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NASA NTRS2007

Thermal Performance of High Temperature Titanium-Water Heat Pipes by Multiple Heat Pipe Manufacturers

Titanium-water heat pipes are being investigated for use in heat rejection systems for lunar and Mars fission surface power systems. Heat pipes provide an efficient and reliable means to transfer heat to a radiator heat rejection system. NASA Glenn Research Center requisitioned nine titanium water heat pipes from three vendors. Each vendor supplied three heat pipes 1.25 cm diameter by 1.1 meter long with each vendor selecting a different wick design. Each of the three heat pipes is slightly different in construction. Additional specifications for the heat pipes included 500 K nominal operating temperature, light weight, and freeze tolerance. The heat pipes were performance tested gravity-aided, in the horizontal position and at elevations against gravity at 450 and 500 K. Performance of the three heat pipes is compared. The heat pipe data will be used to verify models of heat pipe radiators that will be used in future space exploration missions.

Sanzi, James L.↗

NASA NTRS2007

Space Suit Radiator Performance in Lunar and Mars Environments

During an ExtraVehicular Activity (EVA), both the heat generated by the astronaut's metabolism and that produced by the Portable Life Support System (PLSS) must be rejected to space. The heat sources include the heat of adsorption of metabolic CO2, the heat of condensation of water, the heat removed from the body by the liquid cooling garment and the load from the electrical components. Although the sublimator hardware to reject this load weighs only 3.48 lbs, an additional eight pounds of water are loaded into the unit of which about six to eight are sublimated and lost; this is the single largest expendable during an eight-hour EVA. Using a radiator to reject heat from the Astronaut during an EVA, we can significantly reduce the amount of expendable water consumed by the sublimator. Last year we reported on the design and initial operational assessment tests of our novel radiator designated the Radiator And Freeze Tolerant heat eXchanger (RAFT-X). Herein, we report on tests conducted in the NASA Johnson Space Center Chamber E Thermal Vacuum Test Facility. Up to 800 Btu/h of heat were rejected in lunar and Mars environments with temperatures as cold as 150 F. Tilting the radiator did not cause an observable loss in performance. The RAFT-X endured freeze/thaw cycles and in fact, the heat exchanger was completely frozen three times without any apparent damage to the unit. We were also able to operate the heat exchanger in a partially frozen configuration to throttle the heat rejection rate from 530 Btu/h at low water flow rate down to 300 Btu/h. Finally, the deliberate loss of a single loop heat pipe only degraded the heat rejection performance by about 2 to 5%.

Paul, Heather↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Conceptual Thermal Control System Design for a Lunar Surface Habitat

NASA is currently considering a Surface Habitat (SH) to provide 30-60 day habitability for a crew of up to four to explore the Lunar surface at a South Pole location. The SH concept is comprised of an inflatable volume for the habitable space, a metallic airlock and a descent stage with access to a pressurized rover and other surface assets provided through the airlock. A conceptual architecture for the SH Thermal Control System (TCS) is presented with resource estimates. The TCS design employs a dual loop architecture with a water/propylene glycol mix for the internal crew spaces with a freeze tolerant coolant utilized for the external loop. The internal loop is partitioned into low and moderate temperature service with a sublimator available for operational scenarios prior to thermal radiator deployment (or redeployment). Analytical models are utilized to optimize radiator geometry/orientation as well as the TCS internal/external loop architecture. Heritage hardware is utilized for the TCS concept wherever possible and low mass, dust tolerant, deployable/retractable thermal radiators (in partial gravity) present a technology challenge. The TCS must accommodate infrequent eclipse periods lasting up to 100 hours in duration and mitigation strategies to reduce the energy needed to maintain the SH and associated systems above survival temperature limits during this period are explored. Mitigation options include retractable or freezable radiators, other reconfigurable radiator geometries, alternate fluids, re-generable heat exchangers, temperature excursions, thermal energy storage and optimized inflatable optical properties. Finally, TCS sensitivity to SH Electrical Power System (EPS) growth is considered with both operational and dormant impacts quantified.

Thermal Control↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Conceptual Thermal Control System Design for a Lunar Surface Habitat

Thermal Control↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Thermal Management Challenges and Technology Options for Lunar Regenerative Fuel Cells

Regenerative Fuel Cells (RFCs) enable lunar surface hardware, from pressurized rovers to surface habitats, to survive the lunar night by providing the required energy storage with a lower mass than state of the art battery systems. RFCs consist of fuel cell and electrolyzer electrochemical stack(s), a fluidic balance of plant, and electrical balance of plant. Fuel cells operate by converting the stored chemical energy of reactants into DC electrical power, heat, and water. When supplied DC power from an available external source, electrolyzers regenerate the reactants through electrolysis. The balance of plant is a critical part of the integrated system consisting of many individual components and provides fluid pressure management and conditioning, fluid storage, and thermal management. Component technology development is required to create an RFC system that will be capable of surviving the harsh lunar environment and maximize specific energy (W-hr/kg). One critical component requiring development includes a kW-scale high flux thermal switch. The primary requirement for the thermal switch is the ability to maintain low thermal resistance with the RFC heat rejection interface during the lunar day to maximize heat rejection while switching to a high thermal resistance during the lunar night such that the RFC can conserve as much thermal energy as possible. Different technology including freeze tolerant pumped loop, passive louvers, and variable conductance heat pipes were assessed as potential solutions. NASA is exploring development options through internal and external partnerships to develop this technology critical for a spaceflight RFC system.

Energy Storage↗

NASA NTRS2010

Hollow Fiber Flight Prototype Spacesuit Water Membrane Evaporator Design and Testing

The spacesuit water membrane evaporator (SWME) is being developed to perform thermal control for advanced spacesuits and to take advantage of recent advances in micropore membrane technology. This results in a robust heat-rejection device that is potentially less sensitive to contamination than is the sublimator. The Membrana Celgard X50-215 microporous hollow-fiber (HoFi) membrane was selected after recent extensive testing as the most suitable candidate among commercial alternatives for continued SWME prototype development. The current design was based on a previous design that grouped the fiber layers into stacks, which were separated by small spaces and packaged into a cylindrical shape. This was developed into a full-scale prototype consisting of 14,300 tube bundled into 30 stacks, each of which is formed into a chevron shape and separated by spacers and organized into three sectors of 10 nested stacks. The new design replaced metal components with plastic ones, and has a custom built flight like backpressure valve mounted on the side of the SWME housing to reduce backpressure when fully open. The spacers that provided separation of the chevron fiber stacks were eliminated. Vacuum chamber testing showed improved heat rejection as a function of inlet water temperature and water vapor backpressure compared with the previous design. Other tests pushed the limits of tolerance to freezing and showed suitability to reject heat in a Mars pressure environment with and without a sweep gas. Tolerance to contamination by constituents expected to be found in potable water produced by distillation processes was tested in a conventional way by allowing constituents to accumulate in the coolant as evaporation occurs. For this purpose, the SWME cartridge has endured an equivalent of 30 EVAs exposure and demonstrated minimal performance decline.

Bue, Grant↗

NASA NTRS2011

Hollow Fiber Space Water Membrane Evaporator Flight Prototype Design and Testing

The spacesuit water membrane evaporator (SWME) is being developed to perform thermal control for advanced spacesuits and to take advantage of recent advances in micropore membrane technology. This results in a robust heat-rejection device that is potentially less sensitive to contamination than is the sublimator. The current design was based on a previous design that grouped the fiber layers into stacks, which were separated by small spaces and packaged into a cylindrical shape. This was developed into a full-scale prototype consisting of 14,300 tube bundled into 30 stacks, each of which is formed into a chevron shape and separated by spacers and organized into three sectors of 10 nested stacks. The new design replaced metal components with plastic ones, eliminated the spacers, and has a custom built flight like backpressure valve mounted on the side of the SWME housing to reduce backpressure when fully open. A number of tests were performed in order to improve the strength of the polyurethane header that holds the fibers in place while the system is pressurized. Vacuum chamber testing showed similar heat rejection as a function of inlet water temperature and water vapor backpressure was similar to the previous design. Other tests pushed the limits of tolerance to freezing and showed suitability to reject heat in a Mars pressure environment with and without a sweep gas. Tolerance to contamination by constituents expected to be found in potable water produced by distillation processes was tested in a conventional way by allowing constituents to accumulate in the coolant as evaporation occurs. For this purpose, the SWME cartridge has endured an equivalent of 30 EVAs exposure and demonstrated acceptable performance decline.

Bue, Grant C.↗

DOE OSTI2023

Integration of a Frost Mortality Scheme Into the Demographic Vegetation Model FATES

Frost is damaging to plants when air temperature drops below their tolerance threshold. The set of mechanisms used by cold-tolerant plants to withstand freezing is called “hardening” and typically take place in autumn to protect against winter damage. The recent incorporation of a hardening scheme in the demographic vegetation model FATES opens up the possibility to investigate frost mortality to vegetation. Previously, the hardening scheme was used to improve hydraulic processes in cold-tolerant plants. In this study, we expand upon the existing hardening scheme by implementing hardiness-dependent frost mortality into CLM5.0-FATES to study the impacts of frost on vegetation in temperate and boreal sites from 1950 to 2015. Our results show that the original freezing mortality approach of FATES, where each plant type had a fixed freezing tolerance threshold—an approach common to many other dynamic vegetation models, was restricted to predicting plant type distribution. The main results emerging from the new scheme are a high autumn and spring frost mortality, especially at colder sites, and increasing mid-winter frost mortality due to global warming, especially at warmer sites. We demonstrate that the new frost scheme is a major step forward in dynamically representing vegetation in ESMs by for the first time including a level of frost tolerance that is responding to the environment and includes some level of cost (implicitly) and benefit. By linking hardening and frost mortality in a land surface model, we open new ways to explore the impact of frost events in the context of global warming.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2022

Inclusion of a cold hardening scheme to represent frost tolerance is essential to model realistic plant hydraulics in the Arctic–boreal zone in CLM5.0-FATES-Hydro

As temperatures decrease in autumn, vegetation of temperate and boreal ecosystems increases its tolerance to freezing. This process, known as hardening, results in a set of physiological changes at the molecular level that initiate modifications of cell membrane composition and the synthesis of anti-freeze proteins. Together with the freezing of extracellular water, anti-freeze proteins reduce plant water potentials and xylem conductivity. To represent the responses of vegetation to climate change, land surface schemes increasingly employ “hydrodynamic” models that represent the explicit fluxes of water from soil and through plants. The functioning of such schemes under frozen soil conditions, however, is poorly understood. Nonetheless, hydraulic processes are of major importance in the dynamics of these systems, which can suffer from, e.g., winter “frost drought” events. In this study, we implement a scheme that represents hardening into CLM5.0-FATES-Hydro. FATES-Hydro is a plant hydrodynamics module in FATES, a cohort model of vegetation physiology, growth, and dynamics hosted in CLM5.0. We find that, in frozen systems, it is necessary to introduce reductions in plant water loss associated with hardening to prevent winter desiccation. This work makes it possible to use CLM5.0-FATES-Hydro to model realistic impacts from frost droughts on vegetation growth and photosynthesis, leading to more reliable projections of how northern ecosystems respond to climate change.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

NASA NTRS2010

Hollow Fiber Spacesuit Water Membrane Evaporator Development and Testing for Advanced Spacesuits

The spacesuit water membrane evaporator (SWME) is being developed to perform the thermal control function for advanced spacesuits to take advantage of recent advances in micropore membrane technology in providing a robust heat-rejection device that is potentially less sensitive to contamination than is the sublimator. Principles of a sheet membrane SWME design were demonstrated using a prototypic test article that was tested in a vacuum chamber at JSC in July 1999. The Membrana Celgard X50-215 microporous hollow fiber (HoFi) membrane was selected after recent contamination tests as the most suitable candidate among commercial alternatives for HoFi SWME prototype development. A design that grouped the fiber layers into stacks, which were separated by small spaces and packaged into a cylindrical shape, was developed into a full-scale prototype consisting 14,300 tube bundled into 30 stacks, each of which are formed into a chevron shape and separated by spacers and organized into three sectors of ten nested stacks. Vacuum chamber testing has been performed characterize heat rejection as a function of inlet water temperature and water vapor backpressure and to show contamination resistance to the constituents expected to be found in potable water produced by the distillation processes. Other tests showed the tolerance to freezing and suitability to reject heat in a Mars pressure environment.

Bue, Grant C.↗

DOE OSTI2022

At least it is a dry cold: the global distribution of freeze–thaw and drought stress and the traits that may impart poly-tolerance in conifers

Abstract Conifers inhabit some of the most challenging landscapes where multiple abiotic stressors (e.g., aridity, freezing temperatures) often co-occur. Physiological tolerance to multiple stressors (‘poly-tolerance’) is thought to be rare because exposure to one stress generally limits responses to another through functional trade-offs. However, the capacity to exhibit poly-tolerance may be greater when combined abiotic stressors have similar physiological impacts, such as the disruption of hydraulic function imposed by drought or freezing. Here, we reviewed empirical data in light of theoretical expectations for conifer adaptations to drought and freeze–thaw cycles with particular attention to hydraulic traits of the stem and leaf. Additionally, we examined the commonality and spatial distribution of poly-stress along indices of these combined stressors. We found that locations with the highest values of our poly-stress index (PSi) are characterized by moderate drought and moderate freeze–thaw, and most of the global conifer distribution occupies areas of moderate poly-stress. Among traits examined, we found diverse responses to the stressors. Turgor loss point did not correlate with freeze–thaw or drought stress individually, but did with the PSi, albeit inverse to what was hypothesized. Leaf mass per area was more strongly linked with drought stress than the poly-stress and not at all with freeze–thaw stress. In stems, the water potential causing 50% loss of hydraulic conductivity became more negative with increasing drought stress and poly-stress but did not correlate with freeze–thaw stress. For these traits, we identified a striking lack of coverage for substantial portions of species ranges, particularly at the upper boundaries of their respective PSis, demonstrating a critical gap in our understanding of trait prevalence and plasticity along these stress gradients. Future research should investigate traits that confer tolerance to both freeze–thaw and drought stress in a wide range of species across broad geographic scales.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2021

Responses of the Plant Cell Wall to Sub-Zero Temperatures: A Brief Update

Our general understanding of plant responses to sub-zero temperatures focuses on mechanisms that mitigate stress to the plasma membrane. The plant cell wall receives comparatively less attention, and questions surrounding its role in mitigating freezing injury remain unresolved. Despite recent molecular discoveries that provide insight into acclimation responses, the goal of reducing freezing injury in herbaceous and woody crops remains elusive. This is likely due to the complexity associated with adaptations to low temperatures. Understanding how leaf cell walls of herbaceous annuals promote tissue tolerance to ice does not necessarily lead to understanding how meristematic tissues are protected from freezing by tissue-level barriers formed by cell walls in overwintering tree buds. In this mini-review, we provide an overview of biological ice nucleation and explain how plants control the spatiotemporal location of ice formation. We discuss how sugars and pectin side chains alleviate adhesive injury that develops at sub-zero temperatures between the matrix polysaccharides and ice. The importance of site-specific cell-wall elasticity to promote tissue expansion for ice accommodation and control of porosity to impede ice growth and promote supercooling will be presented. How specific cold-induced proteins modify plant cell walls to mitigate freezing injury will also be discussed. The opinions presented in this report emphasize the importance of a plant’s developmental physiology when characterizing mechanisms of freezing survival.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2024

Functional in vitro diversity of an intrinsically disordered plant protein during freeze–thawing is encoded by its structural plasticity

Intrinsically disordered late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins play a central role in the tolerance of plants and other organisms to dehydration brought upon, for example, by freezing temperatures, high salt concentration, drought or desiccation, and many LEA proteins have been found to stabilize dehydration-sensitive cellular structures. Their conformational ensembles are highly sensitive to the environment, allowing them to undergo conformational changes and adopt ordered secondary and quaternary structures and to participate in formation of membraneless organelles. In an interdisciplinary approach, we discovered how the functional diversity of the Arabidopsis thaliana LEA protein COR15A found in vitro is encoded in its structural repertoire, with the stabilization of membranes being achieved at the level of secondary structure and the stabilization of enzymes accomplished by the formation of oligomeric complexes. We provide molecular details on intra- and inter-monomeric helix–helix interactions, demonstrate how oligomerization is driven by an α-helical molecular recognition feature (α-MoRF) and provide a rationale that the formation of noncanonical, loosely packed, right-handed coiled-coils might be a recurring theme for homo- and hetero-oligomerization of LEA proteins.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

NASA NTRS1965

Factors affecting the rate of killing of escherichia coli by repeated freezing and thawing.

Repeated freezing and thawing of cultures of Escherichia coli grown in minimal medium and frozen without carbon source

FREEZING↗

DOE OSTI2020

A Garnet-Type Solid-Electrolyte-Based Molten Lithium–Molybdenum–Iron(II) Chloride Battery with Advanced Reaction Mechanism

Solid-electrolyte-based molten-metal batteries have attracted considerable attention for grid-scale energy storage. Although ZEBRA batteries are considered one of the promising candidates, they still have the potential concern of metal particle growth and ion exchange with the β”-Al 2 O 3 electrolyte. Herein, a Li 6.4 La 3 Zr 1.4 Ta 0.6 O 12 solid-electrolyte-based molten lithium–molybdenum–iron(II) chloride battery (denoted as Li–Mo–FeCl 2 ) operated at temperature of 250 °C, comprising a mixture of Fe and LiCl cathode materials, a Li anode, a garnet-type Li-ion ceramic electrolyte, and Mo additive, is designed to overcome these obstacles. Different from conventional battery reaction mechanisms, this battery revolutionarily synchronizes the reversible Fe–Mo alloying–dealloying reactions with the delithiation–lithiation processes, meaning that the porous Mo framework derived from Fe–Mo alloy simultaneously suppresses the growth of pure Fe particles. By adopting a Li anode and a Li-ion ceramic electrolyte, the corrosion problem between the cathode and the solid electrolyte is overcome. With similar battery cost ($12 kWh –1 ), the theoretical energy density of Li–Mo–FeCl 2 battery surpasses that of a Na–FeCl 2 ZEBRA battery over 25%, to 576 Wh kg –1 and 2216 Wh L –1 , respectively. Experimental results further prove this cell has excellent cycling performance (472 mAh g LiCl –1 after 300 cycles, 50 mg active material) and strong tolerance against the overcharge–overdischarge (3–1.6 V) and freezing–thawing (25–250 °C) incidents.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2022

Temporal regulation of cold transcriptional response in switchgrass

Switchgrass low-land ecotypes have significantly higher biomass but lower cold tolerance compared to up-land ecotypes. Understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying cold response, including the ones at transcriptional level, can contribute to improving tolerance of high-yield switchgrass under chilling and freezing environmental conditions. Here, by analyzing an existing switchgrass transcriptome dataset, the temporal cis- regulatory basis of switchgrass transcriptional response to cold is dissected computationally. We found that the number of cold-responsive genes and enriched Gene Ontology terms increased as duration of cold treatment increased from 30 min to 24 hours, suggesting an amplified response/cascading effect in cold-responsive gene expression. To identify genomic sequences likely important for regulating cold response, machine learning models predictive of cold response were established using k -mer sequences enriched in the genic and flanking regions of cold-responsive genes but not non-responsive genes. These k -mers, referred to as putative cis -regulatory elements (pCREs) are likely regulatory sequences of cold response in switchgrass. There are in total 655 pCREs where 54 are important in all cold treatment time points. Consistent with this, eight of 35 known cold-responsive CREs were similar to top-ranked pCREs in the models and only these eight were important for predicting temporal cold response. More importantly, most of the top-ranked pCREs were novel sequences in cold regulation. Our findings suggest additional sequence elements important for cold-responsive regulation previously not known that warrant further studies.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

NASA NTRS1977

Shuttle Spacelab Core Equipment Freezer

This paper describes the preliminary design of a Shuttle Spacelab Core Equipment Freezer. The unit will provide the capability to freeze and store many experiment specimens. Two models of the unit are planned. One model provides storage at -70 C; the other model will provide -70 C storage, a freeze dry capability, storage at a selectable temperature in the range of 0 C to -70 C, and means of maintaining close temperature tolerances. In addition an exchanger loop will be available at 4 C for cooling of a centrifuge and a remote storage compartment. A test tube holder, a dish holder and thermal capacitors for rapid freezing of large specimens will also be provided. A Stirling Cycle was selected as the active refrigerator for minimum cost and weight.

Copeland, R. J.↗

DOE OSTI2024

From sensing to acclimation: The role of membrane lipid remodeling in plant responses to low temperatures

Abstract Low temperatures pose a dramatic challenge to plant viability. Chilling and freezing disrupt cellular processes, forcing metabolic adaptations reflected in alterations to membrane compositions. Understanding the mechanisms of plant cold tolerance is increasingly important due to anticipated increases in the frequency, severity, and duration of cold events. This review synthesizes current knowledge on the adaptive changes of membrane glycerolipids, sphingolipids, and phytosterols in response to cold stress. We delve into key mechanisms of low-temperature membrane remodeling, including acyl editing and headgroup exchange, lipase activity, and phytosterol abundance changes, focusing on their impact at the subcellular level. Furthermore, we tabulate and analyze current gycerolipidomic data from cold treatments of Arabidopsis, maize, and sorghum. This analysis highlights congruencies of lipid abundance changes in response to varying degrees of cold stress. Ultimately, this review aids in rationalizing observed lipid fluctuations and pinpoints key gaps in our current capacity to fully understand how plants orchestrate these membrane responses to cold stress.

Plant Sciences↗