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DOE OSTI2023

Multi-Unit Dwelling Plug-in EV Charging Innovation Pilots (Final Report)

Nearly one-third of residences in the U.S. are multi-unit dwellings (MUDs), e.g., apartments and condominiums, and MUDs with five or more units account for approximately 45% of rental households. While 80% of EV charging takes place at home, less than 5% of home charging takes place at MUDs. With public electric vehicle (EV) charging still underdeveloped, lack of access to reliable home charging is a major barrier to EV adoption for MUD residents. Challenges to siting electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) at MUDs include the high upfront cost of EVSE installation, physical and/or electrical infrastructure constraints, a lack of clear incentives for property managers to invest in installing EV charging for tenants, and a limited number of EV charging service providers that offer solutions adapted to the unique needs of MUDs. Through award DE-EE0008473 from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Center for Sustainable Energy (CSE), Energetics, and Forth, along with a diverse team of partners, led a three-year project to address barriers to EV charging at MUDs by developing an online toolkit geared toward residents, homeowner associations (HOAs), and property managers. The project, referred to as Vehicle Charging Innovations – Multi-Unit Dwellings (VCI-MUD project), engaged stakeholders across the country to identify real and perceived barriers to EV charging at MUDs and explored innovative technologies that attempt to alleviate the identified barriers. Over the course of three and a half years, the project conducted 60 interviews with industry stakeholders, compiled findings in an easy-to-use toolkit, and disseminated the toolkit across national, regional, state, and local channels. Key findings and outcomes of the VCI-MUD project include: Identifying six primary barriers to the installation of EV charging at MUDs; Developing five fact sheets and eight case studies highlighting innovative charging solutions to address barriers, including real-world operational and financial data; Developing a user-friendly, online empowerment toolkit with five important points for “making your pitch” to support EV charging to assist residents, property managers, building managers, and HOAs explore options for MUD charging. The VCI-MUD online toolkit was designed with replicability in mind. It includes general tools and guides to evaluate EV charging demand, gauge readiness for EV charging installation, and develop actionable plans. The fact sheets and case studies highlight the diversity of emerging MUD EV charging solutions, featuring different geographic and structural installation scenarios and providing interested parties with a menu of options, rather than prescribing a one-size-fits-all solution. The following resources are included in the toolkit to provide MUD stakeholders with all the information needed to navigate EV charging installation at their MUD location: Empowerment Toolkit – Easy-to-read FAQ overview, stakeholder roles and responsibilities, and additional resources for MUD EV charging installations; Charging Basics – Glossary of terms and descriptions of charging features, installation and operating expenses; EV Charging Survey Templates – Resident-to-Resident, Property Manager-to-Resident and HOA-to-Resident template letters with pre-populated template questions; Technology Selection Tool – Charging barrier fact sheets and case study examples; Installation Checklist – Submittal document requirements for EVSE installations; MUD Building Self-Evaluation Survey – Self-guided evaluation of potential barriers to EV charging installation at MUD locations; Curbside Resources – Case studies and fact sheets for curbside charging options; Find a Certified Electrician – Approved list of certified EV charging installers; “Right-to-Charge” State Legal References – Legal requirements for charging equipment at MUD locations. The online toolkit was promoted extensively in the final six months of the project and will continue to be disseminated by the Clean Cities Coalitions and other partners after the end of the VCI-MUD project to encourage, support, and demonstrate viable solutions for vehicle charging infrastructure in MUDs.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2023

Roadmap on energy harvesting materials

Ambient energy harvesting has great potential to contribute to sustainable development and address growing environmental challenges. Converting waste energy from energy-intensive processes and systems (e.g. combustion engines and furnaces) is crucial to reducing their environmental impact and achieving net-zero emissions. Compact energy harvesters will also be key to powering the exponentially growing smart devices ecosystem that is part of the Internet of Things, thus enabling futuristic applications that can improve our quality of life (e.g. smart homes, smart cities, smart manufacturing, and smart healthcare). To achieve these goals, innovative materials are needed to efficiently convert ambient energy into electricity through various physical mechanisms, such as the photovoltaic effect, thermoelectricity, piezoelectricity, triboelectricity, and radiofrequency wireless power transfer. By bringing together the perspectives of experts in various types of energy harvesting materials, this Roadmap provides extensive insights into recent advances and present challenges in the field. Additionally, the Roadmap analyses the key performance metrics of these technologies in relation to their ultimate energy conversion limits. Building on these insights, the Roadmap outlines promising directions for future research to fully harness the potential of energy harvesting materials for green energy anytime, anywhere.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2024

2023 Southeast Decarbonization Workshop

Decarbonization refers to a large-scale shift away from fossil fuel sources for energy production and toward energy sources, energy end-use practices, and land management approaches that do not result in a net increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Decarbonization in the Southeastern United States is distinguished from that of other regions in the country by its potential impact on historically underserved populations and the ways this region’s human–environmental systems are predicted to fare in a climate-altered world. In parallel, ensuring a clean energy transition requires the ability to engage entire communities that are motivated to learn, build, and encourage the spread of so-called clean tech. In contrast to other technology trends from the past century, the foundation of clean tech is a shared sense of purpose—a collective strategy to mitigate the threats of climate change and support a better environment for everyone. As seen in the Office of Science and Technology Policy’s (OSTP’s) Net-Zero Technology Action Plan (2023), decarbonization is best accelerated by simultaneous investments in Innovation, Demonstration, and Deployment of technology in tandem with intentional policy and community-based solutions. The 2023 Southeast Decarbonization Workshop, hosted by the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), aimed to bring together members of our communities and a group of regional experts to strategize about opportunities in this important area, as well as to incorporate the important pillar of System Interactions to bridge the gap between clean tech’s intent and its impact.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

NASA NTRS1998

A Modular PMAD System for Small Spacecraft

Current trends in satellite design are focused on developing small, reliable, and inexpensive spacecraft. To that end, a modular power management and distribution system (PMAD) is proposed which will help transition the aerospace industry towards an assembly line approach to building spacecraft. The modular system is based on an innovative DC voltage boost converter called the Series Connected Boost Regulator (SCBR). The SCBR uses existing DC-DC converters and adds a unique series connection. This simple modification provides the SCBR topology with many advantages over existing boost converters. Efficiencies of 94-98%, power densities above 1,000 We/kg, and inherent fault tolerance are just a few of the characteristics presented. Limitations of the SCBR technology are presented, and it is shown that the SCBR makes an ideal photovoltaic array regulator. A modular design based on the series connected boost unit is outlined and functional descriptions of the components are given.

Button, Robert M.↗

DOE OSTI2023

A New Approach to Monitoring Solvent Extraction Processes for the Nuclear Industry

As part of an initiative to steward research, development, and innovation into the nuclear fuel cycle, Idaho National Laboratory is building the Beartooth testbed. Beartooth will include a cascade of centrifugal contactors, glove box lines, solidification, and dissolution equipment to aid in the progression of novel separation techniques and provide hands-on opportunities to early-career separation scientists. Beartooth will incorporate novel monitoring techniques using sensors and machine learning algorithms to inform a process operator of separation conditions. This research is examining monitoring technologies not typically used in nuclear separation processes such as acoustic microphones, accelerometers, infrared cameras, red-green-blue color sensors, among others. These sensors are being examined for their functionality within a separation process and their ability to detect applicable signals. Machine learning methods are being developed to determine their utility in detecting faults and alerting operators of expected and unexpected events. These methods have the potential to impact Safeguards by Design efforts and real-time decision making. This overview will detail preliminary results from acoustic, vibration, and color sensors.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Transitioning to a Sustainable, Circular Economy for Plastics [Workshop Report]

The “Transitioning to a Sustainable, Circular Economy for Plastics” workshop, coordinated by the Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) and the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO) in collaboration with The Climate Pledge, brought together a diverse group of stakeholders to discuss the current challenges and opportunities in transitioning to a sustainable, circular economy for plastics in the United States. Input from the workshop will be used to ensure the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Strategy for Plastics Innovation (SPI) evolves with the rapidly changing landscape. Presentations, panel discussions, and breakout sessions provided a framework for sharing information and building direct connections among stakeholders across the value chain. This document summarizes the content discussed at the workshop to provide an update on the state of plastic sustainability in the United States.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

NASA NTRS1996

An Advanced Photovoltaic Array Regulator Module

Current trends in satellite design are focused on developing small, reliable, and inexpensive spacecraft. To that end, a modular power management and distribution system is proposed which will help transition the aerospace industry towards an assembly line approach to building spacecraft. The modular system is based on an innovative DC voltage boost converter called the Series Connected Boost Unit (SCBU). The SCBU uses any isolating DC-DC converter and adds a unique series connection. This simple modification provides the SCBU topology with many advantages over existing boost converters. Efficiencies of 94-98%, power densities above 1,000 W/kg, and inherent fault tolerance are just a few of the characteristics presented. Limitations of the SCBU technology are presented, and it is shown that the SCBU makes an ideal photovoltaic an-ay regulator. A set of photovoltaic power system requirements are presented that can be applied to almost any low Earth orbit satellite. Finally, a modular design based on the series connected boost unit is outlined and functional descriptions of the components are given.

Button, Robert M.↗

NASA NTRS2004

An Enabling Technology for New Planning and Scheduling Paradigms

The Night Projects Directorate at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center is developing a new planning and scheduling environment and a new scheduling algorithm to enable a paradigm shift in planning and scheduling concepts. Over the past 33 years Marshall has developed and evolved a paradigm for generating payload timelines for Skylab, Spacelab, various other Shuttle payloads, and the International Space Station. The current paradigm starts by collecting the requirements, called ?ask models," from the scientists and technologists for the tasks that are to be scheduled. Because of shortcomings in the current modeling schema, some requirements are entered as notes. Next, a cadre with knowledge of vehicle and hardware modifies these models to encompass and be compatible with the hardware model; again, notes are added when the modeling schema does not provide a better way to represent the requirements. Finally, the models are modified to be compatible with the scheduling engine. Then the models are submitted to the scheduling engine for automatic scheduling or, when requirements are expressed in notes, the timeline is built manually. A future paradigm would provide a scheduling engine that accepts separate science models and hardware models. The modeling schema would have the capability to represent all the requirements without resorting to notes. Furthermore, the scheduling engine would not require that the models be modified to account for the capabilities (limitations) of the scheduling engine. The enabling technology under development at Marshall has three major components: (1) A new modeling schema allows expressing all the requirements of the tasks without resorting to notes or awkward contrivances. The chosen modeling schema is both maximally expressive and easy to use. It utilizes graphical methods to show hierarchies of task constraints and networks of temporal relationships. (2) A new scheduling algorithm automatically schedules the models without the intervention of a scheduling expert. The algorithm is tuned for the constraint hierarchies and the complex temporal relationships provided by the modeling schema. It has an extensive search algorithm that can exploit timing flexibilities and constraint and relationship options. (3) An innovative architecture allows multiple remote users to simultaneously model science and technology requirements and other users to model vehicle and hardware characteristics. The architecture allows the remote users to submit scheduling requests directly to the scheduling engine and immediately see the results. These three components are integrated so that science and technology experts with no knowledge of the vehicle or hardware subsystems and no knowledge of the internal workings of the scheduling engine have the ability to build and submit scheduling requests and see the results. The immediate feedback will hone the users' modeling skills and ultimately enable them to produce the desired timeline. This paper summarizes the three components of the enabling technology and describes how this technology would make a new paradigm possible.

Jaap, John↗

DOE OSTI2020

A Review of Existing Test Methods for Occupancy Sensors

One of the key new features of connected lighting systems (CLS) is their ability to collect data from various types of integral sensors and share that data with other lighting or building systems. Occupancy and vacancy sensors have been widely adopted as an energy-saving strategy in buildings, yet published test methods for reproducibly characterizing their performance remain few and limited in their sophistication. As a result, it has been difficult to predict the performance of such sensors in a specific application, and in practice, they frequently do not meet energy-savings expectations. Occupants at times remove or otherwise bypass occupancy sensors that hinder their work or otherwise do not perform as expected, thereby compromising the sensors’ potential to reduce energy consumption. Poor performance can result from multiple causes – ranging from fundamental limitations of the sensor technology, to misconfiguration, to poor placement in the room or space. Innovative occupancy sensors, some of them combining multiple sensing technologies (i.e., multimodal), have come on the market over the years, with claims of improved performance compared to their predecessors. However, in practice, their performance has neither differed enough from the performance of previous products to necessitate a test method that facilitated comparison between them, nor has it led to high deployment or high user satisfaction in human-occupied spaces with persistent presence. While the performance of both common and novel occupancy sensors has been the subject of many published research articles, the test methods that have been employed for them typically have been loosely described and have incorporated custom equipment or techniques that render them difficult to reproduce, or have been limited in their ability to fairly characterize devices that utilize varying sensor technology. The lack of a fully described, technology-agnostic test method that yields reproducible results across different implementations has been a barrier to the commercial success of new occupancy-sensor products, as users and specifiers who have been disappointed with previous products are often unwilling to take a chance with new ones. Motivated by a desire to fairly characterize new technologies that continue to enter the market and claim not only improved occupancy detection but, in some cases, additional capabilities (e.g., the ability to measure traffic or discern between different object types), this report presents the results of a literature review of recently published fully described test methods for characterizing occupancy-sensor performance, as well as research articles containing ad-hoc test methods. The review also identifies and consolidates test conditions for characterizing sensor performance in indoor spaces and identifies apparent test method gaps that need to be filled in order to evaluate emerging technologies and products. The identified test-method conditions are intended to enable the development of a future technology-agnostic test method that facilitates occupancy-sensor performance characterization more-accurately representing performance in buildings.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2021

Scaling trends for balance-of-system costs at land-based wind power plants: Opportunities for innovations in foundation and erection

Wind power plant sizes, hub heights, and turbine ratings have increased since 2008 to optimize the cost and performance of wind power; however, the limits of these economies of scale remain unclear. Here, we explore how the costs incurred to install turbines at a wind power plant—the balance-of-system (BOS) costs—scale with turbine rating, hub height, and plant size. We also investigate how these changes in BOS costs influence the levelized cost of energy (LCOE). We show that increasing the plant size from 150 to 400 MW could reduce the BOS costs by 21%. We also show that if the foundation costs decreased by 50%, building a wind power plant with 5-MW turbines (having rotor diameters of 166 m and hub heights of 120 m) could decrease the LCOE by 5%. These results could help inform future BOS cost-reduction opportunities and thereby reduce future capital costs for land-based wind power.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2022

Market Barriers and Drivers for the Next Generation Fault Detection and Diagnostic Tools

Commercial buildings in the U.S. consume as much as 30% excess energy compared to buildings that operate fault free and efficiently. Fault detection and diagnostic (FDD) platforms help to continually identify operational inefficiencies and maintain low-carbon performance. However, the recommendations generated by FDD tools need to be implemented by technicians, resulting in delays or lost savings opportunities. Recent research advances showed fault AUTOcorrection integrating with commercial FDD offerings filled this gap. Seven innovative AUTOcorrection algorithms were integrated into two FDD platforms and deployed across four buildings. The enhanced tools successfully correct faults focusing on incorrectly programmed schedules, override not released, control hunting, rogue zone, and suboptimal setpoints. Although its technical efficacy has been proven in the field, fault AUTO-correction is still early in the deployment cycle and opportunities and barriers need to be understood to reach its full potential in market transformation. This paper broadly introduces the new technology that automatically corrects HVAC faults. The authors describe in detail technology potential, market barriers, and enablers for scalability based on field testing results and interviews with the FDD providers and facility managers. The interviewees agreed that AUTO-correction can reduce the extent to which savings are dependent upon human intervention, scale building operators’ ability to act on FDD findings (especially for facilities with small operation teams), and achieve significant savings. To enable scalable deployment, future efforts are needed to overcome the barriers such as cybersecurity and accountability concerns from building operators and standardization of control parameters used in building automation systems.

Pritoni, Marco↗

NASA NTRS2004

High-Fidelity Full System Simulations

High-fidelity full system simulations have the potential for revolutionizing the way complex systems, such as propulsion systems for aerospace vehicles, are designed, developed, manufactured, and operated. Significant time and cost savings will result from simulations that will resolve deleterious component interactions early in the design process. In addition, innovative new system configurations will result from the use of new tools that enable designers to challenge traditional rules and practices. The major challenges to developing and implementing high-fidelity systems simulations are in reducing the time and effort required to build, execute, and analyze data for the high complex simulations. In addition, large scale testing with unique instrumentation is required to validate the simulations. The solution to these problems reside in the application of advanced information technologies to assist the user to effectively manage, process, and synthesize the vast amount of data. The following presentation describes in more detail the benefits of high-fidelity full system simulations, the challenges to developing and implementing large scale simulations, and one approach that is being followed by the NASA Glenn Research Center to overcome these challenges. In addition, topics for discussion by the panel and audience are suggested.

Lytle, John K.↗

NASA NTRS2024

Integration of Automated Systems Test Campaign NC-IAS

NASA’s 2022 strategic plan included the goal to catalyze economic growth and drive innovation in the aviation industry, and to address challenges in air transportation and airspace management within the National Airspace System (NAS). The Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) specifically was tasked with leading aviation innovation to enable safe and sustainable air transportation through revolutionary vehicle advances and efficient flight operations. As a part of meeting these objectives and advancing air mobility concepts, NASA initiated the National Campaign (NC) in the Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) Project within the Airspace Operations and Safety Program (AOSP). The NC was designed to support operational demonstrations with industry as well as the research and development needed to support NASA-led research flight demonstrations. Within NC, the Integration of Automated Systems (IAS), an NC activity, tested and evaluated flight deck automation and airspace operations management functions needed to enable Urban Air Mobility (UAM) operations. This was accomplished through a partnership with Sikorsky Aircraft (specifically Sikorsky Innovations), a Lockheed Martin company, and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), by leveraging two automation-enabled helicopters equipped with unique capabilities that enabled NASA to develop and test two-ship conflict encounters to demonstrate flight path management and hazard avoidance technologies. The enabler in this testing was NASA-developed “Middleware” (MW) software (also known as Expandable Variable Autonomy Architecture, or EVAA), which among other things allowed multiple algorithms to be incorporated into one software build that was hosted on the dissimilar-type Sikorsky helicopters. The IAS test campaign period of performance was from March 2022 through October 2023 and was structured as a phased, or spiral, approach that ultimately led to the first-ever demonstration of two-ship UAM/AAM operations designed to safely choreograph specific conflict encounters and mission scenarios to test the research algorithms for strategic and tactical aircraft deconfliction. Lessons learned are included in the body of the report. Data collected will be used to inform FAA and industry standards groups on the increasingly automated systems needed for future AAM operations. The test encounters developed for these flight tests were proven to be highly predictable, repeatable, and safely exercised flight path planning and Detect and Avoid (DAA) algorithms. These same test encounters should be leveraged by future flight test campaigns to verify that operational safety is not compromised as the AAM architecture matures. Next steps include repeating similar encounters using unmanned aircraft carrying DAA sensors in the National Airspace.

AAM↗

DOE OSTI2021

WaterTAP3 (The Water Technoeconomic Assessment Pipe-Parity Platform)

The Water Technoeconomic Assessment Pipe-Parity Platform (WaterTAP3) was developed under the National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI) to facilitate consistent technoeconomic assessments of desalination treatment trains. The WaterTAP3 is an analytically robust modeling tool that can be used to evaluate water technology cost, energy, environmental, and resiliency tradeoffs across different water sources, sectors, and scales. The model simulates steady-state water treatment train performance and costs including flow and constituent mass balance across unit processes, based on source water conditions, configurations of treatment technologies, and system-level techno-economic assumptions. Users can build a new treatment train by connecting any number of unit processes, specific for their context and system, or selecting a train from the treatment train library. The model contains various technical and cost parameter options for a range of treatment processes and a library of influent water quality characteristics for a variety of source waters and case studies. Users can customize water quality parameters to evaluate the technology performance in their context. The model can be set up for different assessment needs including simulation, optimization, and uncertainty and sensitivity analyses. The results from WaterTAP3 can help identify trade-offs among the different system performance metrics, with insight on how particular technologies or systems promote pipe-parity. The flexibility and comprehensive scope of the tool makes it a promising solution to industry-wide water technoeconomic evaluations, leading to more informed water investment decisions and technologies. As a user-friendly, open-source platform, WaterTAP3 can be used by industry, academia, policymakers, planners, and those with or without extensive analytical experience.

Miara, Ariel↗

DOE OSTI2021

Water Technoeconomic Assessment Pipe-Parity Platform (WaterTAP3)

Miara, Ariel↗

DOE OSTI2020

Roll-to-Roll Advanced Materials Manufacturing DOE Laboratory Collaboration (FY2019 Final Report)

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2026

Multilevel Analysis of Electrochemically Mediated Methanolysis of Poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET)

Here, this study presents a multilevel analysis of electrochemically mediated methanolysis as a promising method for reducing the environmental impacts of plastic recycling, with a focus on depolymerizing poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) into dimethyl terephthalate (DMT). Instead of conventional chemical PET depolymerization, this electrochemical approach provides distinct technical advantages in process control and efficiency. At the process level, key operational parameters, including applied current and reaction time, were systematically investigated to optimize PET conversion and DMT selectivity. The electrochemical approach was directly compared to equivalent chemical methanolysis systems and demonstrated superior performance in terms of PET conversion and DMT selectivity. Building on these findings, a technoeconomic assessment identified the current economic bottlenecks and revealed that improvements in process design, DMT selectivity, PET conversion, and energy efficiency are key to reducing the overall process cost and enabling future implementation. While further optimization is required for market competitiveness, these results establish a performance baseline for the electrochemically mediated PET methanolysis process and underscore the importance of combining process-level innovation with systems-level evaluation in the development of sustainable recycling technologies.

chemical recycling↗

DOE OSTI2021

Roll-to-Roll Advanced Materials Manufacturing DOE Laboratory Collaboration (FY2020 Final Report)

R2R processing is used to manufacture a wide range of products for various applications which span many industrial business sectors. The overall R2R methodology has been in use for decades and this continuous technique traditionally involves deposition of material(s) onto moving webs, carriers or other continuous belt-fed or conveyor-based processes that enable successive steps to build a final version which serves to support the deposited materials. Established methods that typify R2R processing include tape casting, silk-screen printing, reel-to-reel vacuum deposition/coating, and R2R lithography. Products supported by R2R manufacturing include micro-electronics, electro-chromic window films, PVs, fuel cells for energy conversion, battery electrodes for energy storage, and barrier and membrane materials. Due to innovation in materials and process equipment, high-quality yet very low-cost multilayer technologies have the potential to be manufactured on a very cost-competitive basis. To move energy-related products from high-cost niche applications to the commercial sector, the means must be available to enable manufacture of these products in a cost-competitive manner that is affordable. Fortunately, products such as fuel cells, thin- and mid-film PVs, batteries, electrochromic and piezoelectric films, water separation membranes, and other energy saving technologies readily lend themselves to manufacture using R2R approaches. However, more early-stage research is needed to solve the challenge of linking the materials (particles, polymers, solvents, additives) used in ink and slurry formulations and the coating and drying processes to the ultimate performance of the final R2R product, especially for a process that uses multiple layers of deposition to achieve the end product. To solve the problems associated with these challenges, the R2R Collaboration is executing a research program with outcomes that will ultimately link modeling, processing, metrology and defect detection tools, thereby directly relating the properties of constituent particles and processing conditions to the performance of final devices. This collaborative approach was designed to foster identification and development of materials and processes related to R2R for clean-energy materials development. Using computational and experimental capabilities by acknowledged subject matter experts within the supported National Laboratory system, this project leverages the capabilities and expertise at each of five National Laboratories to further the development of multilayer technologies that will enable high-volume, cost-competitive platforms. A typical R2R process has three steps: (1) mixing of particles and various constituents in a slurry, (2) coating of the ink/slurry mixture on a substrate, and (3) drying/curing and processing of the coating. Final performance of devices made via R2R processes is dependent on the active materials (e.g., electrochemical particles in battery or fuel cell electrodes) and the device structure that stems from the governing component interactions within the various steps. However, a fundamental understanding of the underlying mechanisms and phenomena is still lacking, which is why industrial-scale R2R process development and manufacturing is still largely empirical in nature. The FY 2019 through FY 2021 program addresses aspects of the following two targets from the AMO Multi-Year Program Plan: (1) Target 8.1 Develop technologies to reduce the cost per manufactured throughput of continuous R2R manufacturing processes. (A) Increasing throughput of R2R processes by 5 times for batteries (to 50 square feet per minute (50 ft 2 /min)) and capacitors and 10 times for printed electronics and the manufacture of other substrates and MEs used in support of these products. (B) Developing resolution capabilities to enable registration and alignment that will detect, align, and co-deposit multiple layers of coatings and print < 1-micron (1 µm) features using continuous process scalable for commercial production. (C) Developing scalable and reliable R2R processes for solution deposition of ultra-thin (<10 nm) films for active and passive materials. (D) Develop in-line multilayer coating technology on thin films with yields greater than 95%. (2) Target 8.2 Develop in-line instrumentation tools that will evaluate the quality of single and multilayer materials in-process. (A) Developing in-line QC technologies and methodologies for real-time identification of defects and expected product properties “in-use/application” during continuous processing at all size-scales with a focus on the “micro” and “nano” scale traces, lines, and devices, i.e., <1 μm at 300 ft./min for R2R processing in air and <10 nm at 20 ft./min for vacuum (B) Developing technologies to increase the measurement frequency of surface rheology without significant cost increases with a goal of a 10-nanometer in-line profilometry at a production rate of 100,000 square millimeters per minute (100,000 mm 2 /min).

42 ENGINEERING↗