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Tran, Ba

Publications and source records attributed to Tran, Ba.

4 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

A US perspective on closing the carbon cycle to defossilize difficult-to-electrify segments of our economy

Electrification to reduce or eliminate greenhouse gas emissions is essential to mitigate climate change. However, a substantial portion of our manufacturing and transportation infrastructure will be difficult to electrify and/or will continue to use carbon as a key component, including areas in aviation, heavy-duty and marine transportation, and the chemical industry. In this Roadmap, we explore how multidisciplinary approaches will enable us to close the carbon cycle and create a circular economy by defossilizing these difficult-to-electrify areas and those that will continue to need carbon. Here, we discuss two approaches for this: developing carbon alternatives and improving our ability to reuse carbon, enabled by separations. Furthermore, we posit that co-design and use-driven fundamental science are essential to reach aggressive greenhouse gas reduction targets.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Thermal conversion of unsolvated Mg(B3H8)2 to BH4- in the presence of MgH2

In the search for energy storage materials, metal octahydrotriborates, M(B3H8)n, n=1,2, are promising candidates but their synthesis suffers from residual solvents which tend to interact and greatly alter their decomposition mechanism. Therefore, we studied the thermal conversion of unsolvated Mg(B3H8)2 to BH4 -: as synthesized, and in the presence of MgH2. The conversion of our unsolvated Mg(B3H8)2 starts at ~100°C and yields ~22 wt% of BH4 - along with the formation of (closo-hydro)borates and volatile boranes. This loss of boron (B) is a sign of poor cyclability of the system. However, the addition of MgH2 to unsolvated Mg(B3H8)2 drastically increases the thermal conversion to 85-88wt% of BH4 - while simultaneously decreasing the amounts of B-losses. Our results strongly indicate that the presence of activated MgH2 substantially decreases the formation of (closohydro) borates and provides the necessary H2 for the B3H8-to-BH4 conversion. This is the first report of a metal octahydrotriborate system to selectively convert to BH4 - under moderate conditions of temperature (200°C) in less than 1h, making the MgB3H8-MgH2 system very promising for energy storage applications.

Gigante, Angelina↗