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Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) has developed and produced a simple add-on kit (Pathogen Management Kit, or PMK) that can quickly add on to ventilators of all types to disinfect exhaled air to keep healthcare workers safe.
The confinement of high energy "fast ions" is crucial for the success of magnetic fusion as a practical energy source. The research performed by UC Irvine on NSTX and NSTX-U provided new information about this important topic in the configuration known as a "spherical tokamak." Injected neutral beams provided the fast ions (also known as "beam ions"). There were five overarching goals of the research. One objective was to measure the confinement of beam ions in order to ascertain if they were accomplishing their desired purpose of transferring their energy to the bulk plasma. A second goal was to better understand instabilities that are driven unstable by the fast ions. A related goal was to use the similarities and differences between NSTX and the DIII-D conventional tokamak to better understand the fast-ion driven instabilities. A fourth goal was to develop new instruments to measure fast ions and techniques that facilitate analysis of the data. The fifth objective was to measure and understand acceleration of beam ions by RF waves. Much was accomplished in all of these five areas. In the first, it was shown that the large magnetic moment of the beam ions did not harm confinement but instabilities known as the "sawtooth" and "long-lived mode" do. In the second area, much attention was devoted to the fast-ion instabilities known as "Alfvén eigenmodes." In particular, Alfvén eigenmode "avalanches" can cause ~ 30% of the fast ions to be lost in a single explosive burst. The comparative studies with DIII-D showed that an instability discovered on NSTX is also important in conventional tokamaks. In the fourth category, several instruments were developed, a number of effects that complicate interpretation of the data were understood, and progress toward a new method to infer the fast-ion distribution function from the data was made. In the fifth category, the measured profile of accelerated fast ions was initially much broader than theoretical predictions but subsequent improvements in the theoretical modeling achieved good agreement with the data.
The potential for low-head hydropower in the engineered drops in both federal and private irrigation system is well known and significant. The environmental and socio/recreational impacts of harnessing this renewable energy resource in man-made conduits are much less, and often insignificant, compared with comparable hydro-electric potential in natural water features on rivers, lakes, and streams. Yet, few new plants have been commissioned in more than two decades. Over the same time period, low head hydro installations in Germany have more than doubled. The challenge is in finding economical ways to harness the hydro-electric potential in the engineered drops, and efficiently deliver the power to the grid. The objectives of Percheron Power, LLC's (Percheron Power) Project were to design, develop, permit, and operate an innovative low-head hydro-electric generation facility on an existing engineered drop of a large irrigation canal system. The hydro-electric generation facility was designed to employ a new type of turbine and technology, called an Archimedes Hydrodynamic Screw (AHS), to harness the existing potential of the engineered drop. The goal was to demonstrate the new lower cost AHS technology system to federal agencies, irrigation districts and other system owners and to support further development of new small hydropower projects at previously marginal low-head sites in the U.S. The objective of this funding opportunity of the Department of Energy Water Power Technologies Office was to reduce the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) for small hydropower to less than ${$}$0.07/kWh (${$}$70/MWh) to be competitive with existing base-load power sources such as coal-powered power plants.
Domain pattern formation is one of the most common phenomena in nature and is a topic of immense interest in many fields ranging from materials science and physics to chemistry and biology. This DOE sponsored research project explored the basic science concerning the thermodynamic stability of mesoscale polarization domain patterns and their temporal evolution mechanisms during formation and subsequent switching in ferroelectric nanostructures and heterostructures. The project employed the computational phase-field method in combination of microelasticity and electrostatic theories. The research was carried out in close collaboration with a number of experimental groups who used High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HRTEM), in situ TEM with Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM), or Piezoresponse Force Microscopy (PFM) to characterize the domain structures and dynamics of ferroelectric thin films and heterostructures and who grow high-quality ferroelectric and multiferroic thin films using advanced growth techniques such as Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE), Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLLD), and sputtering. The research efforts of the project help establish the phase-field method as the most powerful method for understanding and predicting domain structures in ferroelectric thin films and nanostructures. The findings of the project led to the basic understanding of stability and switching mechanisms of ferroelectric domains under different mechanical boundary conditions and under either homogeneous capacitor configurations or local fields using metallic probes as electrodes and the emergence of charged domain walls during domain switching. The project predicted the spatial length scales, temperature ranges, and electromechanical conditions for different polar states in heterostructures and guided the discovery of both transient and stable novel polarization states containing vortex lattices in oxide superlattices. The project resulted in 134 journal publications and 6 PhD theses with all the PhD graduates currently working in either academia or industry within the United States. The basic understanding on the stability of mesoscale polar states and pattern evolution achieved by the project improved our ability to control and engineer properties of ferroelectric thin films and heterostructures for potential applications in nanoscale electronic devices.
This document summarizes highlights of work that was carried out during the three year grant period 2011-2014 under the grant "Fundamental Physics with Slow Neutrons" at the NIST Center for Neutron Research in Gaithersburg, MD.
The international export of handheld spectroscopy detectors by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to partner states will provide state regulatory authorities and nuclear material owners a way to improve accountancy for accidental gains of nuclear material, including the provision of reports to the IAEA, in order to meet their safeguards agreements. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards agreements for non-nuclear weapons states requires accountancy for all nuclear material. As defined in Article XX of the IAEA statute, nuclear material includes source materials: "uranium containing the mixture of isotopes occurring in nature," and special fissionable material: "plutonium-239; uranium-233; uranium enriched in the isotopes 235 or 233". For IAEA Member States to meet their requirements under comprehensive safeguards agreements (CSA), safeguards are to be applied on "all source or special fissionable material," which "includes all nuclear material subject to IAEA safeguards". Therefore, accidental gains and losses of nuclear material must be reported to the IAEA. An accidental gain occurs when a state unexpectedly adds nuclear material to their inventory by various means such as seizing smuggled material or the discovery of legacy items previously unaccounted for. The material type and quantity must be added to the State's inventory by updating domestic records and then communicated to the IAEA.
DOE’s Cleantech UP was an annual business plan competition, operating nationally between 2015 and 2018 through eight regional nodes that included Caltech’s FLOW. Cleantech UP focused on supporting university students at all levels creating cleantech startups. FLOW operated nationally with a focus on California. In support of the DOE’s objectives FLOW developed an immersive five point program that targeted major gaps in the educational support and practical resources available to scientists and engineers starting their first cleantech companies that prevented such young innovators from becoming entrepreneurs. Specifically, the FLOW program augmented the number of participants entering the energy entrepreneurship pipeline via the Cleantech UP competition; helped the US remain competitive by increasing the viability and financing potential of these cleantech companies started by young academics; and helped build the regional, state and national infrastructure that spurs and supports entrepreneurship. Each year the FLOW featured two major judging rounds for candidates drawn from as many as 80 applicants annually, providing essential experience and feedback that helped define the direction of these young entrepreneurs. The FLOW winners competed at the DOE’s national event, and FLOW companies took the top prize twice in the total history of the DOE program which was started in 2011.
The Putting Data to Work project was designed to pilot and summarize the use of building energy performance data to improve energy efficiency program design and delivery in DC and NYC. By doing this, the project aimed to expand the market for energy efficiency in multifamily and commercial buildings by producing a toolkit of resources for other jurisdictions to replicate the successes found in the project cities.
Spintronics is an approach to energy-efficient electronics beyond silicon CMOS that utilizes the electron’s spin degree of freedom for memory and logic. The record spin diffusion length in graphene has generated considerable interest in two dimensional (2D) materials (i.e. graphene and beyond) as a platform for spintronics. Magnetism in 2D van der Waals materials may offer additional opportunities for tunability via strain, external fields, and layer-dependent quantum effects. The inherently atomic-scale nature of exchange interactions and the inherently all-surface nature of 2D sheets motivate an integrated approach combining atomic-scale magnetic characterization, epitaxial growth, and nanodevice fabrication. The mission of the research is to develop and utilize atomic-scale imaging of spin and magnetism via spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) in conjunction with atom-by-atom materials growth via molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and nanoscale device fabrication to explore new frontiers of spintronics and quantum science in 2D materials. The PIs are particularly motivated by understanding how the magnetic and spin-dependent properties at the atomic scale lead to interesting and potentially useful phenomena in spintronic devices at the macroscopic scale.
Grid-tied solar photovoltaic (PV) development began gradually in Montana, initially taking root in the early 2000s, largely in the form of small residential systems, rarely larger than two kilowatts. Utility support for solar technology through public benefit funding triggered the installation of the state’s first solar PV installations on community-owned facilities including schools, libraries, fire stations and local government buildings in the mid-2000s. By 2016, solar PV installations totaled approximately 28 megawatts of installed capacity, generating less than 0.05% of electricity sold in Montana. Montana’s solar fleet in 2016 included 17 megawatts of utility-scale solar farms, and three shared solar projects developed by rural electric cooperatives that ranged from 25 to 50 kilowatts in size. However, with only 3,000 households utilizing solar PV, either through an on-site installation or participation in a shared solar project, the potential benefits and reach of solar technology was limited. The Montana Solar Community Project (MSCP) was developed by the Montana Energy Office (MEO) at the Department of Environmental Quality in order to implement a “community-scale” solar energy strategy for the state that would cost-effectively expand Montanans’ access to solar PV. This project defines three types of community-scale solar projects: shared solar, community-sited solar, and group purchasing programs. The MSCP project conducted research and stakeholder engagement that helped to inform and develop model community-scale initiatives and an overarching community-scale solar strategy for Montana. Specifically, the project included a solar market assessment, stakeholder meetings across Montana, development of a menu of community-scale solar options, a study of solar potential on schools, community solar market research, and community-scale project implementation support. MSCP activities were successful in implementing solar projects and supporting solar development in communities across Montana. Project activities realized 280 kW of newly installed solar from two solarize programs, a shared solar array at a rural electric cooperative, and a solar array atop a Bozeman high school. The community-scale project implementation support and Solar on Schools components of the project resulted directly in the analysis and design of nearly 2 MW of distributed solar systems across the state. The Solar on Schools analysis alone produced solar designs for 25 schools, representing 920.8 kW of solar potential. Many of the deliverables from this project provide guidance on future development of community-scale solar in Montana, and resulted in a number of important conclusions about community-scale solar in Montana. There is strong interest in community-scale solar in Montana, as noted during stakeholder meetings, in response to solar market research surveys, and as seen by applications for implementation support grants provided by MEO. Project activities also suggest that Montanans demonstrated a desire and need for more information about solar energy technology, solar financing options, and the state’s policy and regulatory framework. Additionally, the project found that schools will be key partners for future community-scale solar programs. In addition to being excellent hosts for solar arrays, schools have the opportunity to use the installation of a solar array to develop educational materials and curricula to educate Montana’s future leaders about these technologies, which can be shared and replicated across the state. Project activities laid a clear path forward for solar energy in Montana. Certain activities have concrete next steps. For example, numerous solar arrays were designed for schools and other public buildings around the state. Many of those designs will be used as soon as funding becomes available. Other activities have less developed next steps, though lay the foundation for future work. The solar market assessment, solar market research, and community stakeholder meetings are good examples. These documents can be used as stepping stones to increase renewable energy education, increase stakeholder outreach, and support communities as they seek to develop community-scale solar projects.
The overarching goal of the funded research is to build experiments and develop techniques towards the major goal of measuring the mass of the neutrino, particularly by the method of high-resolution spectroscopy of the endpoint of tritium. The goals of this project were to make hardware and intellectual contributions towards the KATRIN experiment, an international project under construction in Germany, and towards the "Project 8" R&D program to develop new electron spectroscopy methods and apply them to tritium. A minor goal of the project was to support simulation work and R&D on future neutrino and dark matter detectors.
Leakage of a well can occur through the wellbore, the annulus between well tubing and steel casing, or on the outside of the casing. The overall goal of the project is to develop a new technology that can repair or reduce the leakage of wellbore. The new technology is based on simultaneously injecting nanoparticles electrochemically and removing some of the harmful ions in the system so the distressed cement materials can be densified and the corrosion risk of steel casing can be reduced. There were two objectives. One is the development of the injection technology for leakage repair and the other is the development of new numerical simulation models that can simulate and predict the performance of the new repair technology. An electro-migration testing unit and an in-house wellbore testing system were developed; healing agents with nanoparticles were selected, numerical models were developed to simulate the electro-migration technology, and the effectiveness of the new technology was evaluated.
While the total rate constant for many elementary reactions is well-characterized, understanding the product branching in complex reactions presents a formidable challenge. To gain an incisive probe of such reactions, our experiments investigate the dynamics of the product channels that arise from transient radical intermediates along the bimolecular reaction coordinates. Our recent published work uses the methodology developed in my group in the last fifteen years, using both imaging and scattering apparatuses. The experiments generate a particular isomeric form of an unstable radical intermediate along a bimolecular reaction coordinate and study the branching between the ensuing product channels of the energized radical as a function of its internal rotational and vibrational energy under collision-less conditions. The experiments use a combination of: 1) measurement of product velocity and angular distributions in a crossed laser-molecular beam apparatus, with electron bombardment detection in my lab in Chicago or 2) with tunable vacuum ultraviolet photoionization detection at Taiwan's National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center (NSRRC), and 3) velocity map imaging using state-selective REMPI and single photon VUV ionization of radical intermediates and reaction products. We also employ tunable VUV photoionization detection in our imaging apparatus, using difference frequency four-wave mixing to produce photoionization light tunable from 8 to 10.8 eV. This year of support funded our work to photolytically generate the radical intermediate important in the OH + propene reaction when OH adds to an end carbon. Our other major result this past year was on the photoionization detection of vinoxy radicals. Our experiments at the NSRRC definitively show that vinoxy dissociatively ionizes to both CH 3 + and HCO + , and establishes the absolute partial photoionization cross section of vinoxy to CH 3 + at 10.5 and 11.44 eV. This should allow experimentalists detecting vinoxy radicals produced in bimolecular reactions such as OH + propene to get good branching fractions to that product channel. Finally we initiated studies of the photodissociation of 1-bromo-2-chloroethane and 1,1-bromochloroethane at 193 nm at the NSRRC.
Our work on the CM4 grant focused on new mathematical and computational approaches for stochastic methods for mesoscopic systems. Our work included continuum SPDEs, molecular coarse-grained models, and hybrid particle-continuum approaches. This work was motivated by applications in soft materials, fluidic devices, and interfacial phenomena. Throughout the project we collaborated with several staff researchers, including from Pacific Northwest National Laboratories (PNNL) and Sandia National Laboratory (SNL) as well as other members of the CM4 project. Below we summarize briefly a few specific accomplishments from this work over the funding period. A full list of published papers and software releases supported by the grant are listed at the end.
The Bioprocessing Separations Consortium solves separations challenges that are unique to bioprocessing. To do this, the Consortium uses two methods: applying existing technologies to new challenges and developing new technologies that may address these unique challenges better than today’s commercial technologies. In its research and development, the Consortium leverages its three core capabilities: materials development and evaluation, process development, and analysis and computation. In its first three years, from 2016 to 2019, the Consortium addressed four critical challenges in biochemical and thermochemical processing. First, the Consortium targeted the fractionation of lignin to enable valorization of this portion of biomass that offers diverse, complex, and valuable building blocks and products. Second, Consortium researchers developed technologies to enable process intensification, which can reduce equipment needs, energy consumption, and waste generation, thereby cutting bioprocessing capital costs and rendering processes more efficient. Third, the Consortium sought to recover carbon from dilute aqueous streams that are common to bioprocessing; recovering dilute carbon can improve process efficiency and economics. Finally, Consortium researchers designed and developed new materials and catalysts to reduce targeted foulants and poisons in bioprocessing streams that can limit the lifetime of downstream catalysts or fermenting microorganisms. Table 1 lists the technologies that were examined and places them in the context of the Consortium’s capabilities, types of bioprocesses, and critical challenges in bioprocessing separations. Overall, across these projects, we have developed separations technologies for 10 bioprocesses, addressed 9 target compounds in bioprocessing, developed 10 materials, and evaluated 4 processes for cost and sustainability.
The goal of this final project report is to comprehensively summarize the work conducted on project DE-FE0007395. In accordance with the Project Management Plan (PMP), Revision F dated 5/10/2019, and Statement of Project Objectives (SOPO) within, the University of Kentucky (UK) Center for Applied Energy Research (CAER) (Recipient) has successfully demonstrated a unique, versatile CO 2 capture system (CCS) using a heat integrated process combined with two-stage stripping for process intensification, heat recovery and demineralized (DM) water generation. This project involved the design, fabrication, installation, testing of and data analysis from the UK CAER 0.7 MWe small pilot scale CO2 capture process installed at Kentucky Utilities (KU) E.W. Brown Generating Station in Harrodsburg, KY. During each of the four project Budget Periods (BPs), UK CAER met all project deliverables, all project milestones, with National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) approved adjustments made to the campaign long-term hours during BP4. The CCS was constructed in modular skids. Two solvent campaigns were initially conducted; the first with a 30 wt% monoethanolamine (MEA) as a baseline, and the second with the Hitachi H3-1 advanced solvent. Additional tests were performed with two advanced solvents including CAER and Proprietary Solvent C. Short-period testing with a higher concentration of 40 wt% MEA was conducted to evaluate the potential saving with high alkalinity. From the various solvent campaigns, unique aspects of the UK CAER CCS technology, as well as its flexibility and versatility were experimentally validated and demonstrated. With respect to solvent evaluation efforts in identifying candidates with significant operational and capital cost savings potential, performance of solvents were evaluated to determine the energy requirements for regeneration; environmental impacts from secondary emissions and degradation products; degradation rates, solvent make-up rates and stability. The assessments were done from parametric tests that determined optimum operating conditions for the individual solvents to maximize process efficiency and minimize the parasitic load of the power plant, and from long term campaigns (1000 hours for 30 wt% MEA and 1000 hours for H3-1) which collectively informed the techno-economic analyses (TEA) of the process. The long term campaigns included corrosion studies which used three types of metal coupons in different sections of the process: (absorber, primary stripper, lean carbon-loaded and rich carbon loaded flow streams in process) to mimic heat and flow dynamics process equipment were exposed to. The estimated corrosion rates were used to elucidate corrosion mechanisms and to further guide process material selection for potential capital cost savings.
Reduction of costly Pt usage in proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) electrodes is one of the major challenges towards development and commercialization of fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV). However, reducing the Pt loading results in increasing local mass transport fluxes, and eventual performance loss, especially at high power. In this project, a team of 4 universities, 2 companies, and a national lab came together to develop fuel cell catalysts and electrodes with high performance and durability. The were several key concepts addressed in this project. The first concept is to develop a carbon support that possess internal porosity which are believed to enhance kinetic activity of the catalysts, and yet the pore morphology allows for good reactant transport. The second concept is to improve the Pt-electrolyte interface in hope to reduce the local transport resistance. This was done by using new ionomers and ionic liquids. The last concept involves improving the catalyst stability by introducing Pt alloy catalyst with ordered intermetallic phase. The collaborative platform provided by DOE funding enabled development of a highly active and durable catalyst with performance that exceeds previous catalysts and meets the DOE targets for light duty vehicle application.
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