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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 199 records · Page 11
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Tandem synthesis of tetrahydroquinolines and identification of the reaction network by operando NMR

The study of the reaction mechanism and complex network for heterogeneously catalyzed tandem reactions is challenging but can guide reaction design and optimization. Here, we describe a case study using bifunctional metal–organic framework supported Pd nanoparticles (Pd/UiO-66(HCl)) for the one-pot tandem synthesis of substituted tetrahydroquinolines via the Claisen–Schmidt condensation and reductive intramolecular cyclization. The directly observed evolution of intermediates and products, including reactive species containing hydroxylamine group and unstable intermediate 2-phenyl-3,4-dihydroquinoline, was enabled by operando magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance studies under 50 bar H 2 . The reaction network of the tandem reaction is deduced based on reaction kinetic information obtained from the operando study. The optimized procedure was applied to various acetophenone and nitrobenzaldehyde derivatives carrying different functional groups, and eight valuable substituted tetrahydroquinolines were obtained in moderate to good yields. This work provides a molecular-level understanding of the catalytic system and brings up new opportunities for efficient and sustainable synthesis of medicinally relevant building blocks.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2024

Surfactant templated biogenic nanoporous silica thermal insulation composite

Carbon-sequestration biogenic insulation materials offer a promising solution for sustainable and energy-efficient buildings. However, minimizing energy-intensive manufacturing processes and ensuring a uniform microstructure are essential to achieve widespread application. In this work, we introduce cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) surfactant as both synthesis and dispersion template for nanoporous silica to create biogenic straw-based thermal insulation composites. As the amount of nanoporous silica increases to 72 wt%, the elastic insulation composite dried using the solvent exchange method exhibits a density of 0.058 g cm –3 , a thermal conductivity of 30.3 mW m –1 K –1 and a flexural modulus of 3.96 MPa, while demonstrating materials circularity and fire retardance. The use of CTAB surfactant effectively captures nanoporous silica, preventing its loss during manufacturing and enhancing the homogeneity and dispersion of the silica within the composite. In addition, the results show that the ethanol solvent exchange drying at ambient conditions provides the optimum thermal insulation performance with less energy consumption compared to freeze-drying.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Repetitive proteins that undergo large conformational changes evade structural prediction algorithms

Protein structure prediction algorithms, such as AlphaFold, have accelerated protein design and advanced the understanding of the relationship between amino acid sequence and protein structure. However, these algorithms are limited in their ability to predict the structures of conformationally dynamic, intrinsically disordered, and stimuli-responsive proteins. To evaluate sequence-to-structure predictions of such challenging proteins, we explored a class of conformationally dynamic, repeats-in-toxin (RTX) proteins. RTX proteins adopt intrinsically disordered conformations in the absence of calcium and undergo reversible folding into β-roll structures upon binding to calcium. RTX proteins are characterized by tandem repeats of the sequence GGXGXDXUX, in which X can be any amino acid and U is an aliphatic amino acid. We designed RTX sequence variants with global substitutions of nonconserved amino acids, tandem repeats of consensus sequences GGAGXDTLY, and tandem repeats of scrambled sequences GGAGXDTYL. AlphaFold2 and AlphaFold3 predicted that all of these RTX variants adopt β-roll structures, characteristic of wild-type RTX bound to calcium. However, modeling the predicted structures with molecular dynamics simulations and characterizing the protein variants with circular dichroism spectroscopy, small-angle x-ray scattering, and x-ray crystallography revealed that variants adopt diverse, sequence-dependent structures in the absence and presence of calcium. To better design proteins for applications in biotechnology and sustainability, it is critical to build predictive tools that consider intrinsically disordered protein states and validate these tools with multi-mode, multi-scale experimental data.

Chang, Marina P. [Stanford Univ., CA (United State↗
DOE OSTI2021

DOE/SNL/GCBS: Biorisk Management Curriculum for Vietnam One Health University Network

In line with the Global Health Security Agenda for Vietnam SNL has successfully engaged in country by ensuring long term sustainability of its programs and building BRM capacity by engaging with Government Institutions and strengthening the national biosafety and biosecurity and also by engaging with academic institutions through Vietnam One Health University Network to educate the One Health Workforce and promote a shared culture of responsibility, reduce dual use risks, mitigate biological proliferation and deliberate use threats.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Building Structure-Property Relationships of Cycloalkanes in Support of Their Use in Sustainable Aviation Fuels

In 2018 13.7 EJ of fuel were consumed by the global commercial aviation industry. Worldwide, demand will increase into the foreseeable future. Developing Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAFs), with decreased CO 2 and soot emissions, will be pivotal to the on-going mitigation efforts against global warming. Minimizing aromatics in aviation fuel is desirable because of the high propensity of aromatics to produce soot during combustion. Because aromatics cause o-rings to swell, they are important for maintaining engine seals, and must be present in at least 8 vol% under ASTM-D7566. Recently, cycloalkanes have been shown to exhibit some o-ring swelling behavior, possibly making them an attractive substitute to decrease the aromatic content of aviation fuel. Cycloalkanes must meet specifications for a number of other physical properties to be compatible with jet fuel, and these properties can vary greatly with the cycloalkane chemical structure, making their selection difficult. Building a database of structure-property relationships (SPR) for cycloalkanes greatly facilitates their furthered inclusion into aviation fuels. The work presented in this paper develops SPRs by building a data set that includes physical properties important to the aviation industry. The physical properties considered are energy density, specific energy, melting point, density, flashpoint, the Hansen solubility parameter, and the yield sooting index (YSI). Further, our data set includes cycloalkanes drawn from the following structural groups: fused cycloalkanes, n-alkylcycloalkanes, branched cycloalkanes, multiple substituted cycloalkanes, and cycloalkanes with different ring sizes. In addition, a select number of cycloalkanes are blended into Jet-A fuel (POSF-10325) at 10 and 30 wt%. Comparison of neat and blended physical properties are presented. One major finding is that ring expanded systems, those with more than six carbons, have excellent potential for inclusion in SAFs. Our data also indicate that polysubstituted cycloalkanes have higher YSI values.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
NASA NTRS2015

50-Year Window to Establish a Space Faring Civilization

Humankind may only have a short window of 50 years to become a space-faring civilization, after which time the opportunity to do so may become too difficult or impractical to pursue. Current policies for space exploration and infrastructure development implicitly assume a gradualistic approach to technology, budgets, and mission execution -- the common thought has been that there will be plenty of time in humankind's future to become a space-based species, and whatever we are unable to accomplish will be borne by the generations that follow. However, considering natural events, available energy, and human tendencies, the timing to make the most effective effort to achieve multi-planet status might be now, before momentum is lost and we become distracted by Peak Oil and changing energy economies -- restarting a space program after such turmoil may be more difficult than would be practical without cheap, storable, high-energy density petroleum. "Space-faring civilization" is defined as an economically profitable space-based economy that demands the presence of humans off-world in order to sustain a high level of prosperity. An initial foothold for a space-based economy that would fit within the 50-year window might include Earth dependence on rare-earth elements or other hard-to-obtain minerals mined from moons or asteroids, or a permanent settlement on another planet. Using published sources, notional mass and energy requirements for a minimal self-sustaining Mars settlement is calculated, and the number of launch vehicles discussed. Setting the launch schedule to match that of current NASA projections, it could take more than 26 years of semi-annual launches to build up such a self-sustaining human settlement -- a cost and commitment that has not been acknowledged nor planned for. Considering the time required to establish a multi-planet species, this paper frames the required window of decision that, if not taken, could condemn the species to Earth subject to whatever natural or human-made calamities that endanger single-planet civilizations.

human exploration↗
DOE OSTI2024

Natural fibers as promising core materials of vacuum insulation panels

To reduce energy consumption in buildings, this paper investigates the feasibility of using natural fibers as cost-effective, environmentally sustainable core materials for vacuum insulation panels (VIPs). First, a comprehensive experimental study was conducted for 10 potential natural fiber candidates. The thermal conductivities of the 10 natural fiber mats at various vacuum pressures were measured; their compression and morphology properties were quantified. In addition, an analytical model was used to explore the major factors that influence the thermal conductivity of natural fibers as a function of internal air pressure. Results show that recycled cotton, kapok, and bamboo fibers are ideal candidates for VIP core materials; at <0.05 Pa, their thermal conductivities varied between 2 and 4 mW/(m∙K). Furthermore, for some fibers, thermal conductivity was inversely proportional to fiber density. For the selection of fiber materials for VIP cores, the ideal fiber candidate has a small fiber diameter and a low fiber mat density. Based on thermal measurements, even though the internal air pressure of 5 Pa was enough to attain the minimum thermal conductivity, obtaining internal air pressure below 5 Pa is recommended for prolonged service life, considering small leaks of VIP package barrier films and potential off-gassing from fibers. The simulation results predicting the effective thermal conductivities matched the experimental results well. These findings indicate that natural fiber–based VIPs have the potential to be a sustainable, inexpensive alternative to the current technologies in building insulation materials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA’s Space Sustainability Strategy: An Overview and a Conceptual Framework for Implementation

Space sustainability is crucial for the continuation of humanity's exploration and utilization of space. NASA recognizes the imperative of maintaining a sustainable space operating environment to safeguard the future of space activities. On April 9, 2024, NASA released its first part of an integrated Space Sustainability Strategy focused on the domain of earth orbit, with future volumes to address impacts of space operations on earth itself; cislunar space, including the Lagrange points and the lunar surface; and deep space, including other celestial bodies. This commitment extends to ensuring the safety of astronauts conducting operations in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), as well as enabling missions to the Moon and Mars. Moreover, sustainable space practices are essential for the uninterrupted operation of NASA's robotic science missions, which monitor Earth's changes and probe the mysteries of the universe. The strategy sets out a set of goals, the first of which is to establish a framework for assessing space sustainability at NASA, addressing the absence of a universally accepted framework with key metrics that promotes understanding of how metrics are interconnected. This framework will provide a basis for evaluating the sustainability of orbital activities, with metrics informed by input from the domestic and international space community. Objectives under this goal include defining key parameters affecting space sustainability, determining tolerable levels of risk, and annually publishing NASA's effect on space sustainability, including compliance with orbital debris mitigation standards. The subsequent goals build upon this foundation, identifying effective actions for enhancing space sustainability, incentivizing adoption of these actions through technology development and policy changes, and ensuring coordination with the global space community. An organizational change within NASA is also proposed to facilitate day-to-day coordination and accountability for space sustainability efforts. By pursuing these goals, NASA aims to strengthen the technical foundations of and continue to set an example for sustainable space operations. Regular evaluation of NASA mission performance in context with meeting sustainability objectives will ensure alignment with evolving challenges in the space operating environment.

Matt Forsbacka↗
DOE OSTI2021

Let's Get Greedy: The L-Prize Invites Innovators to 'Have It All'

LEDs have arrived. They’re long-lasting, energy-efficient, and priced competitively with the products they’re replacing. Case closed and let’s move on, right? And yet… transformative lighting has the capacity do more, with excellent energy and application efficiency, data-driven functionality, material sustainability, and the ability to make buildings better places to work, live, learn, and heal – for people in all communities. This article on the DOE L-Prize invites competitors to participate in the $12.2 million L-Prize competition. The competition sets ambitious innovation goals for efficacy, quality of light, connectivity, material sustainability, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. LED lighting offers the opportunity to address all of these - to "have it all". The article will be published in the August edition of Lighting Design and Application (LD&A) magazine.

LED Lighting, Efficacy, Lighting Quality, Connecte↗
DOE OSTI2025

Framework to select robust energy retrofit measures for residential communities

Residential building energy retrofits are essential for enhancing environmental sustainability and reducing energy costs. The selection of retrofit measures is influenced by factors such as building systems, occupant behavior, government policy, weather variability, and climate change, all of which can significantly impact energy performance. Compared to retrofitting individual homes, evaluating and selecting optimal retrofit solutions for an entire community is challenging due to diverse residential compositions and variability present. Therefore, engineering robustness is crucial for ensuring consistent energy performance and resilience across different conditions. In this context, robustness refers to the ability of a retrofit measure to maintain its functionality and remain an optimal choice despite external disturbances or changes in inputs and conditions. This study presents a framework for evaluating the robustness of multiple retrofit measures across various building systems, occupant behaviors, and environmental scenarios at the community level. The framework comprises five key steps: scenario model development, integration of the National Residential Efficiency Measures database, energy performance simulation, cost-benefit aggregation, and retrofit solution selection. Each step enhances the framework’s robustness by incorporating the diversity of building characteristics, occupant behaviors, environmental conditions, retrofit options, and evaluation criteria. The framework’s effectiveness is demonstrated through a case study in southern Michigan in the United States, which includes 63 one-story single-family houses, 121 two-story single-family houses, and 8 townhouses. The study identifies furnace retrofits as the most robust solution for the entire community, consistently achieving source energy reductions of 4.7 %–8.0 % and payback period of 10–20 years across various scenarios. These findings are consistent with previous research, indicating the framework’s potential for broader applications in optimizing community-scale residential energy retrofits.

Shu, Lei↗
DOE OSTI2024

Is a Generator the Only Solution When the Grid Fails? Optimizing Systems for Resiliency and Carbon Reduction: Preprint

Traditionally, buildings are dependent on utility infrastructure, and when a grid failure happens, end users rely on the closest source of energy storage to sustain operation until power is restored. For buildings, that typically means using an electric generator. This electric generator either uses on-site energy storage such as fossil fuels in a tank or a gas connection which is, in turn, tied to gas wells—also a form of energy storage. Generators are popular for their ease of implementation and low capital costs; however, they have limited value outside of disruptions, and they are a source of scope 1 emissions, or direct greenhouse gas emissions from sources controlled by the building owner. In contrast, some power generation and storage systems, such as photovoltaic (PV) panels and battery energy storage systems (BESS), can serve the same purpose during grid disruptions while presenting advantages outside of power failure. This paper explores methods for storing and converting energy on-site to increase building resiliency, focusing on solutions that minimize scope 1 emissions. We analyze the cost and carbon impacts of energy efficiency measures, PV arrays, and BESS, with and without generators, in a simulation test case. We find significant benefits can be achieved both during and outside of power failure events when designing systems that integrate the on-demand capability of generators, the low carbon energy supplied by PV, and the storage capabilities of BESS. Specifically, adding even minimal BESS and PV can result in downsizing the generator, increasing generator efficiency and requiring less fuel.

ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION↗
DOE OSTI2023

On data-driven energy flexibility quantification: A framework and case study

Building energy flexibility is an important resource for a sustainable and resilient power grid, and an important measure to reduce utility costs for building owners. Quantifying energy flexibility for existing buildings can provide critical insights in optimizing their operation. Data-driven methods for building energy modeling and analytics are gaining popularity due to the increasingly available sensor and meter infrastructure, affordable computational resources, and advanced modeling algorithms. However, their application in quantifying the energy flexibility of real buildings is still limited due to the heterogeneous data types and limited data availability. Here, this study proposes a framework for building-level data-driven energy flexibility quantification that considers different levels of data availability and use cases. Two case studies with real building data collected at different scales were conducted to demonstrate the proposed framework for different purposes.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
NASA NTRS2017

Integrated Systems Health Management for Sustainable Habitats (Using Sustainability Base as a Testbed)

Habitation systems provide a safe place for astronauts to live and work in space and on planetary surfaces. They enable crews to live and work safely in deep space, and include integrated life support systems, radiation protection, fire safety, and systems to reduce logistics and the need for resupply missions. Innovative health management technologies are needed in order to increase the safety and mission-effectiveness for future space habitats on other planets, asteroids, or lunar surfaces. For example, off-nominal or failure conditions occurring in safety-critical life support systems may need to be addressed quickly by the habitat crew without extensive technical support from Earth due to communication delays. If the crew in the habitat must manage, plan and operate much of the mission themselves, operations support must be migrated from Earth to the habitat. Enabling monitoring, tracking, and management capabilities on-board the habitat and related EVA platforms for a small crew to use will require significant automation and decision support software.Traditional caution and warning systems are typically triggered by out-of-bounds sensor values, but can be enhanced by including machine learning and data mining techniques. These methods aim to reveal latent, unknown conditions while still retaining and improving the ability to provide highly accurate alerts for known issues. A few of these techniques will briefly described, along with performance targets for known faults and failures. Specific system health management capabilities required for habitat system elements (environmental control and life support systems, etc.) may include relevant subsystems such as water recycling systems, photovoltaic systems, electrical power systems, and environmental monitoring systems. Sustainability Base, the agency's flagship LEED-platinum certified green building acts as a living laboratory for testing advanced information and sustainable technologies that provides an opportunity to test novel machine learning and controls capabilities. In this talk, key features of Sustainability Base that make it relevant to deep space habitat technology and its use of these kinds of subsystems previously listed will be presented. The fact that all such systems require less power to support human occupancy can be used as a focal point to serve as a testbed for deep space habitats that will need to operate within finite energy budgets.

Systems Health Management↗
NASA NTRS2023

Lunanet Position, Navigation, and Timing Services and Signals, Enabling the Future of Lunar Exploration

The International Space Exploration Coordination Group established in 2018 the 3rd edition of the Global Exploration Roadmap (ISECG, 2018) that aims to achieve Mars human surface activities and identifies the exploration of the Moon as a critical intermediate step. A supplement covering updates on surface exploration scenarios was released in 2020 (ISECG, 2020). The Artemis Accords (NASA Artemis, 2020), first signed in October 2020, now includes over two dozen nations, in an agreement on the principles for best practices, including interoperability. In September 2022 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) introduced the Moon to Mars Objectives highlighting recurring tenets of collaboration with international and industry partners and interoperability, along with infrastructure objectives for Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT). The successful Artemis 1 mission paved the way to the ambitious plans to establish a sustainable human presence on the Moon. Just a few months after Artemis 1 launch (NASA, 2022), iSpace HAKUTO-R Mission1 (iSpace, 2022) launched, being the first-ever mission launched by a commercial launch service provider aiming to land on the lunar surface. The NASA Artemis program plans initial crewed landings and surface traverses in 2025, supported by the Lunar Gateway. Regular launches will follow to build the lunar systems for a sustained presence as presented in the Artemis Plan (NASA Artemis Plan, 2020), (NASA, 2022). NASA’s contracts with commercial providers through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program (CLPS, (NASA, n.d.)) will deliver science and technology demonstration missions to the Moon starting in November 2023. The European Space Agency (ESA) Argonaut (ESA Argonaut, 2022) program plans to have recurrent missions to bring payloads to the lunar surface, supporting lunar exploration. These are just a few examples of planned missions that will target Earth’s natural satellite in the next decade, with forecasts of tens of missions per year (NSR, 2022), (Euroconsult, 2020). The large number of missions and the complexity of landing and operating are expected to demand a change of paradigm from the current Earth-based communication and navigation services, that may be combined with onboard sensors. In recent years, several agencies have proposed to deploy cislunar communication and navigation services to support lunar missions (NASA LCRNS, 2022), (ESA Moonlight, 2022), (JAXA, 2022)). All these proposals seek to deploy service-providing satellites in lunar orbit to ease the user missions’ operations. The PNT services objective is to support all types of lunar users (e.g.: orbiters, landers, ascent vehicles, surface crew, rovers, and deployed science payloads). At the same time, NASA and ESA initiated an effort to define a common framework to ensure interoperability among different service providers: the LunaNet framework. The LunaNet Interoperability Specification (NASA and ESA, 2023) covers communication, PNT, and auxiliary services, by establishing a common set of requirements to ensure interoperability. This conference contribution will present the LunaNet PNT services, focusing on the Lunar Augmented Navigation Service (LANS) that would be provided by a system that resembles the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) concept on Earth: constellations of satellites broadcasting a radio navigation signal synchronized to a common reference clock, with augmentations to accommodate users’ needs in an environment away from Earth. This paper includes a description of the high-level LANS concept, and the basic principles defined to ensure interoperability. In addition, it will describe the common S-band PNT Augmented Forward Signal (AFS) and common messages to be adopted for compliance with the LunaNet framework, and the justification of the selected approach.

LunaNet↗
DOE OSTI2023

Multi-Model Future Typical Meteorological (fTMY) Weather Files for nearly every US County

Exploring climate-induced impacts on building energy consumption can provide valuable insights for sustainable energy planning and environmental management in the face of a changing climate. By utilizing future weather data statistically downscaled from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) General Circulation Models (GCMs) from 2020-2100, this paper presents a broadening industry-consensus approach for generating future Typical Meteorological Year (fTMY) weather files through a combination of statistical downscaling and high-performance computing that generalizes across decades, multiple locations for a region, and varying climate models. Furthermore, these fTMY files have been generated for 3,128 US counties for capturing potential weather on a 20-year basis.

Building↗
NASA NTRS2003

International Space Station Internal Thermal Control System Lab Module Simulator Build-Up and Validation

As part of the Sustaining Engineering program for the International Space Station (ISS), a ground simulator of the Internal Thermal Control System (ITCS) in the Lab Module was designed and built at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). To support prediction and troubleshooting, this facility is operationally and functionally similar to the flight system and flight-like components were used when available. Flight software algorithms, implemented using the LabVIEW(Registered Trademark) programming language, were used for monitoring performance and controlling operation. Validation testing of the low temperature loop was completed prior to activation of the Lab module in 2001. Assembly of the moderate temperature loop was completed in 2002 and validated in 2003. The facility has been used to address flight issues with the ITCS, successfully demonstrating the ability to add silver biocide and to adjust the pH of the coolant. Upon validation of the entire facility, it will be capable not only of checking procedures, but also of evaluating payload timelining, operational modifications, physical modifications, and other aspects affecting the thermal control system.

Paul Wieland↗