital costs; project financials based on the engineering design and forecasts of energy market revenues; design of the salt cavern to be used for air storage; draft environmental permit filings; and draft NYISO interconnection filing; for Phase 2, objectives included plant construction with a target in-service date of mid-2016; and for Phase 3, objectives included commercial demonstration, testing, and two-years of performance reporting. This Final Report is presented now at the end of Phase 1 because NYSEG has concluded that the economics of the project are not favorable for development in the current economic environment in New York State. The proposed site is located in NYSEG’s service territory in the Town of Reading, New York, at the southern end of Seneca Lake, in New York State’s Finger Lakes region. The landowner of the proposed site is Inergy, a company that owns the salt solution mining facility at this property. Inergy would have developed a new air storage cavern facility to be designed for NYSEG specifically for the Seneca CAES project. A large volume, natural gas storage facility owned and operated by Inergy is also located near this site and would have provided a source of high pressure pipeline quality natural gas for use in the CAES plant. The site has an electrical take-away capability of 210 MW via two NYSEG 115 kV circuits located approximately one half mile from the plant site. Cooling tower make-up water would have been supplied from Seneca Lake. NYSEG’s engineering consultant WorleyParsons Group thoroughly evaluated three CAES designs and concluded that any of the designs would perform acceptably. Their general scope of work included development of detailed project construction schedules, capital cost and cash flow estimates for both CAES cycles, and development of detailed operational data, including fuel and compression energy requirements, to support dispatch modeling for the CAES cycles. The Dispatch Modeling Consultant selected for this project was Customized Energy Solutions (CES). Their general scope of work included development of wholesale electric and gas market price forecasts and development of a dispatch model specific to CAES technologies. Parsons Brinkerhoff Energy Storage Services (PBESS) was retained to develop an air storage cavern and well system design for the CAES project. Their general scope of work included development of a cavern design, solution mining plan, and air production well design, cost, and schedule estimates for the project. Detailed Front End Engineering Design (FEED) during Phase 1 of the project determined that CAES plant capital equipment costs were much greater than the $\$$125.6- million originally estimated by EPRI for the project. The initial air storage cavern Design Basis was increased from a single five million cubic foot capacity cavern to three, five million cubic foot caverns with associated air production wells and piping. The result of this change in storage cavern Design Basis increased project capital costs significantly. In addition, the development time required to complete the three cavern system was estimated at approximately six years. This meant that the CAES plant would initially go into service with only one third of the required storage capacity and would not achieve full capability until after approximately five years of commercial operation. The market price forecasting and dispatch modeling completed by CES indicated that the CAES technologies would operate at only 10 to 20% capacity factors and the resulting overall project economics were not favorable for further development. As a result of all of these factors, the Phase 1 FEED developed an installed CAES plant cost estimate of approximately $\$$2,300/KW for the 210MW CAES 1A and 2 cycles. The capital cost for the 136 MW CAES 1 cycle was even higher due to the lower generating capacity of the cycle. Notably, the large equipment could have generated additional capacity (up to 270MW) which would have improved the cost per KW; however, the output was limited by the night time transmission system capability. The research herein, therefore, is particular to the site-specific factors that influenced the design and the current and forecasted generation mix and energy prices in Upstate New York and may not necessarily indicate that CAES plants cannot be economically constructed in other places in New York State or the world.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

DOE OSTI2012

First-Principles Flocculation as the Key to Low Energy Algal Biofuels Processing

This document summarizes a three year Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program effort to improve our understanding of algal flocculation with a key to overcoming harvesting as a techno-economic barrier to algal biofuels. Flocculation is limited by the concentrations of deprotonated functional groups on the algal cell surface. Favorable charged groups on the surfaces of precipitates that form in solution and the interaction of both with ions in the water can favor flocculation. Measurements of algae cell-surface functional groups are reported and related to the quantity of flocculant required. Deprotonation of surface groups and complexation of surface groups with ions from the growth media are predicted in the context of PHREEQC. The understanding of surface chemistry is linked to boundaries of effective flocculation. We show that the phase-space of effective flocculation can be expanded by more frequent alga-alga or floc-floc collisions. The collision frequency is dependent on the floc structure, described in the fractal sense. The fractal floc structure is shown to depend on the rate of shear mixing. We present both experimental measurements of the floc structure variation and simulations using LAMMPS (Large-scale Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator). Both show a densification of the flocs with increasing shear. The LAMMPS results show a combined change in the fractal dimension and a change in the coordination number leading to stronger flocs.

Hewson, John C.↗

DOE OSTI2013

High Temperature Polymer-Based Membrane Systems for Pre-Combustion Carbon Dioxide Capture

This report describes the activities conducted by Los Alamos National Laboratory and our project partners in support of DOE’s program to develop carbon capture technologies for power systems. This work was aimed at continued development and demonstration of a membrane based pre-combustion hydrogen purification/carbon capture technology and separation schemes developed by LANL.

Carbon Capture↗

DOE OSTI2013

Advanced Concept Exploration for Fast Ignition Science Program (Final Report)

The Fast Ignition (FI) Concept for Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) has the potential to provide a significant advance in the technical attractiveness of Inertial Fusion Energy reactors. FI differs from conventional “central hot spot” (CHS) target ignition by decoupling compression from heating: using a laser (or heavy ion beam or Z pinch) drive pulse (10’s of nanoseconds) to create a dense fuel and a second, much shorter (~10 picoseconds) high intensity pulse to ignite a small volume within the dense fuel. The physics of fast ignition process was the focus of our Advanced Concept Exploration (ACE) program. Ignition depends critically on two major issues involving Relativistic High Energy Density (RHED) physics: The laser-induced creation of fast electrons and their propagation in high-density plasmas. Our program has developed new experimental platforms, diagnostic packages, computer modeling analyses, and taken advantage of the increasing energy available at laser facilities to advance understanding of the fundamental physics underlying these issues.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2013

ADEPT Final Report: Dynamic Control of Grid Assets Using Direct AC Converter Cells

Seedling funding was secured through the ARPA-E program to develop a robust, utility-scale Power Converter Augmented Transformer (PCAT). The project designed, fabricated, and tested two 13 kV, 1 MW PCATs operating at an effective switching frequency of up to 50 kHz and at an efficiency of greater than 99%. Two versions of the PCAT were fabricated – one using an imputed DC link (IDCL) topology and the other using a back-to-back (BTB) topology. The IDCL avoids the use of electrolytic capacitors for bulk energy storage, thus improving the lifetime and decreasing the size of the converter, while the BTB topology uses an industry-proven topology that is more commercially viable in the short term. To give the PCAT a lifetime and maintenance profile compatible with typical existing utility assets, a novel Passive Thermal Management System (PTMS) was designed and integrated into both PCATs. The PTMS uses a thermosiphon to remove heat from the power electronic devices without forced cooling and reject it to the ambient environment. In addition, a fail-normal feature was implemented to ensure that in the event of PCAT failure the functionality of the underlying transformer is retained. Attainment of project objectives was verified through testing at the Georgia Tech National Electrical Energy Testing Research and Applications Center (NEETRAC). The IDCL-based PCAT had an efficiency of more than 99.10% and the BTB-based PCAT had an efficiency of more than 99.75%. During testing, the PTMS exceeded project requirements by rejecting the 5 kW output of the converters to a 40 °C environment while keeping devices junction temperatures within their tolerances.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2013

X-ray Nanoscope for Electronics Assurance

The United States does not have a comprehensive program to certify that integrated circuits (ICs) going into U.S. weapons systems do not contain malicious circuits. Destructive techniques are slow and labor intensive. In response to these concerns, DARPA initiated its TRUST in Integrated Circuits program to develop nondestructive technologies that will ensure the trust of ICs used in military systems, but designed and fabricated under untrusted conditions.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2013

Development of a Positron Source for JLab at the IAC

We report on the research performed towards the development of a positron sour for Jefferson Lab's (JLab) Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) in Newport News, VA. The first year of work was used to benchmark the predictions of our current simulation with positron production efficiency measurements at the IAC. The second year used the benchmarked simulation to design a beam line configuration which optimized positron production efficiency while minimizing radioactive waste as well as design and construct a positron converter target. The final year quantified the performance of the positron source. This joint research and development project brought together the experiences of both electron accelerator facilities. Our intention is to use the project as a spring board towards developing a program of accelerator based research and education which will train students to meet the needs of both facilities as well as provide a pool of trained scientists.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2013

NEET Micro-Pocket Fission Detector – FY 2013 Status Report

A collaboration between the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), the Kansas State University (KSU), and the Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives (CEA), is funded by the Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) program to develop and test Micro-Pocket Fission Detectors (MPFDs), which are compact fission chambers capable of simultaneously measuring thermal neutron flux, fast neutron flux, and temperature within a single package.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

DOE OSTI2013

Acoustic Modeling for Aqua Ventus I off Monhegan Island, ME

The DeepCwind consortium, led by the University of Maine, was awarded funding under the US Department of Energy’s Offshore Wind Advanced Technology Demonstration Program to develop two floating offshore wind turbines in the Gulf of Maine equipped with Goldwind 6 MW direct drive turbines, as the Aqua Ventus I project. The Goldwind turbines have a hub height of 100 m. The turbines will be deployed in Maine State waters, approximately 2.9 miles off Monhegan Island; Monhegan Island is located roughly 10 miles off the coast of Maine. In order to site and permit the offshore turbines, the acoustic output must be evaluated to ensure that the sound will not disturb residents on Monhegan Island, nor input sufficient sound levels into the nearby ocean to disturb marine mammals. This initial assessment of the acoustic output focuses on the sound of the turbines in air by modeling the assumed sound source level, applying a sound propagation model, and taking into account the distance from shore.

Acoustic modeling, offshore wind, Monhegan Island↗

DOE OSTI2013

The Production Process, Thermophysical Properties, and Quality Assurance Process for the Provision of Enhanced Accident Tolerant Fuels: ORNL Rodlets for the ATR ATF-1 Experiment

The work documented in this report was performed under the Fuel Cycle Research and Development (FCRD) Program’s Advanced Fuels Campaign (AFC) FY13 Work Package Number FT-13OR020222, revision 0, “Route to production and qualification of FCM fuel - ORNL.” The sole milestone in this work package is M2FT-13OR0202221, “Report Documenting Production Process, Thermophysical Properties, and QA Process to be Applied to First Irradiation Batch of FCM Fuels,” due July 27, 2013. This report satisfies that milestone.

Bell, Gary L.↗

DOE OSTI2013

June 2013 Update: Status Report on Assessment of Environmentally Assisted Fatigue for LWR Extended Service Conditions

This report provides an update on an earlier assessment of environmentally assisted fatigue for light water reactor (LWR) materials under extended service conditions. This quarterly report is a deliverable in April-June 2013 quarter under the work package for environmentally assisted fatigue in the Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) program. The overall objective of this LWRS project is to assess the degradation by environmentally assisted cracking/fatigue of LWR materials such as various alloy base metals and their welds used in reactor coolant system piping. This effort is to support the Department of Energy LWRS program for developing tools to predict the aging/failure mechanism and to correspondingly predict the remaining life of LWR components for anticipated 60-80 year operation.

Mohanty, S.↗

DOE OSTI2013

Moisture Management for High R-Value Walls

The following report explains the moisture-related concerns for High R-value wall assemblies and discusses past Building America research work that informs this study. Hygrothermal simulations were prepared for several common approaches to High R-value wall construction in six cities (Houston, Atlanta, Seattle, St. Louis, Chicago, and International Falls) representing a range of climate zones (2, 3, 4C, 4, 5A, and 7, respectively). The simulations are informed by experience gained from past research in this area and validated by field measurement and forensic experience. The modeling program was developed to assess the moisture durability of the wall assemblies based on three primary sources of moisture: construction moisture, air leakage condensation, and bulk water leakage. The peak annual moisture content of the wood based exterior sheathing was used to comparatively analyze the response to the moisture loads for each of the walls in each given city. Walls which experienced sheathing moisture contents between 20% and 28% were identified as risky, whereas those exceeding 28% were identified as very high risk. All of the wall assemblies perform well under idealized conditions. However, only the walls with exterior insulation, or cavity insulation which provides a hygrothermal function similar to exterior insulation, perform adequately when exposed to moisture loads. Walls with only cavity insulation are particularly susceptible to air leakage condensation. None of the walls performed well when a precipitation based bulk water leak was introduced to the backside of the sheathing, emphasizing the importance of proper flashing details.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2013

Understanding the Subsurface Reactive Transport of Transuranic Contaminants at DOE Sites

Our primary hypothesis is that actinides can interact with surfaces in fundamentally different ways than other metals, metalloids, and oxyanions and that this fundamental difference requires new approaches to studying and modeling transuranic sorption to minerals and geomedia. This project supports a key mission of the SBR program to develop sufficient scientific understanding such that DOE sites will be able to incorporate coupled physical, chemical, and biological processes into decision making for environmental management and long-term stewardship, while also supporting DOE’s commitment to education, training, and collaboration with DOE user facilities.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

DOE OSTI2013

Moisture Management of High-R Walls (Fact Sheet)

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2013

Evaluation of Concepts for Mulitiple Application Thermal Reactor for Irradiation eXperiments (MATRIX)

The Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) is a high power density test reactor specializing in fuel and materials irradiation. For more than 45 years, the ATR has provided irradiations of materials and fuels testing along with radioisotope production. Originally operated primarily in support of the Offcie of Naval Reactors (NR), the mission has gradually expanded to cater to other customers, such as the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE), private industry, and universities. Unforeseen circumstances may lead to the decommissioning of ATR, thus leaving the U.S. Government without a large-scale materials irradiation capability to meet the needs of its nuclear energy and naval reactor missions. In anticipation of this possibility, work was performed under the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program to investigate test reactor concepts that could satisfy the current missions of the ATR along with an expanded set of secondary missions. This work can be viewed as an update to a project from the 1990’s called the Broad Application Test Reactor (BATR). In FY 2012, a survey of anticipated customer needs was performed, followed by analysis of the original BATR concepts with fuel changed to low-enriched uranium. Departing from these original BATR designs, four concepts were identified for further analysis in FY2013. The project informally adopted the acronym MATRIX (Multiple-Application Thermal Reactor for Irradiation eXperiments). This report discusses analysis of the four MATRIX concepts along with a number of variations on these main concepts. Designs were evaluated based on their satisfaction of anticipated customer requirements and the “Cylindrical” variant was selected for further analysis of options. This downselection should be considered preliminary and the backup alternatives should include the other three main designs. The baseline Cylindrical MATRIX design is expected to be capable of higher burnup than the ATR (or longer cycle length given a particular batch scheme). The volume of test space in IPTs is larger in MATRIX than in ATR with comparable magnitude of neutron flux. In addition to the IPTs, the Cylindrical MATRIX concept features test spaces at the centers of fuel assemblies where very high fast flux can be achieved. This magnitude of fast flux is similar to that achieved in the ATR A-positions, however, the available volume having these conditions is greater in the MATRIX design than in the ATR. From the analyses performed in this work, it appears that the Cylindrical MATRIX design can be designed to meet the anticipated needs of the ATR replacement reactor. However, this statement must be qualified by acknowledging that this design is quite immature, and therefore any requirements currently met must be re-evaluated as the design matures. Also, some of the requirements were not strictly met, but are believed to be achievable once features to be added later are designed.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

DOE OSTI2014

CRADA Final Report For CRADA NO. CR-12-006 [Operation and Testing of an SO 2 -depolarized Electrolyzer (SDE) for the Purpose of Hydrogen and Sulfuric Acid Production]

Over the past several years, Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) has led a team of collaborators under the Department of Energy’s (DOE) nuclear hydrogen production program to develop the Hybrid Sulfur (HyS) Process. HyS is a 2-step water-splitting process consisting of high temperature decomposition of sulfuric acid to generate SO 2 , followed by the electrolysis of aqueous SO 2 to generate hydrogen and sulfuric acid. The latter is fed back into the high temperature reactor. SRNL designed and built an SO 2 -depolarized electrolyzer (SDE) and a test facility. Over 40 SDE’s were tested using different catalysts, membranes and other components. SRNL demonstrated that an SDE could be operated continuously for approximately 200 hours under certain conditions without buildup of sulfur at the SDE’s cathode, thus solving a key technical problem with SDE technology. Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (APCI) is a major supplier of hydrogen production systems, and they have proprietary technology that could benefit from the SDE developed by SRNS, or some improved version thereof. However, to demonstrate that SRNL’s SDE is a truly viable approach to the electrolyzer design, continuous operation for far greater periods of time than 200 hours must be demonstrated, and the electrolyzer must be scaled up to greater hydrogen production capacities. SRNL and Air Products entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with the objective of demonstrating the effectiveness of the SDE for hydrogen and sulfuric acid production and to demonstrate long-term continuous operation so as to dramatically increase the confidence in the SDE design for commercial operation. SRNL prepared a detailed technical report documenting previous SDE development, including the current SDE design and operating conditions that led to the 200-hour sulfurfree testing. SRNL refurbished its single cell SDE test facility and qualified the equipment for continuous operation. A new membrane electrode assembly (MEA) was fabricated and installed in the single cell electrolyzer (60 cm 2 active cell area). Shakedown testing was conducted, and several modifications were made to the test facility equipment. Seven different MEAs were used during testing. Beginning on May 20, 2013, SRNL was able to test the SDE continuously for 1200 hours, including 1000 hours under power to generate hydrogen at an average rate of 10.8 liters per hour. The SDE was not removed or repaired during the 50-day test and was successfully restarted after each shutdown. The test was intentionally stopped after 1200 hours (1000 hours of hydrogen production) due to funding constraints. Post-test examination of the MEA using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Dispersive X-ray Microanalysis (EDAX) showed no elemental sulfur deposits or sulfur layer inside the cell, thus successfully achieving the test goals. The results demonstrated that the SDE could be operated for extended periods without major performance degradation or the buildup of sulfur inside the MEA. Air Products conducted an assessment of the economic viability of the SDE based on the “as tested” design. The results indicated that the SDE faces significant economic obstacles in its current state. Further development and scale-up are necessary before the SDE is ready for commercialization.

08 HYDROGEN↗