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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2026

Correlated Ion Transport Governed by Dynamic Local Structure in High Concentration and Localized High Concentration Electrolytes

Understanding the dynamics of cluster formation and network percolation provides the mechanistic link between microscopic solvation structure and transport in concentrated electrolytes, including localized high-concentration electrolytes (LHCEs). Although recent studies have shown LHCEs to form micelle-like aggregates at specific compositions, a quantitative understanding of how solvation structures and transport properties depend on salt–solvent–diluent ratios remains limited. Here, we integrate molecular dynamics with Onsager transport analyses to chart the evolution of solvation microstructure and associated ionic transport in LiFSI/DMC/TTE, achieving good agreement with experimental conductivities across composition. We show that micelle formation arises from a dynamic instability of the cation–anion network, and that network percolation is the primary determinant of conductivity. Two compositional thresholds emerge: A critical network concentration (CNC) and a critical micelle concentration (CMC) that delineate transitions from extended percolating networks to micelle-like clusters and then to fragments. These structural transitions rationalize the nonintuitive conductivity decrease at intermediate dilution despite monotonically decreasing viscosity and provide composition-level design rules for LHCEs.

Mohanakrishnan, Rohith Srinivaas [University of Ca↗
NASA NTRS2002

The 2001 NASA Aerospace Battery Workshop

This document contains the proceedings of the 34th annual NASA Aerospace Battery Workshop, hosted by the Marshall Space Flight Center, November 27-29, 2001. The workshop was attended by scientists and engineers from various agencies of the US Government, aerospace contractors, and battery manufacturers, as well as international participation in like kind. The subjects covered included nickel-hydrogen, nickel-cadmium, lithium-ion, and silver-zinc technologies.

Brewer, Jeff C.↗
NASA NTRS1983

Nickel hydrogen/nickel cadmium battery trade studies

Nickel Hydrogen cell and battery technology has matured to the point where a real choice exists between Nickel Hydrogen and Nickel Cadmium batteries for each new spacecraft application. During the past few years, a number of spacecraft programs have been evaluated at Hughes with respect to this choice, with the results being split about fifty-fifty. The following paragraphs contain criteria which were used in making the battery selection.

Stadnick, S. J.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Polycarbonate‐Based Solid‐Polymer Electrolytes for Solid‐State Sodium Batteries

Solid-polymer electrolytes comprised of polypropylene carbonate (PPC) and varied sodium bis(fluorosulfonyl)imide (NaFSI) salt concentrations are investigated for implementation as a conductive solid polymer electrolyte into solid-state cathode composites utilizing a sodium-layered oxide active material. The ionic conductivity generally increases with NaFSI salt content, reaching ≈1 mS cm −1 at 80 °C at the highest salt concentration (PPC:NaFSI = 0.5:1). Through an all-in-one slurry casting method, Na 2/3 Ni 1/3 Mn 2/3 O 2 cathode composites are fabricated in which the dispersed PPC electrolyte acts as the primary binder. Enabled by a bilayer polymer electrolyte system, cycling performance with the PPC cathode electrolyte is optimized with respect to salt concentration and anode material. The best cyclability is achieved with a moderate salt concentration electrolyte (PPC:NaFSI = 5:1), showcasing an initial capacity of 83 mA h g −1 with a remarkable 80% capacity retention after 150 cycles at C/5 rate and 60 °C. The superior performance of the lower salt concentration electrolyte is attributed to better electrochemical stability, as confirmed by linear sweep voltammetry and online electrochemical mass spectrometry measurements. In conclusion, these results underscore the potential of carbonate-based polymer electrolytes and the importance of balancing electrolyte conductivity and stability in cell design.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Eliminating chemo-mechanical degradation of lithium solid-state battery cathodes during >4.5 V cycling using amorphous Nb2O5 coatings

Abstract Lithium solid-state batteries offer improved safety and energy density. However, the limited stability of solid electrolytes (SEs), as well as irreversible structural and chemical changes in the cathode active material, can result in inferior electrochemical performance, particularly during high-voltage cycling (>4.3 V vs Li/Li + ). Therefore, new materials and strategies are needed to stabilize the cathode/SE interface and preserve the cathode material structure during high-voltage cycling. Here, we introduce a thin (~5 nm) conformal coating of amorphous Nb 2 O 5 on single-crystal LiNi 0.5 Mn 0.3 Co 0.2 O 2 cathode particles using rotary-bed atomic layer deposition (ALD). Full cells with Li 4 Ti 5 O 12 anodes and Nb 2 O 5 -coated cathodes demonstrate a higher initial Coulombic efficiency of 91.6% ± 0.5% compared to 82.2% ± 0.3% for the uncoated samples, along with improved rate capability (10x higher accessible capacity at 2C rate) and remarkable capacity retention during extended cycling (99.4% after 500 cycles at 4.7 V vs Li/Li + ). These improvements are associated with reduced cell polarization and interfacial impedance for the coated samples. Post-cycling electron microscopy analysis reveals that the Nb 2 O 5 coating remains intact and prevents the formation of spinel and rock-salt phases, which eliminates intra-particle cracking of the single-crystal cathode material. These findings demonstrate a potential pathway towards stable and high-performance solid-state batteries during high-voltage operation.

Science & Technology - Other Topics↗
DOE OSTI2025

Quantum graph models for transport in filamentary switching

The formation of metallic nanofilaments bridging two electrodes across an insulator is a mechanism for resistive switching. Examples of such phenomena include atomic synapses, which constitute a distinct class of memristive devices the behavior of which is closely tied to the properties of the filament. Until recently, experimental investigation of the low-temperature regime and quantum transport effects has been limited. However, with growing interest in understanding the true impacts of the filament on device conductance, comprehending quantum effects has become crucial for quantum neuromorphic hardware. Here, we discuss quantum transport resulting from filamentary switching in a narrow region where the continuous approximation of the contact is not valid, and only a few atoms are involved. In this scenario, the filament can be represented by a graph depicting the adjacency of atoms and the overlap between atomic orbitals. Using the theory of quantum graphs with locally diffusive node scattering, we calculate the scattering amplitude of charge carriers on this graph and explore the interplay between filamentary formation and quantum transport effects.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2024

Charmonium Transport in Heavy-Ion Collisions at the LHC

We provide an update on our semi-classical transport approach for quarkonium production in high-energy heavy-ion collisions, focusing on 𝐽/𝜓 and 𝜓(2𝑆) mesons in 5.02 TeV Pb-Pb collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at both forward and mid-rapidity. In particular, we employ the most recent charm-production cross sections reported in pp collisions, which are pivotal for the magnitude of the regeneration contribution, and their modifications due to cold-nuclear-matter (CNM) effects. Multi-differential observables are calculated in terms of nuclear modification factors as a function of centrality, transverse momentum, and rapidity, including the contributions from feeddown from bottom hadron decays. For our predictions for 𝜓(2𝑆) production, the mechanism of sequential regeneration relative to the more strongly bound 𝐽/𝜓 meson plays an important role in interpreting recent ALICE data.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗
NASA NTRS2026

AC and DC Fault Management for Megawatt Electrified Aircraft Electrical Powertrains Task 3: Lifetime and Reliability of Electrical Insulators

This research project was a collaborative investigation between researchers at the RTX Technology Research Center (RTRC) and the University of Texas at Austin and made a significant contribution to enabling electric aircraft. The transport of electric power between the points of generation and use requires power cables. These cables must be smaller, lighter and provide a more predictable life than power cables used in stationary applications. Consequently, this investigation provided heretofore unavailable information supporting the safety and reliability of smaller lighter power cables for electrified aircraft. In addition, the research identified key additional engineering data needed to support quantitative reliability assessments. Important advances included: • Demonstrated that at least one manufacturer can make a novel, smaller, lighter power cable that is free from serious defects. • Developed and published an appropriate analytical construct to describe the life of this novel cable. This is a necessary step for use in aviation where the understanding of remaining life is critical. • Demonstrated thermal-mechanical aging that suggested 1000+ flights before the thermal-mechanical processes produced defects large enough that the defect growth was accelerated electrically. • Showed that electrical aging took place at two rates. The first possibly lasting weeks to months and the second possibly days to weeks. If robust, this provides a good diagnostic for cable replacement. • Demonstrated that the traditional electrical testing of cable materials using manufactured voids can be misleading due to the size of the voids. Emerging laser drilling technology permitted demonstration that the physics of failure in realistically small voids is different from that in the unrealistically large voids used in earlier research, which is very important for high-quality, high-performance, small aircraft cables. Although this project represents a significant contribution to the specifics of cable aging in the aircraft environment, important additional research remains to be completed, including: • Non-uniform thermal cycling by applying the heat from the center conductor to maximize thermal stress next to the core area where the electric gradient is the strongest. This builds on the uniform thermal cycling that has been completed. • The augmentation of the thermal-mechanical failure rate by electrical processes. Better understanding of these time constants strongly affects the ability to predict life. • Termination design: Terminations provide not only electrical reflection potential, but a location for a series arc fault and an area where ozone can diffuse into the center conductor and negatively affect cable insulation. • The abrasion and ozone resistance of the cable jacket. • Pressure cycling as an accelerant of thermal, mechanical, and/or electrical aging. • Possible methods for online PD detection and offline PD localization

model↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Solvent-Free Preparation of High Energy, Binder-Free Electrodes Enabled by Dry Compressible Holey Graphene

Graphene is an atomically thick sheet consisting of a graphitic carbon network with excellent mechanical strength, electrical and thermal conductivity, and chemical stability. Holey graphene, a structural derivative of graphene, has an array of through-the-thickness holes across the lateral surface of the nanosheet. The presence of these holes has minimal detrimental effect on the graphene properties and leads to enhanced performance in applications such as electronics, sensors, and energy storage. For example, these holes allow more facile cross-plane ion and gas transport than intact graphene, making holey graphene an ideal electrode material for electrochemical energy storage. This presentation will focus on the ability of holey graphene to be compression molded into robust articles or architectures under solvent-free conditions without the need for potentially parasitic binders. The unique dry compressibility of holey graphene has enabled facile fabrication of high mass loading electrodes with both high density and high porosity, which have found use in supercapacitors and various high-energy battery systems such as lithium-oxygen, lithium-sulfur, and lithium-selenium batteries.

Yi Lin↗
NASA NTRS2000

The 1999 NASA Aerospace Battery Workshop

This document contains the proceedings of the 32nd annual NASA Aerospace Battery Workshop, hosted by the Marshall Space Flight Center on November 16-18, 1999. The workshop was attended by scientists and engineers from various agencies of the US Government, aerospace contractors, and battery manufacturers, as well as international participation in like kind from a number of countries around the world. The subjects covered included nickel-hydrogen, nickel-cadmium, lithium-ion, and silver-zinc technologies.

Brewer, J. C.↗
NASA NTRS2001

The 2000 NASA Aerospace Battery Workshop

This document contains the proceedings of the 33nd annual NASA Aerospace Battery Workshop, hosted by the Marshall Space Flight Center on November 14-16, 2000. The workshop was attended by scientists and engineers from various agencies of the U.S. Government, aerospace contractors, and battery manufacturers, as well as international participation in like kind from a number of countries around the world. The subjects covered included nickel-hydrogen, lithium-ion, lithium-sulfur, and silver-zinc technologies.

Brewer, J. C.↗
DOE OSTI2026

Atomic Evolution of Hydrogen Intercalation Wave Dynamics in Palladium Nanocrystals Revealed by Liquid-Phase Transmission Electron Microscopy

Solute-intercalation-induced phase separation creates spatial heterogeneities in host materials, a phenomenon ubiquitous in batteries, hydrogen storage, and other energy devices. Despite many efforts, probing intercalation processes at the atomic scale has been a significant challenge. By utilizing liquid-phase transmission electron microscopy (TEM), we study hydrogen (de)intercalation in palladium nanocrystals as a model system and have achieved unprecedented atomic-resolution imaging of hydrogen intercalation wave dynamics. Our observations reveal that intercalation wave mechanisms, instead of shrinking-core mechanisms, prevail at ambient temperature for palladium nanocubes ranging from ∼60 nm down to ∼10 nm. Systematic image analysis uncovers the atomic evolution of the hydrogen intercalation wave, transitioning from nonplanar and inclined boundaries to those closely aligned with {100} planes. Our kinetic Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate that the observed intercalation wave dynamics correspond to sorption pathways minimizing the lattice mismatch strain at the phase boundary. In conclusion, unveiling the atomic intercalation pathways holds profound implications for engineering intercalation-mediated devices and advancements in energy sciences.

Lee, Daewon [Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory↗
NASA NTRS1987

NASA aerospace battery system program initiation

Preflight and flight battery system problems in flight programs at NASA created high-level concern and interest in the current battery technology status. As a result, NASA conducted an in-house review of problems experienced both internally and by other government users. The derived issues which encompassed the programmatic scope from cell manufacturing to in-flight operations of the system are discussed. From the identified deficiencies, a modestly scaled battery program was established to alleviate or minimize the risks of future occurrences.

Schulze, Norman R.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Exposure of Highly Reflective Far-Ultraviolet Coatings to LEO Environment for TRL Advancement for the Habitable Worlds Observatory

Over the past several years, our team at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), in collaboration with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), have developed several new protected Al coating technologies with improved Far-Ultraviolet (FUV) reflectance performance and more robust environmental stability. These include Al protected with lithium-based fluoride (LiF) coatings such as hot deposited LiF (eLiF), XeF 2 -passivated LiF coatings (XeLiF), Li 3 AlF 6 overcoats, AlF 3 (plasma passivated), and XeF 2 passivated MgF 2 coatings (XeMgF 2 ). However, despite these developments, relatively little experimental information exists regarding the long-term stability of these coatings after simultaneous exposure to the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) environment. To evaluate their environmental durability and advance their Technology Readiness Level (TRL), representative samples of these coating technologies, Al+XeLiF, Al+eLiF, Al+Li 3 AlF 6 , Al+AlF 3 , Al+XeMgF 2 , and bare Al as reference samples, were flown onboard the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the Materials International Space Station Experiment 20 (MISSE-20). The MISSE platform is operated by Aegis Aerospace for relatively long-duration (e.g. 6 months) external exposure experiments in a space environment. The coatings were deposited on ULE and Zerodur substrates, and witness samples deposited on the same coatings runs, but on glass slides were left on Earth as control. A subset of the flight samples were fitted with MgF 2 windows to reduce direct exposure to atomic oxygen (AO) and charged particles, and still let through UV and other types of radiation on these samples. After approximately 6 months of exposure in the forward-facing (RAM) direction, the samples were returned to Earth and characterized by performing FUV/NUV/VIS/NIR reflectance measurements to quantify degradation, spectroscopic ellipsometry to evaluate coating thickness and optical constants, atomic force microscopy (AFM) to quantify surface roughness evolution during the flight in the ISS. The MgF 2 protective windows were also analyzed through FUV transmission measurements. Comparison with the witness samples left on the ground and with the flown bare Al samples (with just the naturally occurring Al 2 O 3 layer) provided a quantitative assessment of coating thickness variations, optical performance degradation, and morphological changes induced by prolonged exposure to the LEO environment.

Far Ultraviolet (FUV)↗
DOE OSTI2026

Advancing Building Performance: Field Results of Thin-Glass Triple-Pane Window Demonstrations

To meet California and the nation's ambitious energy targets, energy use in the building sector must drop dramatically. Windows continue to be the lowest thermally performing envelope system in the nation's buildings, resulting in poor overall envelope performance and potential impacts to human health and comfort. Current best practice new window performance is typically met by double-pane low-solar-gain glazing. Thin-glass triple-pane windows are a highly promising next step forward in performance and have been deployed in two California multi-family sites to quantify field performance and building energy savings. The technology assessed offers the performance benefits of traditional triple-pane but with little increase in weight or cost, enabling incremental costs competitive with alternative energy reduction solutions for the building envelope. This paper covers a detailed investigation into the demonstration project and measured performance benefits of the windows after a full year of data collection.

Hart, Robert↗
NASA NTRS1989

Bipolar nickel-hydrogen battery development - A program review

An overview of spacecraft power system design trends, focusing on higher power bus voltages and improved energy storage systems, is followed by a discussion of bipolar Ni/H2 battery development efforts. Several 10-cell batteries and one 50-cell battery are described, and performance results are presented. A comparison of individual-pressure-vessel and bipolar Ni/H2 technologies is used to suggest a new direction for bipolar Ni/H2 battery development efforts, toward a large number of passively cooled cells in parallel.

Manzo, Michelle↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA’s Electric Propulsion Development Activities for Space Nuclear Propulsion Applications

Given increased worldwide support for advanced nuclear technology for terrestrial applications, there is a renewed interest in the possibility of nuclear-reactor-powered spacecraft. NASA continues investing in the technology areas necessary to support NASA’s future scientific and exploration goals. One of those technologies areas is electric propulsion, a highly efficient means for in-space propulsion that increases fuel economy by ionizing and accelerating an onboard propellant using spacecraft electrical power. The current NASA portfolio of electric propulsion investments in support of space nuclear applications focuses on a range of future applications with total system power levels of 50 kilowatts to multimegawatt. These investments support a fast-paced incremental rate for technology development advancement to support these applications. Systems at the 50-kilowatt power level can be accomplished today with existing technology and systems at the multimegawatt level will require further technology developments over the coming decade. Propulsion systems based an array of multiple Hall thrusters have been identified the most likely technology option for the near-term applications and systems utilizing lithium-fueled magneto-plasma-dynamic thrusters have been identified as the most promising alternative technology option for the far-term applications at very high-power levels.

Electric Propulsion↗