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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

Moab Desert Crust - Sample 4E

Uncultivated Bacteria and Archaea comprise the vast majority of species on Earth, but obtaining their genomes directly from the environment, using shotgun sequencing, has only recently become possible. To realize the hope of capturing Earth’s microbial genetic complement, technologies that accelerate recovery of high-quality genomes are necessary. We present a series of analysis steps and data products for the extraction of high quality metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) from microbiomes using the U.S. Department of Energy Systems Biology Knowledgebase (KBase) platform (http://www.kbase.us/). In KBase, the process is end-to-end, allowing a user to go from the initial sequencing reads all the way through to MAG genomes, which can then be analyzed with other KBase capabilities such as phylogenetic placement, functional assignment, metabolic modeling, pangenome functional profiling, RNA-Seq, and others. While portions of such capabilities are individually available from other resources, the combination of the intuitive usability, data interoperability, and integration of tools in a freely available compute resource makes KBase a uniquely powerful platform for obtaining MAGs from microbiomes. While this workflow offers tools for each of the key steps in the genome extraction process, it also provides a scaffold that can be easily extended, with additional MAG recovery and analysis tools, via the KBase SDK (Software Development Kit).

Chivian, Dylan↗

Stressing the importance of plant specialized metabolites: omics-based approaches for discovering specialized metabolism in plant stress responses

Plants produce a diverse range of specialized metabolites that play pivotal roles in mediating environmental interactions and stress adaptation. These unique chemical compounds also hold significant agricultural, medicinal, and industrial values. Despite the expanding knowledge of their functions in plant stress interactions, understanding the intricate biosynthetic pathways of these natural products remains challenging due to gene and pathway redundancy, multifunctionality of proteins, and the activity of enzymes with broad substrate specificity. In the past decade, substantial progress in genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, and proteomics has made the exploration of plant specialized metabolism more feasible than ever before. Notably, recent advances in integrative multi-omics and computational approaches, along with other technologies, are accelerating the discovery of plant specialized metabolism. In this review, we present a summary of the recent progress in the discovery of plant stress-related specialized metabolites. Emphasis is placed on the application of advanced omics-based approaches and other techniques in studying plant stress-related specialized metabolism. Additionally, we discuss the high-throughput methods for gene functional characterization. These advances hold great promise for harnessing the potential of specialized metabolites to enhance plant stress resilience in the future.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Elevating the Practical Application of Sodium-Ion Batteries through Advanced Characterization Studies on Cathodes

Sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) have emerged as promising alternatives to their lithium-ion counterparts due to the abundance of sodium resources and their potential for cost-effective energy storage solutions. The chemistry for SIBs has been investigated since the 1980s, but it went through a slow research and development process. Recently, there has been an acceleration in technology maturation due to a supply chain crisis originating from unequal resource distribution and sustainability and safety concerns regarding lithium-ion batteries. However, the practical application of SIBs has been hindered primarily by challenges related to cathode materials, specifically, surface and structural stabilities in different conditions. Through the integration of advanced techniques such as in situ spectroscopy, operando diffraction, and high-resolution microscopy, a comprehensive understanding of the cathode’s dynamic behavior and degradation mechanisms can be achieved. The identified structural modifications, phase transitions, and degradation pathways offer critical insights into the design of robust cathode materials with prolonged cycling stability, fast charging capability, high energy density, great low-temperature performance, and safety. This review underscores the pivotal role of cutting-edge characterization techniques in guiding the development of high-performance sodium-ion batteries, thereby fostering the realization of sustainable and efficient energy storage solutions for diverse technological applications.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

H2@Scale - Validating an Electrolysis System with High Output Pressure: Cooperative Research and Development Final Report, CRADA Number CRD-18-00741

Electrolysis has been a commercially available product for a while and electrolyzers have been a proven capability to provide additional benefits (e.g. controllable load for grid services) in addition to production of hydrogen. The hydrogen output is typically compressed for storage and dispensing. Compression adds cost and decreases system reliability. Honda’s electrolyzer systems have been developed to include electrochemical compression to leverage the production system itself for at least partial compression. In this project, the team will evaluate Honda’s PEM based electrochemical compression system. The system is capable of compressing hydrogen up to 70 MPa electrochemically. Validation testing is the next step to accelerate this technology into the marketplace, as the validation will provide needed data under a variety of operation conditions and controls. These operating conditions and controls are based on over a decade of NLR research and development with low-temperature electrolysis. The validation testing will include preparing NLR’s site for third party evaluation, benchmark testing of Honda’s stack and system, and simulating operation connected to renewables or in a grid service profile. NLR’s Energy System Integration Lab will be the location for the electrolyzer validation research and integrated into the Hydrogen Infrastructure Test & Research Facility (HITRF). This will build into the existing retail style hydrogen fueling station for a fully integrated experimental setup.

08 HYDROGEN↗

Coal gasifier cogeneration powerplant project

Industrial cogeneration and utility pr systems were analyzed and a conceptual design study was conducted to evaluate the economic feasibility of a coal gasifier power plant for NASA Lewis Research Center. Site location, plant size, and electric power demand were considered in criteria developed for screening and selecting candidates that could use a wide variety of coals, including that from Ohio. A fluidized bed gasifier concept was chosen as the baseline design and key components of the powerplant were technically assessed. No barriers to environmental acceptability are foreseen. If funded, the powerplant will not only meet the needs of the research center, but will reduce the commercial risk for utilities and industries by fully verifying and demonstrating the technology, thus accelerating commercialization.

Shure, L. I.↗

High End Computing Technologies for Earth Science Applications: Trends, Challenges, and Innovations

Earth science applications of the future will stress the capabilities of even the highest performance supercomputers in the areas of raw compute power, mass storage management, and software environments. These NASA mission critical problems demand usable multi-petaflops and exabyte-scale systems to fully realize their science goals. With an exciting vision of the technologies needed, NASA has established a comprehensive program of advanced research in computer architecture, software tools, and device technology to ensure that, in partnership with US industry, it can meet these demanding requirements with reliable, cost effective, and usable ultra-scale systems. NASA will exploit, explore, and influence emerging high end computing architectures and technologies to accelerate the next generation of engineering, operations, and discovery processes for NASA Enterprises. This article captures this vision and describes the concepts, accomplishments, and the potential payoff of the key thrusts that will help meet the computational challenges in Earth science applications.

Parks, John↗

Environmental Program

NASA's White Sands Test Facility has six core environmental compliance capabilities: remote hazardous testing of reactive, explosive and toxic materials and fluids; hypergolic fluids materials and systems testing; oxygen materials and system testing; hypervelocity impact testing; flight hardware processing; and, propulsion testing. The facility's permit status and challenges are reviewed. Historic operations and practices dating from the 1960s through the early 1980s resulted in contamination of the facility's groundwater. An environmental restoration effort has been employed to protect public health and the health of the workforce. The restoration seeks to properly handle hazardous materials and waste processes; determine the nature and extent of the contamination; stop the migration of contaminated groundwater; stabilize the plume front which has been assessed as the greatest risk to public health; and, clean-up the environment to restore it to preexisting conditions. The Plume Front Treatment System is operational and seeks to stop the westward movement of the plume to protect drinking water and irrigation well. Specifically, the treatment system will extract contaminated water from the aquifer, remove chemical using the best available technology, and return (inject) the treated water back to the aquifer. The Mid-Plume Interception Treatment System also seeks to stop the migration of containment, as well as to evaluate new technologies to accelerate cleanup, such as bioremediation.

Fischer, Holger↗

Using PHP/MySQL to Manage Potential Mass Impacts

This paper presents a new application using commercially available software to manage mass properties for spaceflight vehicles. PHP/MySQL(PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor and My Structured Query Language) are a web scripting language and a database language commonly used in concert with each other. They open up new opportunities to develop cutting edge mass properties tools, and in particular, tools for the management of potential mass impacts (threats and opportunities). The paper begins by providing an overview of the functions and capabilities of PHP/MySQL. The focus of this paper is on how PHP/MySQL are being used to develop an advanced "web accessible" database system for identifying and managing mass impacts on NASA's Ares I Upper Stage program, managed by the Marshall Space Flight Center. To fully describe this application, examples of the data, search functions, and views are provided to promote, not only the function, but the security, ease of use, simplicity, and eye-appeal of this new application. This paper concludes with an overview of the other potential mass properties applications and tools that could be developed using PHP/MySQL. The premise behind this paper is that PHP/MySQL are software tools that are easy to use and readily available for the development of cutting edge mass properties applications. These tools are capable of providing "real-time" searching and status of an active database, automated report generation, and other capabilities to streamline and enhance mass properties management application. By using PHP/MySQL, proven existing methods for managing mass properties can be adapted to present-day information technology to accelerate mass properties data gathering, analysis, and reporting, allowing mass property management to keep pace with today's fast-pace design and development processes.

Hager, Benjamin I.↗

Future Gamma-Ray Imaging of Solar Eruptive Events

Solar eruptive events, the combination of large solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs), accelerate ions to tens of Gev and electrons to hundreds of MeV. The energy in accelerated particles can be a significant fraction (up to tens of percent) of the released energy and is roughly equipartitioned between ions and electrons. Observations of the gamma-ray signatures produced by these particles interacting with the ambient solar atmosphere probes the distribution and composition of the accelerated population, as well as the atmospheric parameters and abundances of the atmosphere, ultimately revealing information about the underlying physics. Gamma-ray imaging provided by RHESSI showed that the interacting approx.20 MeV/nucleon ions are confined to flare magnetic loops rather than precipitating from a large CME-associated shock. Furthermore, RHESSI images show a surprising, significant spatial separation between the locations where accelerated ions and electrons are interacting, thus indicating a difference in acceleration or transport processes for the two types of particles. Future gamma-ray imaging observations, with higher sensitivity and greater angular resolution, can investigate more deeply the nature of ion acceleration. The technologies being proven on the Gamma-Ray Imager/Polarimeter for Solar flares (GRIPS), a NASA balloon instrument, are possible approaches for future instrumentation. We discuss the GRIPS instrument and the future of studying this aspect of solar eruptive events.

Shih, Albert↗

Valentina Tereshkova and Sally Ride - Women Space Pioneers

Soon after the dawn of the Space Age, when the Soviet Union and the United States began plans for launching people into space, the question arose of just exactly who those people should be. It was assumed that the stresses of space flight would require individuals already accustomed to that kind of work - familiar with advanced technology, high accelerations, quick reaction time, cool headed under pressure. Both countries decided that the best qualified people for space flight would be military pilots. In the late 1950's and early 1960's, military pilots were exclusively male, so the first groups selected for space flight, 20 in the Soviet Union and seven in the United States, were comprised of the cream of the crop among their military pilots. But could women also survive the stresses of space flight?

John Uri↗

Space Based Solar Power

This study evaluates the potential benefits, challenges, and options for NASA to engage with growing global interest in space based solar power (SBSP). Utilizing SBSP entails in-space collection of solar energy, transmission of that energy to one or more stations on Earth, conversion to electricity, and delivery to the grid or to batteries for storage. Experts in both the aerospace and energy sectors are debating the benefits of SBSP as more organizations globally begin SBSP technology development programs. Proponents claim SBSP could deliver large amounts of electricity at competitive prices and with fewer greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than terrestrial renewable electricity technologies while accelerating development of the space economy. Skeptics say SBSP has no clear development path and would divert billions of dollars from known terrestrial solutions while damaging the environment. While it is generally understood that SBSP is cost prohibitive and technically infeasible today, this study assesses operating SBSP systems in 2050. Part of NASA’s mission is to innovate for the benefit of humanity – it is through this lens that the Agency weighs whether and how to support SBSP development.

Space Based Solar Power↗

Global Power System Transformation Consortium

The Global Power System Transformation (G-PST) Consortium, an expert- and practitioner-driven initiative, engages key power system operators, research and educational institutes, governments, businesses, and stakeholders in all regions of the world to accelerate clean energy transitions at the ambitious scope and scale that is required. The G-PST Consortium provides coordinated, holistic support and knowledge infusion for system operators pursuing clean energy transitions, including performing cutting-edge research; providing implementation support for world-class engineering and operational solutions; supporting workforce development; building and disseminating open-access data and tools; and accelerating localized technology adoption, standards development, and testing programs.

consortium↗

C$^3$: A "Cool" Route to the Higgs Boson and Beyond

We present a proposal for a cold copper distributed coupling accelerator that can provide a rapid route to precision Higgs physics with a compact 8 km footprint. This proposal is based on recent advances that increase the efficiency and operating gradient of a normal conducting accelerator. This technology also provides an e + e - collider path to physics at multi-TeV energies. In this article, we describe our vision for this technology and the near-term R&D program needed to pursue it.

Caterina, Vernieri↗

Lessons Learned from Open-Source Software Training Toward Expanding the Fusion Workforce

Within the United States (U.S.), the Fusion Innovation Research Engine (FIRE) Collaboratives seek to accelerate fusion technology development through wide-ranging community-driven research activities that bring together industry, laboratories, research institutes, and academia. Increasing the maturity of key components and systems for future fusion power plants (FPPs) toward commercialization, will, by necessity, increase the need for knowledgeable engineers, designers, and researchers in industry capable of integrating and further improving these technologies within industry FPP concepts. Further, various modeling and simulation packages support these programs and are under-development within them to drive design iteration and the development of FPP digital twins. To derive the greatest benefit from model output and capabilities, training these same specialists will be vital. Thus, the development of effective and accessible software onboarding and professional development opportunities focused on fusion will be key to keeping the pace of growth high in the coming decade and beyond. A similar need exists within the advanced fission reactor community, driven by an ever-growing need for carbon-free baseload power for industrial and data center applications. Within the U.S. and around the world, several open-source packages and frameworks exist to support this endeavor, and two we will highlight here are the Multiphysics Object Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) framework and OpenMC. These packages, notably, are also being utilized in the FIRE Collaboratives program. In this presentation, we will highlight the lessons learned from over 30 years of combined software development and training experience, focused on developing strong technical software foundations within the nuclear workforce, from students to professional engineers & scientists. We will connect this experience to present and emerging needs in the fusion energy community, and, finally, will outline possible paths forward to develop a large, robust, global fusion workforce.

70 - PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

On-chip integrated laser-driven particle accelerator

Particle accelerators represent an indispensable tool in science and industry. However, the size and cost of conventional radio-frequency accelerators limit the utility and reach of this technology. Dielectric laser accelerators (DLAs) provide a compact and cost-effective solution to this problem by driving accelerator nanostructures with visible or near-infrared pulsed lasers, resulting in a 10 4 reduction of scale. Current implementations of DLAs rely on free-space lasers directly incident on the accelerating structures, limiting the scalability and integrability of this technology. In this article, we present an experimental demonstration of a waveguide-integrated DLA that was designed using a photonic inverse-design approach. By comparing the measured electron energy spectra with particle-tracking simulations, we infer a maximum energy gain of 0.915 kilo–electron volts over 30 micrometers, corresponding to an acceleration gradient of 30.5 mega–electron volts per meter. On-chip acceleration provides the possibility for a completely integrated mega–electron volt-scale DLA.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗