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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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DOE OSTI2023

Smart Manufacturing Pathways for Industrial Decarbonization and Thermal Process Intensification

Rapid decarbonization is fast becoming the primary environmental and sustainability initiative for many economic sectors. Industry consumes more than 30 % of all primary energy in the United States and accounts for nearly 25 % of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. More than 70 % of energy consumed by the industrial sector is related to thermal processes, which are also the largest contributors of carbon emissions, overwhelmingly due to the combustion of fossil fuels. Thermal process intensification (TPI) seeks to dramatically improve the energy performance of thermal systems through technology pillars focusing on alternative energy sources and processes, supplemental technologies, and waste heat management. The impacts of TPI have significant overlap with the goals of industrial decarbonization (ID) that seeks to phase out all GHG emissions from industrial activities. Emerging supplemental technologies such as smart manufacturing (SM) and the industrial internet of things (IoT) enable significant opportunities for the optimization of manufacturing processes. Combining strategies for TPI and ID with SM and IoT can open and enhance existing opportunities for saving time and energy via approaches such as tighter control of temperature zones, better adjustment of thermal systems for variations in production levels and feedstock properties, and increased process throughput. Data collected by smart processes will also enable new advanced solutions such as digital twins and machine learning algorithms to further improve thermal system savings. Herein, this paper examines the individual pathways of TPI, ID, and SM and how the combination of all three can accelerate energy and GHG reductions.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Regenerative Fuel Cell System (Cooperative Research and Development Final Report, CRADA Number CRD-16-635)

Grid energy storage is required to maintain reliable electricity delivery from energy producers to their customers. As electrical loads on the grid change throughout the day, stored energy supplies electricity during increased power demand periods. Further, as more renewable and alternative energy sources are added, energy storage will maximize the usefulness of these technologies. Currently, the United States has over 24.6 GW of grid storage, about 2% of the total electrical production capacity. About 95% of energy storage comes from pumped hydro. However, pumped hydro energy storage is dependent on existing geographic features, making it difficult to integrate with widespread renewable energy sources. As energy demands continue to expand, and more renewable energy (i.e. wind and solar) is added to the grid, new energy storage technologies will be needed that are not dependent on geographic features. Battery technologies can provide energy storage for some applications, but are not economically well-suited for long duration charge/discharges, such as load-leveling of renewable energy. Consequently, development of new energy storage devices will augment the existing grid and reduce the capital investment in construction upgrades. As ever-increasing mandates for renewable energy are implemented, lower-cost energy storage solutions for renewable energy will be necessary to keep electricity costs low for consumers.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

The Technical and Economic Potential of the H2@Scale Hydrogen Concept within the United States

The U.S. energy system is evolving as society and technologies change. Renewable electricity generation - especially from wind and solar - is growing rapidly, and alternative energy sources are being developed and implemented across the residential, commercial, transportation, and industrial sectors to take advantage of their cost, security, and health benefits. Systemic changes present numerous challenges to grid resiliency and energy affordability, creating a need for synergistic solutions that satisfy multiple applications while yielding system-wide cost and emissions benefits. One such solution is an integrated hydrogen energy system. This is the focus of H2@Scale - a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) initiative led by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Hydrogen and Fuel Technologies Office. H2@Scale brings together stakeholders to advance affordable hydrogen production, transport, storage, and utilization in multiple energy sectors. The H2@Scale concept involves hydrogen as an energy intermediate. Hydrogen can be produced from various conventional and renewable energy sources including as a responsive load on the electric grid. Hydrogen has many current applications and many more potential applications, such as energy for transportation - used directly in fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs), as a feedstock for synthetic fuels, and to upgrade oil and biomass - feedstock for industry (e.g., for ammonia production, metals refining, and other end uses), heat for industry and buildings, and electricity storage. Owing to its flexibility and fungibility, a hydrogen intermediate could link energy sources that have surplus availability to markets that require energy or chemical feedstocks, benefiting both. This document builds upon a growing body of analyses of hydrogen as an energy intermediate by reporting the results from our initial analysis of the potential impacts of the H2@Scale vision by the mid-21 st century for the 48 contiguous U.S. states. Previous estimates have been based on expert elicitation and focused on hydrogen demands. We build upon them, first, by estimating hydrogen’s serviceable consumption potential for possible hydrogen applications and the technical potential for producing hydrogen from various resources. We define the serviceable consumption potential as the quantity of hydrogen that would be consumed to serve the portion of the market that could be captured without considering economics (i.e., if the price of hydrogen were $0/kg over an extended period); thus, it can be considered an upper bound for the size of the market. We define the technical potential as the resource potential constrained by real-world geography and system performance, but not by economics. We then compare the cumulative serviceable consumption potential with the technical potential of a number of possible sources. Second, we estimate economic potential: the quantity of hydrogen at an equilibrium price at which suppliers are willing to sell and consumers are willing to buy the same quantity of hydrogen. We believe this method provides a deeper understanding than was available in the previous analyses. We develop economic potentials for multiple scenarios across various market and technology-advancement assumptions.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2021

CONVERSION OF COAL WASTES AND MUNICIPAL SOLIDS MIXTURES BY PYROLYSIS TORREFACTION AND ENTRAINED FLOW GASIFICATION

Hundreds of millions of tons of underutilized high-ash, low-energy-density bituminous and anthracite waste coal can be found in the U.S. These stockpiles contribute to water pollution from leaching that is harmful to waterways downstream of the piles. Conventional circulating fluidized combustion power plants use this coal to generate energy but emit toxic trace metals into groundwater (e.g., lead, mercury, arsenic). In addition, refuse-derived fuel (RDF) including municipal solid waste (MSW), biomass, waste plastics, and industrial waste are an enormous and untapped resource that is currently filling landfills or incinerated for low-quality energy with poor emissions. Mainstream Engineering has developed a combined pyrolysis torrefaction entrained flow gasification (PT-EFG) process that utilizes combined waste coal and RDF to create an alternative energy source, increasing energy independence and security and reducing the environmental burden from coal mines and processing facilities. Mainstream’s self-sustaining PT process converts RDF into feedstocks that can be pulverized and handled like conventional coal, enabling combined RDF-waste coal co-feeding into an EFG. The EFG operates at temperatures high enough to slag the ash completely, destroying any residual polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), converting ash into nonporous vitrified slag or non-leachable ash, and generating high-hydrogen syngas for power generation or liquid fuels. During Phase II, Mainstream successfully demonstrated PT of biomass and MSW into a coal-like feedstock, which was co-gasified with waste coal in an EFG in a combined PT EFG process

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2024

Optimizing tradeoffs implicit during bioenergy crop improvement: Understanding the effect of altered cell wall and sugar content on sorghum-associated pathogenic bacteria

Plant-derived production of renewable fuels and chemicals has the potential to reduce fossil fuel dependency, increase domestic energy security, enhance US farming and agricultural economic opportunities, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Realizing the potential of these alternate energy sources necessitates the development of high biomass-yielding crops. To limit competition with the production of food and feed, these specialized crop varieties, many of which will harbor modifications to cell wall structures and display altered carbon partitioning, will be cultivated on marginal land that does not provide ideal growing conditions. Consequently, the plants are anticipated to be more vulnerable to diseases.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Institute for Catalysis in Energy Processes (ICEP) (Final Report)

The Institute for Catalysis in Energy Processes (ICEP) was a multi-PI program located at the Northwestern University Center for Catalysis and Surface Science from 2006-2024. Over several renewal cycles and several organizing themes, ICEP addressed fundamental questions in catalysis science. In turn, the scientific questions addressed were directly relevant to the efficient use of the nation’s resources to produce fuels and commodity chemicals, harness alternate energy sources for chemical reactions such as light or electricity, reduce emissions and waste, and minimize the impact of our use of plastics. Selective oxidation, (oxidative) dehydrogenation, deNOx, CO 2 reduction, hydrogen release, polymer decomposition / depolymerization, and many other reactions of intense interest to the US Department of Energy were studied in the center. Major ICEP strengths were in catalyst synthesis, in measurements that elucidated catalyst properties, in reaction mechanisms and kinetics, and in predictive theory and modeling. ICEP researchers were often the inventors or developers of materials and methods that were brought to bear on the Institute’s catalytic systems. Key characterization tools advanced through this project included resonance Raman and related techniques, sum frequency generation, and X-ray standing wave spectroscopy. Center members relied extensively on computational tools such as density functional theory and microkinetic modeling to fully investigate catalyst structures and catalytic mechanisms. ICEP researchers were early developers of atomic layer deposition (ALD) for catalyst synthesis and were early pioneers of metal organic frameworks for catalysis. ICEP innovations are found in areas of intense research such as single-atom catalysts, catalytic deconstruction of plastics, and catalytic MOFs, to name a few. Research areas initiated by ICEP indirectly led to DOE EFRCs, startup companies, and other achievements. Over its 18 years of existence, ICEP involved two different PIs (Stair and Notestein) and 24 senior investigators across several academic disciplines at Northwestern University. There were tight collaborations with Argonne National Laboratory, including specialized equipment and experiments permanently located there. The center supported ~400 person-years of effort by graduate students and postdocs, either directly through DOE support or indirectly by leveraging independent support provided to the trainees, e.g. through the NSF GRFP or internal fellowships. The project resulted in 328 manuscripts and numerous conference presentations.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2026

Pumped Thermal Energy Storage Using Low-Cost Particles and a Fluid Bed Heat Exchanger for Maximum Power Efficiency

Robust, efficient, cost-effective long-duration electricity storage (LDES) solutions can enhance grid resiliency, support existing transmission and distribution infrastructure, and enable a greater share of low-cost, variable alternative energy sources to penetrate the market. To meet this need, the project team at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory developed a transformative LDES system based on pumped thermal energy storage (TES) using low-cost particles and a fluid bed heat exchanger for maximum power efficiency (PUMP). The PUMP system is composed of high-temperature, low-cost particle TES coupled with an advanced pressurized fluid bed heat exchanger (PFB HX) that supports a high-efficiency pumped thermal energy storage (PTES) system integrated with concentrating solar thermal power (CSP). The PUMP project developed and de-risked a PFB HX and particle CSP system intended to be integrated with reversible turbomachinery and a modeling tool to assess PTES cost and performance.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Self-Sustainable IoT-Based Remote Sensing Powered by Energy Harvesting Using Stacked Piezoelectric Transducer and Thermoelectric Generator

We propose a self-powered remote multi-sensing system for traffic sensing which is powered by the collective energy harvested from the mechanical vibration of the road caused by the passing vehicles and from the temperature gradient between the asphalt of the road and the soil underneath. A stacked piezoelectric transducer converts mechanical vibrations into electrical energy and a thermoelectric generator harvests the thermal energy from the thermal gradient. Electrical energy signals from the stacked piezoelectric transducer and the thermoelectric generators are converted into usable DC power to recharge the battery using AC-DC and DC-DC converters working simultaneously. The multi-sensing system comprises an embedded system with a microcontroller that acquires data from the sensors and sends the sensory data to an IoT transceiver which transmits the data as RF packets to an ethernet gateway. The gateway converts the RF packets into Internet Protocol (IP) packets and sends them to a remote server. Laboratory and road-testing results showed over 98% sensory data accuracy with the system functioning solely powered by the energy harvested from the alternative energy sources. The successful maximum transmission distance obtained between the IoT, and the gateway was approximately 1 mile, which is a considerable transmission distance achieved in an urban environment. Successful operation of the self-powered multi-sensing system under both laboratory and road conditions contributes considerably to the fields of energy harvesting and self-powered remote sensing systems. The energy flow chart and efficiency for the steps in the system were found to be mechanical power from vehicles to the energy harvester of 0.25%, stacked PZT transducer efficiency was found to be 37%, and for the TEGs the efficiency is 11%. AC-to-DC and DC-to-DC converters’ efficiencies were found to be 90% and 11%. The wireless communication RF transceiver efficiency was found to be 62.5%.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2020

Modern Muon Physics: Selected Issues

The muon was discovered almost hundred years ago, but still remains largely a mystery. For a long time, the only difference between a muon and an electron was the approximately 200 times greater mass of the muon. However, with the later discovery of the charm quantum number, the muon played a decisive role in the formulation of the Standard Model of elementary particles, determining together with muon neutrino and the strange s and the charm c quarks the second generation of particles of this model. The equality of the reaction constant of muon decay with the constant of the vector interaction of beta-decay played a decisive role in the formulation of the conservation of the vector current (CVC) of the weak interaction of elementary particles. Processes involving muons testified in favor of the partial conservation of the axial current of weak interaction (PCAC), that is, one pion exchange in the interaction of the lepton and hadron currents. It was the muon that gave a rise to hopes of creating an alternative energy source within the framework of Muon Catalyzed Fusion (μCF). The possible realization of this process in the future as the intensity of muon beams increases can revolutionired energy supply. Nuclear fission by muons and the study of heavy-nucleus mesoatoms introduced muon physics into several separate branches of physical research.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Recent Advances in Pipeline Integrity for Transporting Blended Hydrogen-Natural Gas

To achieve US decarbonization goals, hydrogen is being considered as an alternative energy source to reduce carbon emissions. Blending hydrogen into existing natural gas pipelines is an intuitive first step to enable near term emission reductions. However, there are numerous challenges and uncertainties that complicate the transition to transporting hydrogen long-distance through existing natural gas pipelines. The main challenge is hydrogen embrittlement (HE), which reduces the ductility, fracture toughness and fatigue resistance of pipeline steels. This work delivers a technical review on HE effects on the material properties of pipeline carbon steels, such as Grade B, X52, X65, X70, X80, and X100. An important aspect of laboratory tests to capture the HE effect is the hydrogen test environment. This includes hydrogen pre-charged specimens tested in air and specimens tested in a hydrogen gas environment. A review of the mechanical properties of pipeline steel in different hydrogen environments determined through tensile testing is given first, which includes HE effects on yield strength, ultimate tensile strength, and ductility for blended hydrogen-natural gas pipelines. Then, the HE effects on fracture toughness and fatigue crack growth resistance are discussed. Last, impacts of HE to pipeline integrity and major technical challenges are discussed.

: Hydrogen Embrittlement↗
DOE OSTI2021

Net Zero Energy Model for Wastewater Treatment Plants

The primary objective of this study is to achieve net-zero energy (NZE) wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) by utilizing energy efficiency opportunities (EEO), combined heat and power (CHP) systems, and other renewable energy (RE) sources, e.g., solar, water, and wind powers. Herein, this study discusses an innovative energy solution for WWTPs in the United States, and one of the WWTPs with a flow capacity of 1.5 million gallons per day (MGD) was selected as a case study. An optimization tool, Hybrid Optimization of Multiple Energy Resources (HOMER) software, is used in this study to find the best energy system configuration to run the system. An energy audit for one WWTP was conducted in early 2020 and the report is used to do this study. The proposed EEOs were able to reduce WWTP energy consumption by about 11%. The excess anaerobic digester gas was utilized in a CHP system to cover about 42% of the facility’s consumption. Also, 3% of the utility energy consumption can be claimed by microturbines in the aeration tanks. Another two renewable energy systems, solar photovoltaic (PV) with 29% and water turbines with 15%, contribute to covering 100% of the WWTP energy consumption and achieving an NZE WWTP.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Feasibility and Compatibility of Alternative Fuels in the U.S. Rail Sector: Technoeconomic, Lifecycle, and Supply Chain Analysis

The U.S. rail sector is a cornerstone of the United States’ freight transportation system, responsible for moving approximately 40% of long-distance freight ton-miles each year (AAR, 2025). Freight demand is projected to grow over time (BTS, 2017) thereby necessitating the investigation of alternative fuels that can sustain operational efficiency while reducing emissions and cost impacts. At the same time, it is important to explore alternative fuels as new sources of energy that can increase energy security and resilience for this sector. This report investigates the feasibility and compatibility of seven alternative fuels in the U.S. rail sector, focusing on biofuels and fuels from other renewable energy sources. The study evaluates alternative fuel pathways, considering their technical, economic, and environmental aspects to provide stakeholders with a comprehensive understanding of potential solutions.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2020

The Potential to Improve the Value of U.S. Geothermal Electricity Generation Through Flexible Operations

Geothermal power plants have typically been operated as baseload plants. The recent expansion of wind and solar power generation creates a potential opportunity to increase the value of geothermal generation through flexible operations. In recent years, California’s wholesale electricity markets have exhibited frequent, short-term periods of negative pricing, indicating that additional flexibility would be valued in the market. Here, we examine local nodal hourly price records at all geothermal plants located in the western United States. We describe how the frequency and temporal characteristics of negative pricing episodes have changed over recent years. Based on these price series, we calculate the value of multiple strategies of flexible operations. Additionally, we use the estimates of future prices, developed through a capacity-expansion model and a dispatch model, to explore how the value of such flexible operations might change along with further penetration of variable renewable power sources. Based on the historical pricing records, we find that simple curtailment of operations during negative pricing episodes could increase the average energy value by 1–2 dollars per MWh and that allowing for increased production during limited high-priced hours, in addition to curtailment during negative priced hours, could potentially double the increase in value (up to 4 dollars per MWh). The forward-looking simulations indicate reduced values of flexibility from geothermal power despite higher penetrations of variable renewable energy. This result highlights the possibility that increasing flexibility options throughout the system may counteract the influence of increased variable renewable energy deployment.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

The Kinetic Consequences of Water on Catalytic Methane Pyrolysis

Hydrogen production from biomass and natural gas has emerged as a prominent research area in response to the growing demand for energy from alternative sources that minimize CO 2 emissions. In this study, we investigate the impact of water, which is present in and generated from biomass-derived streams, on carbon nanotube (CNT) growth and hydrogen production during methane decomposition using Ni–Mo/MgO as a catalyst. We reveal here that the role of water on CNT growth is highly complex; its effect depends on the stage of growth at which the water is incorporated. When water is introduced at the beginning of methane decomposition ( t = 0 h), methane conversion rates are negatively impacted. We hypothesize that water inhibits the significant phase changes the Ni–Mo/MgO catalyst undergoes during catalyst carburization. In contrast, the incorporation of a small percentage of water after a stabilization period ( t = 3 h) results in methane conversion rate enhancements that scale with the introduced water partial pressure as water selectively reacts with amorphous carbon deposits that lead to catalyst deactivation, thus prolonging the lifetime of some of the most active sites. Moreover, water incorporation after stabilization significantly reduces the apparent activation energy. Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations reveal that water preferentially interacts with carbon fragments on the catalyst surface to remove carbon deposits with a barrier lower than that required for methane activation, further supporting its role in cleaning active sites on the catalyst surface. Characterization of the resulting carbon nanotubes reveals the formation of more graphitic materials produced in the presence of water, highlighting the impact of water on nanotube properties. These results provide clarity toward the many ways in which water, or cofeeding of biomass-derived materials, may impact catalytic methane pyrolysis rates.

carbon nanotubes↗
DOE OSTI2020

Performance of an Isobaric Hybrid Compressed Air Energy Storage System at Minimum Entropy Generation

Efficient, large-scale, and cost-effective energy storage systems provide a means of managing the inherent intermittency of renewable energy sources and drastically increasing their utilization. Compressed air energy storage (CAES) and its derivative architectures have received much attention as a viable solution; however, optimization objectives for these systems have not been thoroughly investigated in the literature. In this work, a hybrid thermal and compressed air energy storage (HT-CAES) system is investigated that mitigates the shortcomings of the otherwise attractive conventional CAES systems and its derivatives—shortcomings such as strict geological locations, low energy densities, and the production of greenhouse gas emissions. The HT-CAES system allows a portion of the available energy to operate a compressor and the remainder to be converted and stored in the form of heat through joule/resistive heating in a high-temperature, sensible, thermal energy storage medium. Internally reversible and irreversible HT-CAES system assumptions were investigated, in addition to regenerative and non-regenerative design configurations. Several system optimization criteria were examined—including maximum energy efficiency, maximum exergy efficiency, maximum work output, and minimum entropy generation—with a focus on whether the latter may lead to conclusive design guidelines in a real system. It is shown that an HT-CAES system designed based on a minimum entropy generation objective may operate at a lower energy and exergy efficiency as well as lower output power than otherwise achievable. Furthermore, optimization objective equivalence is shown to be limited to certain design conditions.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Towards deep computer vision for in-line defect detection in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell materials

Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) fuel cells are a promising source of alternative energy. However, their production is limited by a lack of well-established methods for quality control of their constituent materials like the membrane-electrode assembly during roll-to-roll manufacturing. One potential solution is the implementation of deep learning methods to detect unwanted defects through their detection in scanned images. Here we explore the detection of defects like scratches, pinholes, and scuffs in a sample dataset of PEM optical images using two deep learning algorithms: Patch Distribution Modeling (PaDiM) for unsupervised anomaly detection and Faster-RCNN for supervised object detection. Both methods achieve scores on performance metrics (ROC-AUC and PRO-AUC for PaDiM and AP for Faster-RCNN) that are comparable to their scores on benchmark datasets. These methods also have the potential to detect a wider range of defects compared to IR thermography and previous optical inspection methods. Overall, deep learning shows promise at detecting relevant defects of interest and has the potential to achieve real-time defect detection.

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION↗
DOE OSTI2025

Numerical Investigation of Susceptor-Catalyst Design for Ethylene Generation in Radio Frequency Based Reactors

Ethylene is the most widely produced petrochemical component in the world. Whether reactors are heated directly or indirectly via steam, manufacturers use economies of scale to overcome inherent thermodynamic inefficiencies when burning fossil fuels. While allowing large-scale operations to use alternative sources of energy and raw materials, new methods of supplying energy to chemical reactor systems can reduce the energy waste produced by conventional processes. One viable method for effectively supplying energy to reactor systems is electromagnetic (EM) induction heating. Using the properties of radio frequency (RF) waves, heterogeneous catalysts can be precisely targeted for heating inside reactors. Site-selective heating can greatly lower the energy requirements of the process by supplying heat to reaction sites while reducing needless heat transfer elsewhere. In this study, a microscale model was used to help create guidelines for susceptors and catalysts to improve ethylene production. The oxidative dehydrogenation of ethane is investigated by utilizing several catalysts and potential catalyst/susceptor combinations, with heat provided by an EM susceptor. Having the susceptors and catalyst function separately results in higher gradients in both heat and mass transfer, which drives transport through the catalyst region, while still providing adequate heating for endothermic reactions. However, using a susceptive core with a catalyst covering produces the maximum ethylene concentration.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗