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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 343 records · Page 19

Pseudodiagonalization Method for Accelerating Nonlinear Subspace Diagonalization in Density Functional Theory

In density functional theory, each self-consistent field (SCF) nonlinear step updates the discretized Kohn-Sham orbitals by solving a linear eigenvalue problem. The concept of pseudodiagonalization is to solve this linear eigenvalue problem approximately, and specifically utilizing a method involving a small number of Jacobi rotations that takes advantage of the good initial guess to the solution given by the approximation to the orbitals from the previous SCF iteration. The approximate solution to the linear eigenvalue problem can be very rapid, particularly for those steps near SCF convergence. Here, we adapt pseudodiagonalization to finite-temperature and metallic systems, where partially-occupied orbitals must be individually resolved with some accuracy. We apply pseudodiagonalization to the subspace eigenvalue problem that arises in Chebyshev-filtered subspace iteration. In tests on metallic and other systems for a range of temperatures, we show that pseudodiagonalization achieves similar rates of SCF convergence to exact diagonalization.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Acceleration and Stabilization of Electron Transfer Products with Improved Quantum Yields upon Cation Binding to a Fused Bis-Zinc Porphyrin-Quinone Donor–Acceptor Conjugate

The role of metal ions in promoting electron transfer processes in biological coenzymes is of great significance not only to understand their mechanistic details but also due to their direct utilization in a number of chemical and biochemical processes. Here, we demonstrate an increased rate of forward electron transfer with improved reaction quantum yield, and an enhanced lifetime of electron transfer products upon cation binding to the acceptor entity in a donor-acceptor conjugate. Selective binding of cations such as Mg 2+ or Sc 3+ to the electron acceptor, quinone, in a fused, bis-zinc porphyrin-quinone donor-acceptor conjugate leads to facile reduction of the quinone making the electron transfer process thermodynamically highly feasible. Furthermore, the binding of metal ions to the electron transfer product, quinone anion, decelerates the reverse electron transfer process due to ion-pairing interactions, resulting in improving both the lifetime and quantum yields of the electron transfer products. Furthermore, systematic studies including spectral, electrochemical, computational, spectroelectrochemical, and transient absorption techniques, coupled with data analysis by Global Target Analysis (GloTarAn), are performed to demonstrate these novel findings that are relevant to further our understanding of electron transfer processes occurring in biological coenzymes and pertinent energy harvesting schemes.

Charge transfer↗

Accessing and Photo-Accelerating Low-Overpotential Pathways for CO 2 Reduction: A Bis-Carbene Ruthenium Terpyridine Catalyst

A ruthenium catalyst bearing a bidentate bis(carbene) ligand is prepared and studied as a catalyst for CO 2 electroreduction. The catalyst [Ru(tpy)(bis-mim)(MeCN)][PF 6 ] 2 (tpy) is 2,2′,:6′,2″-terpyridine; bis-mim is (methylenebis(N-methylimidazol-2-ylidene)) mediates reduction of CO 2 into CO with a turnover frequency of 630 s –1 and Faradaic efficiency (FE) of 30% at an overpotential of 730 mV. The strongly donating bis(carbene) ligand also enables access to a pathway operating at a lower overpotential of ca. 310 mV. While low-overpotential catalysis is slow in the dark (TOF = 0.01 s –1 ), visible light illumination increases the rate 10-fold (TOF = 0.11 s –1 ). Here, a full mechanistic picture is developed using kinetic analysis from cyclic voltammetry, spectroelectrochemistry, and computational methods, with the bis-mim ligand facilitating rapid CO 2 activation at low overpotentials. Comparisons with other ruthenium catalysts yield insight into the ability to tune the rate of chemical steps (e.g., ligand dissociation and CO 2 nucleophilic attack) and the overpotential by tailoring the primary coordination sphere while retaining the “redox-active” tpy ligand.

CO2 reduction↗

ARPA-E: Accelerating U.S. Energy Innovation

With aggressive commitments to mitigate the impacts of climate change and emphasis on maintaining an advantage in technological development in an increasingly globalized marketplace, the U.S. government is actively taking measures to ensure the nation’s environmental and economic health and sustainability. As part of its broader strategy, with motivation from the National Academies,(1) the United States established the Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) within the Department of Energy (DOE) through the America Competes Act in 2007.(2) The agency was allotted an initial appropriation of $400 million in 2009 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Comment on 'Three-dimensional numerical investigation of electron transport with rotating spoke in a cylindrical anode layer Hall plasma accelerator'[Phys. Plasmas 19, 073519 (2012)]

The oscillation behavior described by Tang et al.[Phys. Plasmas 19, 073519 (2012)] differs too greatly from previous experimental and numerical studies to claim observation of the same phenomenon. Most significantly, the rotation velocity by Tang et al.[Phys. Plasmas 19, 073519 (2012)] is three orders of magnitude larger than that of typical 'rotating spoke' phenomena. Several physical and numerical considerations are presented to more accurately understand the numerical results of Tang et al.[Phys. Plasmas 19, 073519 (2012)] in light of previous studies.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Planar ultrananocrystalline diamond field emitter in accelerator radio frequency electron injector: Performance metrics

A case performance study of a planar field emission cathode (FEC) based on nitrogen-incorporated ultrananocrystalline diamond, (N)UNCD, was carried out in an RF 1.3 GHz electron gun. The FEC was a 100 nm (N)UNCD film grown on a 20 mm diameter stainless steel disk with a Mo buffer layer. At surface gradients 45–65 MV/m, peak currents of 1–80 mA (equivalent to 0.3–25 mA/cm{sup 2}) were achieved. Imaging with two YAG screens confirmed emission from the (N)UNCD surface with (1) the beam emittance of 1.5 mm × mrad/mm-rms and (2) longitudinal FWHM and rms widths of non-Gaussian energy spread of 0.7% and 11% at an electron energy of 2 MeV. Current stability was tested over the course of 36 × 10{sup 3} RF pulses (equivalent to 288 × 10{sup 6 }GHz oscillations)

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Graphics processing unit accelerated three-dimensional model for the simulation of pulsed low-temperature plasmas

A 3-dimensional particle-in-cell/Monte Carlo collision simulation that is fully implemented on a graphics processing unit (GPU) is described and used to determine low-temperature plasma characteristics at high reduced electric field, E/n, in nitrogen gas. Details of implementation on the GPU using the NVIDIA Compute Unified Device Architecture framework are discussed with respect to efficient code execution. The software is capable of tracking around 10 × 10{sup 6} particles with dynamic weighting and a total mesh size larger than 10{sup 8} cells. Verification of the simulation is performed by comparing the electron energy distribution function and plasma transport parameters to known Boltzmann Equation (BE) solvers. Under the assumption of a uniform electric field and neglecting the build-up of positive ion space charge, the simulation agrees well with the BE solvers. The model is utilized to calculate plasma characteristics of a pulsed, parallel plate discharge. A photoionization model provides the simulation with additional electrons after the initial seeded electron density has drifted towards the anode. Comparison of the performance benefits between the GPU-implementation versus a CPU-implementation is considered, and a speed-up factor of 13 for a 3D relaxation Poisson solver is obtained. Furthermore, a factor 60 speed-up is realized for parallelization of the electron processes.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Accelerating flux balance calculations in genome-scale metabolic models by localizing the application of loopless constraints

Abstract Background Genome-scale metabolic network models and constraint-based modeling techniques have become important tools for analyzing cellular metabolism. Thermodynamically infeasible cycles (TICs) causing unbounded metabolic flux ranges are often encountered. TICs satisfy the mass balance and directionality constraints but violate the second law of thermodynamics. Current practices involve implementing additional constraints to ensure not only optimal but also loopless flux distributions. However, the mixed integer linear programming problems required to solve become computationally intractable for genome-scale metabolic models. Results We aimed to identify the fewest needed constraints sufficient for optimality under the loopless requirement. We found that loopless constraints are required only for the reactions that share elementary flux modes representing TICs with reactions that are part of the objective function. We put forth the concept of localized loopless constraints (LLCs) to enforce this minimal required set of loopless constraints. By combining with a novel procedure for minimal null-space calculation, the computational time for loopless flux variability analysis (ll-FVA) is reduced by a factor of 10–150 compared to the original loopless constraints and by 4–20 times compared to the current fastest method Fast-SNP with the percent improvement increasing with model size. Importantly, LLCs offer a scalable strategy for loopless flux calculations for multi-compartment/multi-organism models of large sizes, for example, shortening the CPU time for ll-FVA from 35 h to less than 2 h for a model with more than104 reactions. Availability and implementation Matlab functions are available in the Supplementary Material or at https://github.com/maranasgroup/lll-FVA Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Chan, Siu H. J. (ORCID:000000027707656X)↗