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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 397 records · Page 22
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

High Performance Solvent for NGCC Flue Gas CO 2 Capture (Final Technical Report)

Amine-based solvent absorption is the most mature and reliable technology for large scale CO 2 capture, dating back to the 1930s when monoethanolamine (MEA) was used to treat acid gases from oil refineries. However, while strategic advancements have optimized the CO2 capture process, the cost of capture remains high, where current estimates suggest that CO 2 capture costs are around $\$$72/tonne of CO 2 . To address this, solvent development and optimization have become a focus of current research. This project sought to develop a high-performance solvent to reduce the overall cost of CO 2 capture from NGCC flue gas. Here, solvent optimization focused on: (1) reducing the energy required for CO 2 desorption in a reboiler, (2) improving CO 2 absorption and desorption reaction kinetics, (3) improving solvent stability, and (4) reducing environmental impacts. Susteon has developed and evaluated a promoted solvent, Sustenol™, for NGCC flue gas CO 2 capture. The optimized Sustenol™ also shows a higher dynamic CO 2 absorption capacity of ~0.5 mol CO2 /mol amine compared to 0.25 mol CO2 /mol amine for 30 wt% MEA. Additionally, the solvent is oxidatively, thermally and hydrothermally stable, which leads to lower solvent loss and emissions. These advancements have resulted in a solvent regeneration energy of 2.16 GJ/tonne of CO 2 which is >30% lower than current state-of-the-art commercial and emerging solvents. Combined with empirical data from the bench and pilot scale testing, this preliminary TEA study indicated the cost of CO 2 capture by Sustenol™ for 97% CO 2 removal at $\$$54/tonne and for 90% removal at $\$$49/tonne, with a pathway to achieve $\$$45/tonne of CO 2 with continued process and solvent advancements. Susteon has developed a technology roadmap to reduce the cost of CO 2 capture to <$\$$45/tonne for NGCC flue gas. Susteon plans to derisk this technology for commercial deployment through comprehensive solvent degradation testing, long-term testing in a pilot plant at 5 tonne CO2 /day and demonstration scale testing at 100 tonne CO2 /day with NGCC flue gas and engineering design studies to qualify Sustenol™ as a drop-in replacement solvent.

03 NATURAL GAS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Western Regional Direct Air Capture Hub Pre-Feasibility Study

Chevron New Energies, a division of Chevron U.S.A. Inc. (Recipient), led a multi organizational team that included direct air capture (DAC) technology companies, an engineering firm, a university, and a grant administrator to explore the feasibility of a DAC hub initially focused on Kern County, California.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2026

High-Accuracy and High-Stability Fiber-Optic Temperature Sensors for Coal Fired Advanced Energy

A research team at Michigan State University, led by Dr. Ming Han, has developed a revolutionary fiber-optic thermometer for use in next-generation coal-fired power plants. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, this new sensor is designed to measure extremely high temperatures with unmatched accuracy and long-term stability. Unlike conventional optical sensors that can give false readings due to mechanical strain and often drift out of calibration at high heat, this new technology uses a sealed gas chamber as its core. By measuring the temperature-dependent properties of the gas (air or argon), the sensor’s readings remain absolute and reliable, completely unaffected by the physical stresses on the surrounding equipment. The breakthrough design eliminates the need for complex and costly correction systems. It represents a fundamental shift in sensing technology, paving the way for a primary thermometer that maintains calibration and provides foundational accuracy essential for advanced energy systems.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2025

Co-Firing Switchgrass and Waste Coal in A Power Plant: A Techno-Economic and Life Cycle Evaluation for The Ohio River Valley (SWITCH) (Final Technical Report for Ohio State/FE0032204)

Abandoned coal mine lands (AMLs) represent one of the most persistent environmental challenges in the United States. Prior to the enactment of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) in 1977, coal mining operations were not legally required to reclaim disturbed lands, leaving behind approximately 500,000 AML sites nationwide. These sites pose severe environmental and health risks, including acid mine drainage, soil and water contamination, and spontaneous combustion of waste coal piles. Millions of Americans live within one mile of these AMLs, underscoring the urgency of remediation. Traditional reclamation practices, such as planting cool-season grasses, often fail to fully restore ecological function or leverage the economic potential of these lands. This project addressed these challenges by developing integrated strategies for resource recovery, land reclamation, and sustainable energy production. This project evaluated an integrated strategy to convert this liability into an opportunity by recovering waste coal and co-firing it with switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) cultivated on reclaimed or marginal AML areas in existing coal-fired power plants. Switchgrass not only provides a renewable feedstock but also aids in land reclamation and carbon sequestration. 1) Remote Sensing and Machine Learning for Waste Coal Identification Using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and supervised classification, we applied four machine learning models to detect historical waste coal piles. Random Forest achieved the highest accuracy (precision: 86%, recall: 77%). Time-series analysis revealed gradual vegetation recovery since 1986, indicating natural reclamation processes in historical sites, while active mining areas showed ongoing disturbance. This workflow enables scalable monitoring and prioritization of reclamation efforts. 2) UAS-Based Stockpile Volume Estimation To quantify recoverable waste coal, we evaluated Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) equipped with Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and multispectral sensors. Structure-from-Motion (SfM) photogrammetry combined with interpolated Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) achieved strong agreement with LiDAR reference volumes (Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) ≈147 m 3 , Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) ≈2%). Sensitivity analysis confirmed that spatial resolution significantly influences accuracy, emphasizing the need for high-resolution data for precise volume estimation. This approach offers a scalable, cost-effective, and accurate alternative to conventional ground-based surveys. 3) Switchgrass Cultivation for Bioenergy and Water Quality Improvement We assessed the hydrological and water quality impacts of converting AMLs to switchgrass production areas using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). Results showed that converting 10% of the watershed area into the switchgrass production zone reduced streamflow by 3.1%, total suspended solids by 18.1%, total nitrogen by 7.6%, and total phosphorus by 6.2%, while achieving biomass yields of 8.6–9.2 metric tons per hectare. These findings highlight switchgrass as a dual-benefit strategy for land reclamation and bioenergy feedstock production. 4) Integrated Co-Firing and CCS for Carbon-Negative Power Generation We modeled co-firing scenarios using the Power Plant Flexible Model (PPFM) to evaluate plant efficiency, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). Without carbon capture and storage (CCS), increasing switchgrass co-firing ratios reduced LCOE from $\$$150/MWh at 0% biomass to $\$$110/MWh at full substitution. Under CCS, costs remained higher (~$\$$250/MWh at 0% biomass) but decreased to $\$$200/MWh at 100% biomass, while enabling net-zero or carbon-negative electricity due to switchgrass sequestration benefits. Although CCS introduced efficiency penalties, pairing it with biomass co-firing offset these impacts and maximized climate benefits. Overall, optimizing co-firing ratios between 60-100%, supported by reliable logistics and storage strategies, emerged as a practical pathway to balance affordability, sustainability, and net-zero or negative GHG emissions while promoting productive reuse of AMLs.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2020

Perspective on Some Recent and Future Developments in Casimir Interactions

Here, we present a critical review of recent developments in Casimir physics motivated by discoveries of novel materials. Specifically, topologically nontrivial properties of the graphene family, Chern and topological insulators, and Weyl semimetals have diverse manifestations in the distance dependence, presence of fundamental constants, magnitude, and sign of the Casimir interaction. Limited studies of the role of nonlinear optical properties in the interaction are also reviewed. We show that, since many new materials have greatly enhanced the nonlinear optical response, new efficient pathways for investigation of the characteristic regimes of the Casimir force need to be explored, which are expected to lead to new discoveries. Recent progress in the dynamical Casimir effect is also reviewed and we argue that nonlinear media can open up new directions in this field as well.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Data Augmentation for Neutron Spectrum Unfolding with Neural Networks

Neural networks require a large quantity of training spectra and detector responses in order to learn to solve the inverse problem of neutron spectrum unfolding. In addition, due to the under-determined nature of unfolding, non-physical spectra which would not be encountered in usage should not be included in the training set. While physically realistic training spectra are commonly determined experimentally or generated through Monte Carlo simulation, this can become prohibitively expensive when considering the quantity of spectra needed to effectively train an unfolding network. In this paper, we present three algorithms for the generation of large quantities of realistic and physically motivated neutron energy spectra. Using an IAEA compendium of 251 spectra, we compare the unfolding performance of neural networks trained on spectra from these algorithms, when unfolding real-world spectra, to two baselines. We also investigate general methods for evaluating the performance of and optimizing feature engineering algorithms.

McGreivy, James (ORCID:0000000321723411)↗
DOE OSTI2023

A Review of Sociotechnical Approaches for Nuclear Power Plant Modernization

The current United States nuclear power plant fleet is in need of transforming the way work is performed to remain competitive with other electricity-generating sources. The use of new digital technologies can be applied to significantly reduce operating and maintenance costs. Recent research by the United States Department of Energy Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program has identified new opportunities to leverage advanced digital technologies to transform the way work is performed at existing plants. However, to ensure that the capabilities of people and advanced digital technologies are jointly optimized, a sociotechnical approach should be considered. This work explores recently introduced sociotechnical approaches to address the function allocation and data visualization considerations in the integration of new digital technologies to ensure safety, reliability, and maximizing the capabilities of proposed technological solutions that ensure the economic viability of the existing United States nuclear power plant fleet.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2023

A dataset of cyber-induced mechanical faults on buildings with network and buildings data

We have collected data of cyber-induced mechanical faults on buildings using a simulation platform. A DOE reference building model was used for running the simulation under a Rogue device attack and collected the network data as well as the physical buildings data to better understand the impacts of cyber attacks on the building and help identify the source of the mechanical fault with the network data. Alfalfa is the tool used for simulating the DOE reference buildings and acts as an interface to the model for querying the status and providing input externally. The Building Automation System (BAS) is the centralized controller providing control commands to other BACnet devices on the network based on the building status received from Alfalfa. The BACnet devices like damper will listen for the control commands from BAS on the BACnet network and implement it. The attacker is the malicious actor on the network creating disruptions by placing cyber-attacks.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2021

Reduction of Ultrafine Hematite for a Spouting Bed Chemical Looping Process - Presentation

Chemical looping combustion research has been a topic of great interest since the mid-1990s, although the concept can be traced much further back. It is a combustion technology for fuel utilization that uses a two-reactor system to produce a carbon free effluent stream from the air reactor and a carbon dioxide rich stream from the fuel reactor with oxygen shuttled between the reactors with an oxygen carrier. Chemical looping combustion has been studied extensively because of this inherent separation of the carbon dioxide combustion product from the atmospheric nitrogen over that past 25 years with hundreds of research papers and tens of books. The oxygen carrier is, in general, a solid such as naturally occurring hematite or an engineered carrier like a copper and iron oxide supported on alumina. System technical and economic research activities conducted at the National Energy Technology Laboratory have shown that the costs associated with the carrier, initial and replacement, are a significant factor in the economic viability of the technology. To overcome this economic challenge, the work reported on in this paper investigates the use of a waste iron oxide as the chemical looping oxygen carrier. This waste material is quite unique as it has a particle size of 0.7 um. Given the particle size, the reactions are quite fast. However, the development of a contactor reactor to mix the fuel with the carrier is a fluidization challenge as the material is a Geldart group C material and highly cohesive. Normally, Geldart group C materials are fluidized with either a vibrating bed. This technique is acceptable for low temperature pharmaceuticals production but does not lend itself to much larger reactors used for power production or operation at temperatures in the order of 1100 to 1200 C. Therefore, a hydrodynamic solution was needed to break up the cohesive structures to replace the vibration. In this instance, it was hypothesized that a spouting bed of large Geldart group B or Geldart group D particles could provide the necessary energy to break up the cohesive structures of the Geldart group C material. This paper presents the reduction performance for this novel carrier material in a laboratory spouting bed reactor.

Breault, Ronald↗
DOE OSTI2021

Examining the Use of the Technology Acceptance Model for Adoption of Advanced Digital Technologies in Nuclear Power Plants

The United States nuclear industry is being economically challenged and needs wide-scale adoption of enabling technology like advanced automation to remain viable. To enable wide-scale adoption of advanced technology, addressing the human-technology integration challenges and factors that influence technology acceptance (i.e., ‘buy in’) is pertinent. This work examines the Technology Acceptance Model as a framework for characterizing the factors influencing technology adoption in the nuclear industry. An outcome of this work is to support the development of future tools such as a technology acceptance survey that can be used to assess technology acceptance throughout the lifespan of a modernization program to provide a systematic way of ensuring stakeholder and operations ‘buy in.’

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Initial exploration of a novel transient arrest system involving fuel heating

A preliminary analysis on a novel accident response system to diminish the severity of super- critical transients was conducted. The novel accident response system, called the instant shock arrest system, involves using electricity to heat the nuclear fuel at the onset of a large accidental reactivity insertion. This system is specifically designed for reactors with metallic fuel, such that the fuel is capable of conducting electricity, and being resistively heated. A reactor dynamics model of the advanced test reactor was created using the point kinetics equations and a linear reactivity feedback model to simulate how the system would effect the maximum fuel temperatures experienced during the transient. Transients with the instant shock arrest system were compared to those without it. It was found that the instant shock arrest system initially heated the fuel more than the unaffected transient but the negative reactivity inserted from such heating was enough to lower the maximum fuel temperature experienced during the transient. After simulating six different accident scenarios with reactivity insertions ranging from 0.5 to 1.3 dollar, it was found that an optimal system response could reduce peak fuel temperatures during the transient by 3.5% to 5%. Furthermore, discussion was given on how the optimal system response could be obtained using relatively simple numerical optimization algorithms due to the smoothness of the optimization problem. (authors)

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Economic and Jobs Impacts of Point-Source Carbon Capture in Cement Industry – Case Study

The cement industry accounts for an estimated 8% of global CO2 emissions, which surpasses that of the entire aviation sector. In contrast with other industries, where CO2 emissions can be drastically reduced via electrification or fuels substitution, cement production releases CO2 as part of its process, during the calcination of carbonates to yield oxides. Thus, point-source carbon capture has become a key technology in the cement industry’s decarbonization. Apart from the expected environmental benefits, point-source carbon capture in the cement industry can yield important economic benefits and create jobs. The objective of this study was to perform a preliminary assessment of the economic and workforce impacts associated with the construction and operation of a point-source carbon capture retrofit of an existing cement production facility, using as a basis the data from a front-end engineering design (FEED) study to install a 3.9 million metric tons per year (Mtpy) CO2 capture facility at Holcim Ste Genevieve cement plant in Missouri, United States of America. The advanced carbon capture technology used in this FEED study was Air Liquide’s Cryocap™ FG carbon capture technology. The study evaluated the direct, indirect, and induced economic impacts of the construction, operation, and maintenance activities of the project over its lifespan. It also covered how the project will generate new jobs, their nature, and quantity, along with strategies to prepare the workforce. To perform this study, construction, operation, and maintenance cost estimates, as well as construction and operation staffing plans from the FEED study were input into IMPLAN version 7.5 software, licensed by IMPLAN Group LLC (Huntersville, VC), to predict the direct, indirect and induced economic impacts of the project using industry multipliers from the software. Additionally, recruitment strategies were developed for hiring individuals who belong to groups that are historically underserved or underrepresented, as well as anticipated recruitment of workers from the local community (whether training will be required or if the skills are associated with an existing labor force). The analysis estimated that the construction and operation of the carbon capture at Holcim Ste. Genevive will result in over 24 thousand work-years of job opportunities, close to USD 10 billion of economic impacts, including over USD 460 million of tax revenue. These results encompass the direct, indirect, and induced effects. A strategy to maximize hiring from the project and neighboring counties was developed, leveraging training agreements with local trade groups and universities. The result of this study can be used for a strategic preliminary assessment of the potential regional economic and job impacts of retrofitting existing cement plants with point source carbon systems, and its methodology can be replicated to individual projects to aid in planning and workforce development.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2024

Direct Air Capture and Utilization System (DACUS): FEED Study of CarbonCapture Inc. DAC and CarbonCure Utilization Technologies Using United States Steel’s Gary Works Plant Waste Heat

The effects of climate change are drastically perceived through the alarming rates of severe events such as flooding, hurricanes, wildfires, global temperature rise, sea-level rise, and ocean acidification etc., which has prompted the nations across the globe to control & reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, by massive adoption of electric vehicles, switching to renewal energy sources and promoting sustainable green products. However, recent climate studies have shown that such efforts will not be enough to keep the global temperature rising under 1.5° Celsius by the year 2050, which lead to the development of multiple Direct Air Capture (DAC) technologies. A DAC system extracts CO2 directly from the atmosphere, which is either stored underground for long term or utilized in other processes. The DACUS proposed at U.S. Steel Corporation’s Gary Works Plant in Gary, Indiana, will include an innovative DAC technology from CarbonCapture Inc. (CCI), which will be collocated and powered by waste heat from the steel plant to capture CO2 from ambient air, and CarbonCure CO2 utilization technology- which is a commercial technology that is already installed and in use by early adopters in more than 150 concrete mixing plants across North America and Asia. The University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign spearheaded this Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) study project, which was funded by US Department of Energy (DOE), aimed at designing a state-of-the art DACU system that can remove minimum of 5,000 tonne/year net CO2 from air (based on cradle-to-gate LCA) and converting the captured CO2 into low carbon intensity products. The off takers of the low Carbon product produced by the DACUS have also been identified near the steel plant in the Indiana, Illinois & Wisconsin Region. This creates a full CO2 value chain and provides a means to assess the impact of this holistic approach on job creation, regional economic impact, and environmental justice. DACUS is a promising new technology for reducing greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Operation costs are minimized by locating CCI’s innovative DAC collector at United States Steel's Gary Works site where waste heat is utilized. Carbon emissions are minimized in CO2 transportation. The captured CO2 will be permanently sequestered in concrete used as construction material. This DOE funded FEED study demonstrates a full CO2 value chain for a DACU system, supported by an industrial facility. If this project were constructed, it would have a very positive and lasting impact on both the environment and the community.

42 ENGINEERING↗