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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 325 records · Page 18
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

High-Efficiency Recycled Silicon Solar Cell

The project, High-Efficiency Recycled Silicon Solar Cell, addresses the critical challenge of end-of-life (EoL) photovoltaic (PV) waste, which is expected to reach 78 million tons by 2050. Traditional recycling methods for recovering valuable materials like silver from silicon solar cells are inefficient, environmentally harmful, and economically unfeasible. Therefore, presently waste solar cells end up as landfills. This project aimed to develop a green, scalable, laser-based method for silver recovery, avoiding hazardous chemicals and minimizing operational costs. This research contributes to the circular economy in the renewable energy sector by enhancing material recovery from PV waste.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

SMC Reinforced by Recycled or Textile Carbon Fiber

There is a significant need to expand material options for SMC that has traditionally used glass fibers for decades. There are several integral issues related to chopping and conveying a range of materials including glass, carbon, basalt, thermoplastic tapes, and recycled fibers. These are in a variety of forms including continuous tows, discontinuous agglomerates such as pyrolyzed carbon fibers that could be used to produce a range of SMC intermediates. Standard/conventional SMC processing is limited to cutting rotors specifically for glass and compounding with thermoset polyesters and some epoxies. The multi-material, multi-format line developed in this project is flexible to enable custom conveying and uses an interchangeable rotor dedicated for specific material types. The overall tasks undertaken in this project included: evaluation of the fiber feed mechanism, effect of textile grade carbon, evaluating servo motor controlling of conveyor, evaluate doctor box resin feed, evaluate compaction unit, evaluation of different formulations, and develop automation such as PLC programming. The new multi-material SMC line Version 2 (SCM-V2) incorporated servo motors over induction motors which gave the overall cutter system precision control and made it quiet. The addition of a 14-roll compaction unit at the end of the line in SMC-V2 enabled higher material wet out which was a limitation in the SMC Version 1 (SMC-V1). The cutters were further updated to reduce the cantilever overhang of the fiber which enabled more uniform cut lengths for glass, carbon, and basalt fibers. The overall instrumentation and system control including a remote control operation was enabled in the SMC-V2. The line speed is capable of 10-20 ft/minute. The cutting modules were designed and engineered for cutting glass, basalt and textile grade carbon in 300k and 450-600k format widths. The cutting trials were established for a range of fiber types. The study also demonstrated the utility of the line to cut and produce basalt fiber SMC. Initial trials were conducted on the properties from recycled carbon fiber (rCF) mats in epoxy resin. Overall, the Covid19 situation constrained the team from accessing the SMC line for over 18 months. Despite this challenge major advancements were made.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Recycling Electric Vehicle Batteries: Opportunities and Challenges

A surge in electric vehicle production is ushering in a new era of research on the best methods to recycle used lithium-ion batteries. This article describes existing recycling methods and the work needed to establish a more fully circular economy for lithium-ion batteries.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSI↗
DOE OSTI2021

Recycled Paper as a Source of Renewable Jet Fuel in the United States

Converting biomass into jet fuel involves more than the core chemical process. The overall process includes the logistics of harvesting and transporting the biomass, handling and preparing the material for processing, and processing and disposal of waste. All of these activities contribute to cost. Controlling cost involves more than developing efficient process chemistry. Choice of feedstock also has a significant impact on process economics. We consider chemical conversion of paper from municipal solid waste as a feedstock for the production of jet fuel and diesel. Paper has a significantly higher cellulose content than raw lignocellulosic biomass such as corn stover, so it requires less pretreatment to convert it into hydrocarbons than lignocellulosic biomass. Our techno-economic analysis showed that the cost of converting paper waste into jet fuel is about $1.00/gal less than jet fuel produced from corn stover. Although the cost of recycling paper into jet fuel is less than producing it from corn stover, the process is not competitive with petroleum. We estimated a minimum selling price of $3.97/gal for paper-derived jet fuel. Our sensitivity studies indicated that the biggest economic obstacle is the cost of cellulose hydrolysis. Direct hydrogenation of paper to sugar alcohols combined with increased economy of scale could make recycling paper jet fuel competitive.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Advanced biorefinery feedstock from non-recyclable municipal solid waste by mechanical preprocessing

Because of accelerated urbanization and the development of a global economy, a large quantity of municipal solid waste (MSW) has been collected and disposed of by the municipalities. Due to this drastic increase in the disposal of MSW, the need for its management is a must to preserve the environment. Currently, approximately 50% of the total MSW generated in the United States has been utilized through various recycling, combustion, and composting technologies, which means the remaining 50% is sent to landfill; this is often known as non-recyclable MSW (nMSW). As this nMSW is physically and chemically heterogenous and contains very high amounts of inorganic material, processing is required prior to using it as a biorefinery feedstock. Thus, this study focused on how mechanical preprocessing advanced the physical and chemical properties of nMSW. The physical and chemical properties were investigated in terms of particle size distribution, bulk density, ultimate and proximate analysis, and the higher heating value (HHV). The combustion properties were examined in terms of ignition temperature, peak heat release rate, and combustion efficiency. Results showed that the variability of physical and chemical properties of nMSW can be reduced by mechanical preprocessing. For example, the variability of the bulk density of the as-received nMSW was approximately 17.3% while it reduced to 5.8% when the sample size was reduced to 2 mm. Similarly, the variability of ash and HHV reduced from 49.2% to 11.0% and 13.4%–4.2%, respectively. Combustion thermograms showed that the size reduction positively improved the combustion properties. For example, 2 mm of spec sample started to ignite approximately 4 times earlier and took 6.5 folds less time to reach the peak heating rate compared to as-received nMSW. Overall, the mechanical preprocessing reduced the variability of physical and chemical properties in addition to the improvement of combustion behavior of the nMSW which is one step forward toward the biorefinery feedstock.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Mechanical Response and Processability of Wet-Laid Recycled Carbon Fiber PE, PA66 and PET Thermoplastic Composites

The interest in recycled carbon fiber (rCF) is growing rapidly and the supply chain for these materials is gradually being established. However, the processing routes, material intermediates and properties of rCF composites are less understood for designers to adopt them into practice. This paper provides a practical pathway for rCFs in conjunction with low cost and, for the most part, commodity thermoplastic resins, namely polyethylene (PE), polyamide 66 (PA66) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Industrially relevant wet-laid (WL) process routes have been adopted to produce mats using two variants of WL mats, namely (a) high speed wet-laid inclined wire to produce broad good ‘roll’ forms and (b) 3DEPTM process patented by Materials Innovation Technologies (MIT)-recycled carbon fiber (RCF), now Carbon Conversions, which involves mixing fibers and water and depositing the fibers on a water-immersed mold. These are referred to as ‘sheet’ forms. The produced mats were evaluated for their processing into composites as ‘fully consolidated mats’ and ‘non-consolidated’ as-produced mats. Comprehensive mechanical data in terms of tensile strength, tensile modulus and impact toughness for rCF C/PE, C/PA66 and C/PET are presented. The work is of high value to sustainable composite designers and modelers.

compression molding↗
DOE OSTI2023

Understanding the Effect of Side Reactions on the Recyclability of Furan–Maleimide Resins Based on Thermoreversible Diels–Alder Network

We studied the effect of side reactions on the reversibility of epoxy with thermoreversible Diels–Alder (DA) cycloadducts based on furan and maleimide chemistry. The most common side reaction is the maleimide homopolymerization which introduces irreversible crosslinking in the network adversely affecting the recyclability. The main challenge is that the temperatures at which maleimide homopolymerization can occur are approximately the same as the temperatures at which retro-DA (rDA) reactions depolymerize the networks. Here we conducted detailed studies on three different strategies to minimize the effect of the side reaction. First, we controlled the ratio of maleimide to furan to reduce the concentration of maleimide groups which diminishes the effects of the side reaction. Second, we applied a radical-reaction inhibitor. Inclusion of hydroquinone, a known free radical scavenger, is found to retard the onset of the side reaction both in the temperature sweep and isothermal measurements. Finally, we employed a new trismaleimide precursor that has a lower maleimide concentration and reduces the rate of the side reaction. Our results provide insights into how to minimize formation of irreversible crosslinking by side reactions in reversible DA materials using maleimides, which is important for their application as novel self-healing, recyclable, and 3D-printable materials.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2023

Sourcing, Refining and Recycling of Rare-Earth Magnets

Permanent magnets today are used in a wide range of transportation, industrial, residential/commercial, consumer electronics, defense, domestic, data storage, wind energy, and medical markets and applications. There are five classes of commercial permanent magnet materials; however, magnets based on Nd-Fe-B account for over 60% of the global magnet production by value. They typically contain around 31 wt.% of rare earth elements (REEs), principally, Nd and Pr, plus Dy for higher-temperature performance. Nd-Fe-B magnets are forecast to grow throughout this decade, largely driven by the growth in electric vehicles of all types. However, several studies forecast a shortfall of the primary REEs from mined resources. In this paper, the sourcing, processing, and recycling of REEs are discussed. Additionally, presented are the advantages and disadvantages of the major recovery and recycling technologies for REEs.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Effects of Lithium-ion Battery Recycling Wastes on Ammonia-Oxidizing Bacteria

Increased demand for lithium-ion batteries (LIB) necessitates development of effective recycling methods for critical battery materials. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is exploring membrane solvent extraction (MSX) for the hydrometallurgical recycling of LIB materials. In this study, waste from MSX was investigated for its impact on the ammonia-oxidizing organism, Nitrosomonas europaea—a model organism for nitrogen removal during wastewater treatment. It was found that Raffinate 4 from ORNL was inhibitory to the growth and nitrite production of N. europaea, likely due to its nickel content. Further investigation is currently underway.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Comparing Polymer Recycling Technologies for a Circular Plastic Economy

This presentation summarizes the research article "Technical, Economic, and Environmental Comparison of Closed-Loop Recycling Technologies for Common Plastics" by Uekert et al. (ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng., 2023) for a carpet industry audience. It covers the technical performance, environmental impacts, and costs of existing and emerging plastic recycling technologies, with a focus on those that are applicable to carpet materials such as polypropylene and polyester.

carpet↗
DOE OSTI2020

Enhanced Sustainability in Treatment of Contaminated Metals for Clearance and Recycling - 20290

Cyclife Sweden AB has, for more than 30 years, provided metal treatment services to the domestic and international nuclear industry with the aim of creating value through metal clearance and recycling. These operations are to a large extent based on the concept that the materials, after pre-treatment, including decontamination, will be melted for clearance. During the melting process, some nuclides separate from the metal while the remaining radioactivity becomes fully homogenized in the metal bath and the resulting ingots, along with the samples taken before casting At a time when activities to fight Climate Challenge are in focus, any savings in energy consumption, in addition to the positive environmental effect of recycling metals back to industry, is more than welcome. If the clearance of certain metallic items can be achieved safely, without using melting, it is the environmentally preferred option provided it carries a reasonable cost. It is even better if an object can go through a decontamination and clearance process prior to re-use inside or outside the nuclear sector. Cyclife Sweden is currently investing in a direct clearance process, to be operated in parallel with the melting process. This new process is expected to be fully operational in the late summer of 2020 and includes pre-treatment, decontamination and heavily shielded clearance measurement installations. The treatment will also allow clearance measurements of larger objects without the need for segmentation, along with allowing objects composed of different materials, like electric motors can be accepted for treatment. This paper gives an overview of the circular economy aspects in a nuclear back-end context, the Cyclife approach to further implement a circular economy approach in the processes, Material Acceptance Criteria for treatment, the facility set-up for the new process and how the melting route and the direct route can be combined in an efficient industrial scale process. To put the new capabilities into perspective, the two different treatment and clearance approaches, i.e. direct clearance and melting, are to be compared. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2020

Operations and Recent Upgrades to a Tritium Recycling Facility - 20375

Nuclear Sources and Services Inc. (NSSI) is a waste handling treatment company that has been operating since 1971. In 2000, NSSI began building a 1,000 m{sup 2} (∼10,000 sqft) tritium recycling facility on the Houston, Texas premises to address a growing need in the waste disposal market. Over the years, the capability of the facility grew to address many different waste streams with the goal of recycling > 99.9% of all tritium activity back into the fusion community. This is achieved by maintaining an effluent stack release well below the 150 GBq/year (C Ci/year) operating limit and maintaining all liquid and solid waste disposal below the low-level radioactive release limit of 0.C MBq/kg (10 μCi/kg). The unique processing systems in the facility attracts many challenging contracts. Within the past two years, NSSI has engaged with customers to treat; organic mixed wastes that simultaneously contain tritium and carbon-14, safely extract tritium from large quantities of exit sign lights, and remove tritium from uncharacterised legacy depleted uranium beds from a superfund site. This paper will outline the initial testing, the system upgrades to treat these varied streams, and the progress in processing the feedstocks provided by these projects. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2026

Electronic Waste (E-Waste) Recycling: Barriers and Opportunities for State, Local, and Tribal Governments

Electronic waste, or e-waste, encompasses end-of-life electrical and electronic equipment, including computers, monitors, televisions, printers, cell phones, household appliances with electronic components, and small consumer devices containing batteries or circuitry. E-waste is one of the fastest-growing components of the U.S. waste stream, with nearly 8 million tons generated in 2022. E-waste presents two related public-interest considerations. First, e-waste contains economically and strategically important materials: base metals (copper, aluminum, iron, steel), precious metals (gold, silver, platinum group metals), and critical materials such as rare earth elements, gallium, and indium that appear on the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) 2025 List of Critical Minerals. Second, many electronic devices contain hazardous constituents - including lead, mercury, cadmium, and brominated flame retardants - as well as rechargeable batteries that can pose fire risks during handling. Effective management of these constituents helps protect workers, communities, and the environment. In the United States, it is estimated that less than 20% of e-waste is formally collected and recycled, leaving over 6 million tons landfilled or otherwise unrecovered. This fact sheet provides state and local decision-makers an overview of (1) e-waste composition and recoverable materials, (2) technology pathways used to recover those materials, and (3) examples of operational and partnership structures used to provide e-waste recycling capacity in the United States. It is intended to complement existing collection-program guidance available through U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other sources.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Microclusters of Kinked Silicon Nanowires Synthesized by a Recyclable Iodide Process for High-Performance Lithium-Ion Battery Anodes

Silicon shows great promise as a high-capacity anode material for lithium-ion batteries. Nanostructuring silicon minimizes the impact of fracturing during charging and discharging. However, synthesizing nanostructured silicon typically requires complicated procedures with high manufacturing costs. Additionally, these complicated procedures typically have poor secondary particle formation, a requirement to achieve a high tap density. Here, a cost-effective synthesis procedure which generates nearly ideal secondary particle clusters of nanostructured silicon is developed. The cost-effectiveness is a result of the in operando generation of silicon iodide from iodine gas and low-grade silicon microparticle. Decomposition of silicon iodide into crystalline silicon and iodine gas enables recycling of the iodine gas, allowing for near full reutilization of iodine in the following cycles. Additionally, the optimal nanostructures and microstructures of silicon synthesized by the recyclable iodide decomposition reaction enables 83.6% capacity retention over 1000 cycles. The good performance is a result of well-maintained morphology during cycling, enabling reutilization of the solid electrolyte interphase.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Scalable Direct Recycling of Cathode Black Mass from Spent Lithium‐Ion Batteries

Abstract End of life (EoL) lithium‐ion batteries (LIBs) are piling up at an intimidating rate, which is alarming for environmental health. With further expected rapid growth of LIB use, the magnitude of spent battery accumulation is also expected to grow. LiNi x Co y Mn z O 2 (NCM) cathode materials are a dominant chemistry in high energy LIBs, and make up a huge portion of this waste accumulation. Direct recycling is one of the most promising ways to turn this waste to wealth, but has been limited to lab‐scale, due to lack of robustness, namely the tedious pretreatment required that involves toxic organic solvents. Herein, a process that integrates the pretreatment and relithiation of the cathode black mass is demonstrated. Cathode material from EoL electric vehicle (EV) batteries is treated in a 100 g per batch operation and the regenerated cathode active material demonstrates 100% electrochemical performance recovery, with 91% yield rate, and shows promise for further scale up. This process has the advantages of integration, scalability, and universality, which clears the barricade for direct recycling to move from lab to industry scale with considerable profitability.

Chemistry↗
DOE OSTI2025

Innovative Approach to Recycle Lithium‐Ion Battery Electrolytes via Sequential Chemical Processes

The rapid growth of electric vehicles (EV) has driven the widespread use of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). This will result in a large amount of spent batteries that if not properly disposed will pose significant environmental damage, especially from the electrolyte. The electrolyte contains lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF 6 ), which when treated by either incineration or water washing can generate harmful F- and P-containing substances such as hydrofluoric acid (HF). In this study, an innovative two-step process is presented to separate and purify both the solvents and lithium salts from the spent electrolyte. Antisolvent assisted precipitation is used to selectively isolate LiPF 6 salt in the form of a complex with ethylene carbonate. Subsequent distillation then separates the volatile electrolyte solvents and antisolvent from each other effectively. In addition, a new process to further purify LiPF 6 from its ethylene carbonate (EC) complex is also presented. This electrolyte recycling method not only enables the recovery of the high-value LiPF 6 salt and the electrolyte solvents, but also paves the way for environmentally responsible and circular LIB recycling.

electrolyte↗
DOE OSTI2023

Polyethylene Incorporating Diels–Alder Comonomers: A “Trojan Horse” Strategy for Chemically Recyclable Polyolefins

Abstract Polyolefins with periodic unsaturation in the backbone chain are sought after for synthesizing chemically recyclable polymers or telechelic polyolefin macromonomers. Here we introduce a bottom‐up synthesis of unsaturated high‐density polyethylene (HDPE) via copolymerization of ethylene with dimethyl 7‐oxabicyclo[2.2.1]hepta‐2,5‐diene‐3,5‐dicarboxylate followed by post‐polymerization retro‐Diels–Alder to unveil hidden double bonds in the polymer backbone. The incorporation of this “Trojan Horse” comonomer was varied and a series of unsaturated HDPE polymers with block lengths of 1.2, 1.9, and 3.5 kDa between double bonds was synthesized. Cross metathesis of unsaturated HDPE samples with 2‐hydroxyethyl acrylate yielded telechelic ester terminated PE macromonomers suitable for the preparation of ester‐linked PE. These materials were depolymerized and repolymerized, making them suitable candidates for chemical recycling. The ester‐linked PE displayed thermal and mechanical properties comparable to commercial HDPE.

Parke, Sarah M.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Polyethylene Incorporating Diels–Alder Comonomers: A “Trojan Horse” Strategy for Chemically Recyclable Polyolefins

Polyolefins with periodic unsaturation in the backbone chain are sought after for synthesizing chemically recyclable polymers or telechelic polyolefin macromonomers. Here we introduce a bottom-up synthesis of unsaturated high-density polyethylene (HDPE) via copolymerization of ethylene with dimethyl 7-oxabicyclo[2.2.1]hepta-2,5-diene-3,5-dicarboxylate followed by post-polymerization retro-Diels–Alder to unveil hidden double bonds in the polymer backbone. The incorporation of this “Trojan Horse” comonomer was varied and a series of unsaturated HDPE polymers with block lengths of 1.2, 1.9, and 3.5 kDa between double bonds was synthesized. Cross metathesis of unsaturated HDPE samples with 2-hydroxyethyl acrylate yielded telechelic ester terminated PE macromonomers suitable for the preparation of ester-linked PE. These materials were depolymerized and repolymerized, making them suitable candidates for chemical recycling. Here, the ester-linked PE displayed thermal and mechanical properties comparable to commercial HDPE.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗