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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 19 records

Important Factors for the Reliable and Reproducible Preparation of Non-aqueous Electrolyte Solutions for Lithium Batteries

Electrolyte solutions play a crucial role in rechargeable lithium batteries. Driven by an ever-increasing demand for better batteries, more and more stringent performance requirements are being asked of electrolytes. This demand to achieve electrolytes beyond the state-of-the-art has driven an increasing number of publications over the past decade. Nevertheless, a detailed description of electrolyte preparation is frequently missing when reporting new electrolytes for batteries, creating a barrier for others to reproduce important findings. In addition, false or misleading information in a paper may result from unintentional inaccuracies during the electrolyte preparation process. This article highlights important factors for the reliable and reproducible preparation of non-aqueous electrolyte solutions for lithium batteries, with the aim of encouraging researchers to follow more rigorous reporting standards.

Cao, Xia↗

Synthesis, Redox, and Spectroscopic Properties of Pd(II) 10,10-Dimethylisocorrole Complexes Prepared via Bromination of Dimethylbiladiene Oligotetrapyrroles

Two brominated 10,10-dimethylisocorrole (10-DMIC) derivatives containing Pd(II) centers have been prepared and characterized. These compounds were prepared via bromination of 10,10-dimethylbiladiene-based oligotetrapyrroles. Bromination of free base 10,10-dimethylbiladiene (DMBil1) followed by metalation with Pd(OAc) 2 , as well as bromination of the corresponding Pd(II) dimethylbiladiene complex (Pd[DMBil1]) provide routes to Pd(II) hexabromo-10,10-dimethyl-5,15-bis(pentafluorophenyl)-isocorrole (Pd[10-DMIC-Br 6 ]) and Pd(II) octabromo-10,10-dimethyl-5,15-bis(pentafluorophenyl)-isocorrole (Pd[10-DMIC-Br 8 ]). The solid-state structures of the two brominated isocorrole complexes are presented, as is that for a new decabrominated dimethylbiladiene derivative (DMBil-Br 10 ). The electronic and spectroscopic properties of the brominated biladiene and isocorrole derivatives were probed using a combination of voltammetric methods and steady-state UV–vis absorption and emission experiments. Data obtained from these experiments allow the properties of the brominated biladiene and isocorrole derivatives to be compared to previously studied biladiene derivatives (i.e., DMBil1 and Pd[DMBil1]). CV and DPV experiments demonstrate that Pd[10-DMIC-Br 6 ] and Pd[10-DMIC-Br 8 ] support well-behaved multielectron redox chemistry, similar to that which has been observed for other nonaromatic tetrapyrroles containing sp 3 -hybridized meso-carbons. Here, spectroscopic experiments reveal that bromination of the dimethylbiladiene core shifts this system’s UV–vis absorption profile to lower energy and that the dimethylisocorrole complexes support panchromatic absorption profiles that extend across the UV–vis and into the near-IR region. Photosensitization experiments demonstrate that unlike previously studied Pd(II) biladiene constructs, DMBil-Br 10 , Pd[10-DMIC-Br 6 ], and Pd[10-DMIC-Br 8 ] support limited triplet excited state chemistry with O 2 , indicating that the novel nonaromatic tetrapyrrole derivatives described in this work may be best suited for applications other than singlet oxygen sensitization.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

An Easily Prepared Monomeric Cobalt(II) Tetrapyrrole Complex That Efficiently Promotes the 4e – /4H + Peractivation of O 2 to Water

The selective 4e – /4H + reduction of dioxygen to water is an important reaction that takes place at the cathode of fuel cells. Monomeric aromatic tetrapyrroles (such as porphyrins, phthalocyanines, and corroles) coordinated to Co(II) or Co(III) have been considered as oxygen reduction catalysts due to their low cost and relative ease of synthesis. Furthermore, these systems have been repeatedly shown to be selective for O 2 reduction by the less desired 2e – /2H + pathway to yield hydrogen peroxide. Herein, we report the initial synthesis and study of a Co(II) tetrapyrrole complex based on a nonaromatic isocorrole scaffold that is competent for 4e – /4H + oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). This Co(II) 10,10-dimethyl isocorrole (Co[10-DMIC]) is obtained in just four simple steps and has excellent yield from a known dipyrromethane synthon. Evaluation of the steady state spectroscopic and redox properties of Co[10-DMIC] against those of Co porphyrin (cobalt 5,10,15,20-tetrakis(pentafluorophenyl)porphyrin, [Co(TPFPP)]) and corrole (cobalt 5,10,15-tris(pentafluorophenyl)corrole triphenylphosphine, Co[TPFPC](PPh 3 )) homologues demonstrated that the spectroscopic and electrochemical properties of the isocorrole are distinct from those displayed by more traditional aromatic tetrapyrroles. Further, the investigation of the ORR activity of Co[10-DMIC] using a combination of electrochemical and chemical reduction studies revealed that this simple, unadorned monomeric Co(II) tetrapyrrole is ~85% selective for the 4e – /4H + reduction of O 2 to H 2 O over the more kinetically facile 2e – /2H + process that delivers H 2 O 2 . In contrast, the same ORR evaluations conducted for the Co porphyrin and corrole homologues demonstrated that these traditional aromatic systems catalyze the 2e – /2H + conversion of O 2 to H 2 O 2 with near complete selectivity. Despite being a simple, easily prepared, monomeric tetrapyrrole platform, Co[10-DMIC] supports an ORR catalysis that has historically only been achieved using elaborate porphyrinoid-based architectures that incorporate pendant proton-transfer groups or ditopic molecular clefts or that impose cofacially oriented O 2 binding sites. Accordingly, Co[10-DMIC] represents the first simple, unadorned, monomeric metalloisocorrole complex that can be easily prepared and shows a privileged performance for the 4e – /4H + peractivation of O 2 to water as compared to other simple cobalt containing tetrapyrroles.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Preparation Methods: past and Potential Methods of Food Preparation for Space

The logical progression of development of space food systems during the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and Shuttle programs is outlined. The preparation methods which include no preparation to heating, cooling and freezing are reviewed. The introduction of some new and exciting technological advances is proposed, which should result in a system providing crew members with appetizing, safe, nutritious and convenient food.

Huber, C. S.↗

The preparation and characterization of a lithium borate glass prepared by the gel technique

The preparation of an amorphous lithium borate gel by the metal organic procedure is described. In addition, a preliminary evaluation of the behavior of the gel upon heating is given. In particular the crystallization tendency of the gel is studied with the aid of DTA and X-ray diffraction, and the structural changes in the gel are monitored with the aid of IR spectroscopy. The glass produced from the lithium borate gel is compared to both the gel precursor material and a glass of similar composition prepared by conventional techniques. Specifically, the relevant water contents, crystallization behavior, and structural features are contrasted.

Weinberg, M. C.↗

Modeling Nonperturbative Field-Driven Vibronic Dynamics: Selective State Preparation and Nonlinear Spectroscopy

The partially linearized density matrix formalism for nonadiabatic dynamics is adapted to incorporate a classical external electromagentic field into the system Hamiltonian. This advancement encompasses the possibility of describing field-driven dynamics and computing a variety of linear and nonlinear spectroscopic signals beyond the perturbative limit. Here, the capabilities of the developed approach are demonstrated on a simple two-state vibronic model coupled to a bath, for which we (a) perform an exhaustive search in the field parameter space for optimal state preparation and (b) compute time-resolved transient absorption spectroscopy to monitor the effect of different pulse shapes on measurable experimental signals. While no restrictions on the form of the field have to be assumed, we focus here on Gaussian shaped (linearly) chirped pulses.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Mechanistic Studies of the Oxidation of Cyclohexene to 2-Cyclohexen-1-one over ALD Prepared Titania Supported Vanadia

Selective oxidation of cyclohexene to 2-cyclohexen-1-one over titania supported vanadia (VO x /TiO 2 ) has been studied using temperature dependent in-situ FTIR spectroscopy in both the presence and absence of oxygen. The VO x /TiO 2 samples were prepared using one atomic layer deposition (ALD) cycle and characterized by Raman spectroscopy. In-situ FTIR data for the oxidation of cyclohexene and perdeuterocyclohexene allow for the formulation of a molecular level reaction mechanism, which is initiated by the transfer of an allyl hydrogen. Oxidation of perdeuterocyclohexene provides a direct probe of the formation of OD and HDO moieties that support the involvement of specific steps in the proposed mechanism. The presence of gas phase oxygen does not lead to a change in the products versus anaerobic conditions. However, gas phase oxygen is significantly incorporated in the CO 2 over-oxidation product above ~250 °C. Data were also obtained with cyclohexene epoxide as the reactant in an effort to determine whether there is a parallel reaction pathway, which is initiated by C=C activation in cyclohexene, that involves cyclohexene epoxide as an intermediate. Furthermore, though a minor pathway involving a cyclohexene epoxide intermediate cannot be ruled out, these data demonstrate that, under experimental conditions, the dominant pathway from cyclohexene to cyclohexene-1-one is initiated by an allyl-H activation step and does not involve an epoxide intermediate.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Crystal Structure of Colloidally Prepared Metastable Ag 2 Se Nanocrystals

Structural polymorphism is known for many bulk materials; however, on the nanoscale metastable polymorphs tend to form more readily than in the bulk, and with more structural variety. One such metastable polymorph observed for colloidal Ag 2 Se nanocrystals has traditionally been referred to as the “tetragonal” phase. While there are reports on the chemistry and properties of this metastable polymorph, its crystal structure, and therefore electronic structure, has yet to be determined. We report that an anti-PbCl 2 -like structure type (space group P2 1 /n) more accurately describes the powder X-ray diffraction and X-ray total scattering patterns of colloidal Ag 2 Se nanocrystals prepared by several different methods. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations indicate that this anti-PbCl 2 -like Ag 2 Se polymorph is a dynamically stable, narrow-band-gap semiconductor. Here, the anti-PbCl 2 -like structure of Ag 2 Se is a low-lying metastable polymorph at 5–25 meV/atom above the ground state, depending on the exchange-correlation functional used.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗

Preparing an Incompressible-Flow Fluid Dynamics Code for Exascale-Class Wind Energy Simulations

The U.S. Department of Energy has identified exascale-class wind farm simulation as critical to wind energy scientific discovery. A primary objective of the ExaWind project is to build high-performance, predictive computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools that satisfy these modeling needs. GPU accelerators will serve as the computational thoroughbreds of next-generation, exascale-class supercomputers. Here, we report on our efforts in preparing the ExaWind unstructured mesh solver, Nalu-Wind, for exascale-class machines. For computing at this scale, a simple port of the incompressible-flow algorithms to GPUs is insufficient. To achieve high performance, one needs novel algorithms that are application aware, memory efficient, and optimized for the latest-generation GPU devices. The result of our efforts are unstructured-mesh simulations of wind turbines that can effectively leverage thousands of GPUs. In particular, we demonstrate a first-of-its-kind, incompressible-flow simulation using Algebraic Multigrid solvers that strong scales to more than 4000 GPUs on the Summit supercomputer.

algebraic multigrid↗

Preparation and Properties of Nanocomposites Prepared From Shortened, Functionalized Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

As part of a continuing materials development activity, low color space environmentally stable polymeric materials that possess sufficient electrical conductivity for electrostatic charge dissipation (ESD) have been investigated. One method of incorporating sufficient electrical conductivity for ESD without detrimental effects on other polymer properties of interest (i.e., optical and thermo-optical) is through the incorporation of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs). However, SWNTs are difficult to fully disperse in the polymer matrix. One means of improving dispersion is by shortening and functionalizing SWNTs. While this improves dispersion, other properties (i.e., electrical) of the SWNTs can be affected which can in turn alter the final nanocomposite properties. Additionally, functionalization of the polymer matrix can also influence nanocomposite properties obtained from shortened, functionalized SWNTs. The preparation and characterization of nanocomposites fabricated from a polyimide, both functionalized and unfunctionalized, and shortened, functionalized SWNTs will be presented.

Smith, J. G., Jr.↗

State preparation and evolution in quantum computing: a perspective from Hamiltonian moments

Quantum algorithms on the noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices are expected to simulate quan- tum systems that are classically intractable to demonstrate quantum advantages. However, the non-negligible gate error on the NISQ devices impedes the conventional quantum algorithms to be implemented. Practical strategies usually exploit hybrid quantum-classical quantum algorithms to demonstrate potentially useful ap- plications of quantum computing in the NISQ era. Among the numerous hybrid quantum-classical algorithms, recent efforts highlight the development of quantum algorithms based upon quantum computed Hamiltonian moments, ?f|Hˆn|f? (n = 1, 2, · · · ), with respect to quantum state |f?. In this tutorial, we will give a brief review of these quantum algorithms with focuses on the typical ways of computing Hamiltonian moments using quantum hardware and improving the accuracy of the estimated state energies based on the quantum computed moments. Furthermore, we will present a tutorial to show how we can measure and compute the Hamiltonian moments of a four-site Heisenberg model, and compute the energy and magnetization of the model utilizing the imaginary time evolution in the real IBM-Q NISQ hardware environment. Along this line, we will further discuss some practical issues associated with these algorithms. We will conclude this tutorial review by overviewing some possible developments and applications in this direction in the near future.

Aulicino, Joseph C.↗