Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “process mining”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 469 records · Page 26

FJET Database Project: Extract, Transform, and Load

The Data Mining & Knowledge Management team at Kennedy Space Center is providing data management services to the Frangible Joint Empirical Test (FJET) project at Langley Research Center (LARC). FJET is a project under the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC). The purpose of FJET is to conduct an assessment of mild detonating fuse (MDF) frangible joints (FJs) for human spacecraft separation tasks in support of the NASA Commercial Crew Program. The Data Mining & Knowledge Management team has been tasked with creating and managing a database for the efficient storage and retrieval of FJET test data. This paper details the Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) process as it is related to gathering FJET test data into a Microsoft SQL relational database, and making that data available to the data users. Lessons learned, procedures implemented, and programming code samples are discussed to help detail the learning experienced as the Data Mining & Knowledge Management team adapted to changing requirements and new technology while maintaining flexibility of design in various aspects of the data management project.

excel vba↗

A portable fiber optic sensor for the luminescent sensing of cobalt ions using carbon dots

Cobalt is critical to energy-relevant technologies, and demand for cobalt will increase significantly with growing global adoption of renewables. However, supply chain stability is threatened by economic and geopolitical factors, incentivizing domestic cobalt production from alternative resources such as coal, coal utilization byproducts (e.g., ash, acid mine drainage) and electronic waste. Rapid, inexpensive, and portable characterization techniques are needed to reduce production costs associated with cobalt prospecting and process monitoring. Here, in this research, we develop a compact, portable fiber optic luminescent probe for cobalt using phosphorus and nitrogen co-doped carbon dots as the sensing material. The carbon dot emission overlaps well with the cobalt absorption band at ~510 nm, leading to a selective decrease in emission as a function of cobalt concentration. The system responds nearly instantly to the presence of cobalt, with detection limits of 0.7 and 3.5 ppm in water and pH 1.68 buffer, respectively, providing comparable performance to a commercial spectrometer at a significantly lower cost. Moreover, the sensor is selective for cobalt in the presence of 13 of the most common metal ions encountered in coal utilization byproducts and is responsive to cobalt when spiked into an acid mine drainage leachate sample, highlighting the sensor's potential for real-world deployment in challenging matrices. In addition, integrating the carbon dots with a filter paper substrate produced ‘test strip’ sensors that exhibited a selective and sensitive visual response to cobalt using a handheld UV lamp. Taken together, the sensing system represents a significant step forward in the development of low-cost practical sensors for high-value metals in complex streams.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Machine Learning and Economic Models to Enable Risk-Informed Condition Based Maintenance of a Nuclear Plant Asset

The primary objective of this research is to address challenges in the implementation of risk-informed, condition-based predictive maintenance (PdM), which reduces operating costs while still maintaining the safety and reliability of commercial nuclear power plants (NPPs). To achieve the objective, risk models are being developed by taking advantage of advancements in data analytics, deep learning, machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI). The notable outcomes presented in the report include ? Development of a ML models using heterogeneous plant process and vibration data collected at different spatial and temporal resolutions from the Salem?s CWS to diagnose a circulating water pump (CWP) failure based on salient fault signatures. The developed diagnostic models are extendable to other faults associated with CWPs and CWP motors given associated fault signatures. ? Development of a natural language processing (NLP) technique to automatically classify the WO data into different categories. The developed NLP technique was validated on independent WO data. This automates the tedious and time-consuming activity of mining and classifying WOs by subject matter experts. ? Estimation of mean time between downtime (i.e., time duration between time instances when 1 or more CWPs are not available) and developed an approach to establish reliability of CWS components using unstructured WO data along with CWS plant process data. ? Formulation of economic model based on Markov chain models. The parameters of associated with the transition rate between different states of Markov chain models were estimated using WO data. The economic model formulation and discussion captures both time-independent and time-dependent parameter variation, leading to risk-informed decision-making.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Characterization of Rare-Earth Elements in Lignite Coal of the Williston Basin: Past Efforts and Ongoing Work

Rare-earth elements (REEs) have been a subject area of high interest for their unique properties. REEs are crucial materials used in an incredible array of consumer goods, energy system components, and military defense applications. While the United States has one operating REE mine, the product is sent overseas for refining into usable metals making the United States 100% import-reliant on these critical materials. This has led the Federal Government to declare the REE market an issue of national security. The Energy and Environmental Research Center (EERC) under funding provided by the Department of Energy (DOE) has undertaken efforts to determine if the lignite coal found in the Williston Basin has the potential to be an ore body containing sufficient quantities of REEs and Critical Minerals (CM) for extraction and processing. In one such effort, the EERC collected over 400 samples from the Williston Basin lignite coal seams including outcrops as well as active mines. Those efforts have been followed up with ongoing work under the U.S. DOE’s Carbon Ore, Rare Earth and Critical Minerals Initiative (CORE-CM) currently ongoing in the Williston Basin as well as other basins in the United States. This ongoing work in the Williston Basin characterizing REEs in coal has focused on the collection of new sampling and analysis of REEs in coal and building upon previous characterization work. This information is being used to understand the spatial distribution of REEs through mapping and 3D modeling. The goals of these efforts are to better understand the mechanisms for distribution of the REEs in lignite coal as well as their concentration and determine knowledge gaps in characterization and to start to build the database required to understand the potential resource in the Williston Basin.

Feole, Ian K.↗

PACE: Producing Algae for Co-Products and Energy (Final Report)

The PACE (Producing Algae for Co-Products and Energy) consortium was comprised of scientists from national laboratories (Los Alamos National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory), research institutions (New Mexico Consortium), academic institutions (Arizona State University, Colorado School of Mines, Colorado State University, Washington State University) and private companies (Reliance Industries, PanPacific, Genifuel and Sonosop) dedicated to making process improvements in algal biotechnology, with an emphasis on renewable fuels and co-products from biomass. The scope of work was focused on improving algal cultivation and processing to achieve an overall energy return on investment (EROI) >3, a carbon index less than 55 grams carbon dioxide per megajoule (gCO2/MJ) and a nearly two-fold reduction in fuel cost to ≤$5 per gallon of gasoline equivalent (gge). The PACE project was originally focused on using two strains of Chlorella sorokiniana (Cs1412 and Cs1230), but later grew to encompass marine strains of Nannochloropsis and algal production strains from Reliance Industries Limited (RIL).

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Solvent recovery from solvent-fine coal slurries by filtration and steam stripping

Dewatering of fine coal is a significant industrial challenge with economic and environmental implications. Due to the lack of suitable dewatering technologies, fine coal particles are often discarded to waste impoundments, leading to substantial loss of valuable natural resources while creating environmental problems. The hydrophobic-hydrophilic separation (HHS) process is a unique solution to this problem. In this process, a recyclable solvent is used to simultaneously remove inorganic impurities (ash) and water from a run-of-mine fine coal slurry. A small amount of recyclable oil (or solvent) is added to a fine coal slurry so that the solvent can spontaneously displace the water from the surface of coal particles. The spent solvent is subsequently recovered and recycled in a closed loop. Here, we report the results obtained using two different solvents, i.e., pentane and hexane, to de-ash and dewater ultrafine coal and recover the spent solvent by filtration, followed by steam stripping. Most of the spent solvent can be recovered during the filtration step at 20 psig N₂ and at a 60 s filtration time. The residual solvent left in the cake was then recovered using steam under different conditions. The results showed that the residual solvent concentration could be reduced to <1,400 ppm after 10 s of steam stripping at 150°C and 15 psig.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗

Development of New Lunar Highland Regolith Simulant, NUW-LHT-5M

Introduction: NASA has a need for large quantities of lunar simulants that closely match future manned lunar missions at landing sites near the Lunar South Pole. The current simulant was designed to approximate NU-LHT-2M, and -4M, except using natural minerals and a fully synthetic, non-basaltic, high calcium glass. Washington Mills in Niagara Falls, NY was contracted to produce this new simulant due to their electric arc furnace (EAF) fusion technology and capabilities for crushing and sizing ceramics. The primary objectives of this work were: (1) to create a commercially produced simulant that contains a high fidelity, high calcium (An90+), low Mg/Fe glass without basaltic constituents; (2) to create a simulant that uses existing, terrestrially mined, and readily available minerals blended with a synthetic glass, and (3) accomplish objectives (1) and (2) using conventional processing methods capable of production levels that can meet substantial current and future demands of NASA projects. Another consideration was that highland simulants closest to meeting these requirements, NU-LHT-2M and -4M types, are out of production and largely out of stock. Design: The design chosen for development and production for this work is NU-LHT-2M, de-signed by Doug Stoeser and Douglas Rickman, which uses Stillwater anorthosite and norite rocks and synthetic glass. The composition targeted the average composition, glass content and particle size distribution of Apollo 16 samples [1]. The design utilizes two Stillwater minerals, anorthosite (37.7 wt.%), norite (17.6 wt.%), a commercially sourced olivine (4.7 wt.%), and a synthetic glass (40 wt.%). Processing: Stillwater rocks were hand collected and initially crushed by the USGS. Further crushing and milling was performed at Washing-ton Mills. For the glass, oxides were blended in the ap-propriate ratios, blended in a v-blender, and placed in a graphite lined, water cooled pot. The mixture was fused in Washington Mills’ pilot scale, 500 kW EAF. The molten glass was then poured into water and quenched to inhibit crystallization. Several pour/quench cycles were required to produce the total quantity of glass needed. Anorthosite, norite and olivine were milled together to the target particle size in a ball mill. The glass was ball milled separately. The complete simulant was produced by blending the milled materials. Particle size distribution, phase and chemical analyses of the materials was were per-formed at Washington Mills. Results: The glass composition was found to match the Apollo 16 oxide content average [1] quite well, with the exception of SiO2 and Fe2O3. The deviation of SiO2 and Fe2O3 from batched content was believed to be due to limitations inherent in the use of the arc furnace technique for these types of materials. A particle size distribution of the full simulant formulation closely matching the average for the Apollo 16 samples was also achieved. Fig. 1 shows the morphology of the final simulant particles. The size distribution is compared to the target in Fig. 2. Conclusions: A new lunar highlands type simulant containing a high-quality synthetic glass, closely matching an average composition of the Apollo 16 regolith was produced. Processing utilized easily scalable mineral and glass making methods.

simulant↗

Development of New Lunar Highland Regolith Simulant, NUW-LHT-5M

Introduction: NASA has a need for large quantities of lunar simulants that closely match future manned lunar missions at landing sites near the Lunar South Pole. The current simulant was designed to approximate NU-LHT-2M, and -4M, except using natural minerals and a fully synthetic, non-basaltic, high calcium glass. Washington Mills in Niagara Falls, NY was contracted to produce this new simulant due to their extensive mineral fusion experience and capabilities for crushing and sizing ceramics. The primary objectives of this work were: (1) to create a commercially produced simulant that contains a high fidelity, high calcium (An90+), low Mg/Fe glass without basaltic constituents; (2) to create a simulant that uses existing, terrestrially mined, and readily available minerals blended with a synthetic glass, and (3) accomplish objectives (1) and (2) using conventional processing methods capable of production levels that can meet substantial current and future demands of NASA projects. Another consideration was that highland simulants closest to meeting these requirements, NU-LHT-2M and -4M types, are out of production and largely out of stock.

simulant↗

Towards machine-learning a fully-coupled constitutive model for thermal-hydraulic fracture in geothermal systems: phase I (Final Report)

This project, entitled “Towards machine-learning a fully-coupled constitutive model for thermal-hydraulic fracture in geothermal systems: phase I,” addresses challenges in understanding and controlling subsurface fracture networks, which are crucial for applications like deep geothermal heat mining and deep-crustal minerals/metals/hydrogen extraction. The research focuses on advancing the understanding of coupled thermal-hydro-mechanical-chemical (THMC) processes in geologic materials, particularly under the high temperature and pressure conditions found in the deep crust. This seed grant focused specifically on thermal cracking and the development of new constitutive models. Significant progress was made in both experimental and theoretical domains. To study micro-scale fracture formation, the project demonstrated the ability to create thermal cracking under stress in granite samples using a Paterson Gas-medium Deformation Apparatus.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

Large-Scale Solar Development: A Playbook for Southwest Virginia

his playbook is an introductory guide for local governments to facilitate large-scale solar projects in Southwest Virginia. In a region that has a long history of energy production, solar technologies offer enormous potential for economic development and job growth. Large-scale solar can take many forms, including rooftop or ground-mounted installations at local corporate offices, nonprofit organizations, or schools. It can also encompass utility-scale projects over many acres on former agricultural or timberlands, mined lands, or industrial sites. Regardless of the type of project, solar is a widely popular, cost-competitive energy choice that helps create sustainable and prosperous communities. This playbook is directed to municipal and county governments that have an essential role to play in encouraging large-scale solar projects. The first section provides an overview of state and national trends, including recent state legislation that will impact local oversight of solar development. This is followed by an overview of the solar project approval process from a developer’s perspective. The next section is an overview of the state and local permitting process for solar projects, followed by other development considerations such as local tax revenue options, financing incentives, and considerations for solar on brownfields and previously mined lands. The playbook concludes with a step-by-step guide for local governments to facilitate large-scale solar development.This playbook is part of the Solar Workgroup of Southwest Virginia’s effort to bring solar energy and associated jobs to the region. Over the past few years, the workgroup has met with stakeholder groups and crafted a strategy for local solar energy development. The workgroup has collaborated with cities and counties to bring SolSmart designation to eight counties and cities, implemented group purchase campaigns for commercial solar, and led research efforts.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Informed Critical Mineral Recovery from Fossil Energy Waste Feedstocks

Critical minerals (CM), such as rare earth elements (REE), cobalt, nickel, and lithium, have important uses in modern energy and technologies, yet are vulnerable to potential supply chain disruptions. One potential domestic CM source is fossil energy wastes, such as coal combustion ash, acid mine drainage (AMD) and treatment solids (AMD solids), and Oil and Gas (O&G) drilling wastes (drill cuttings and produced waters). CM recovery from these feedstocks is promising due to their abundant quantity and fast availability as waste products. To develop informed and effective CM recovery, DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) have collected and analyzed CM data for aforementioned fossil energy wastes, and utilized advanced geochemical characterization (e.g., synchrotron microprobe, sequential extraction and geochemical modeling) to identify the CM speciation and binding environments. Novel methods that recover multiple CMs while co-producing other valuable byproducts from these feedstocks have been developed. Successful examples include: (1) the discovery of easily mobile REE phases in Ca-rich coal combustion ash resulted in a patented REE recovery process from the ash feedstock while producing zeolite sorbents from the extraction wastes; (2) the successful identification of REE/Co/Ni/Zn hosting phases in acid mine drainage treatment solids (AMD solids) has informed the sequential CM recovery from AMD solids and has inspired lithium sorbent development from the extraction wastes; (3) the recovery potential of Li and other CMs in O&G produced waters and drill cuttings has been explored while the extraction residuals have been demonstrated to support plant growth as soil supplements. The innovations driven by characterization information have the potential to maximize CM recovery revenue, offset the cost of waste management and wastewater treatments while reducing the cost and environmental footprint of CM extraction.

characterization and extraction of rare earth elem↗

An Overview of R and D on Retrievability and Retrieval Technology in Germany - 20462

Retrievability is a term that is included in most radioactive waste management programs around the world. Although national definitions vary, the overall understanding of retrievability concerns the ability to recover waste packages from the repository mine after their emplacement. Different countries may implement retrievability in very different ways, ranging from a built-in reversibility into the emplacement process to the stipulation that retrievability may in no way impede passive safety in the post-closure phase. Germany takes a middle course such that retrievability in a HLW repository (repository for high level radioactive waste) may have no significant detrimental effect on passive safety. In Germany, the current siting process considers rock salt, clay rock, and crystalline rock as potential host rocks. Therefore, Research and Development (R and D) has been investigating repository concepts and retrievability in all host rocks. After introduction of retrievability in 2010, existing repository concepts were modified to facilitate retrieval. The changes made comprised, for example, equipping boreholes with steel liners, developing new technologies, and modifying existing emplacement devices. Apart from retrieval of HLW, retrieval of other wastes from underground repositories that were designed and operated without retrievability in mind, poses major technical and scientific challenges. Currently, studies are under way to investigate the feasibility and costs of partial retrieval of waste from an underground repository for hazardous and highly toxic waste in France, Stocamine. With regard to retrieval, the rock-mechanical conditions are deteriorating rapidly, so time is of the essence. In the Asse II mine in Germany, about 126,500 waste casks with low and intermediate level waste await retrieval. The repository mine suffers from difficult rock-mechanical conditions and inflow of brine, locally into emplacement areas. The Federal Company for Radioactive Waste Disposal (BGE) is legally required to retrieve all wastes from the Asse. Due to the specific challenges, R and D is needed to develop technical solutions for the safe retrieval from each of the emplacement chambers. R and D on retrievability and retrieval technology does not only address challenges in radioactive or toxic waste retrieval but may also help to germinate innovation to better master complex underground situations in general, e.g. in deep mining, tunneling, or repository construction. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Screening IMS Seismic Detections using Dynamic Correlation Processor: Progress report for 2020

LLNL completed the FY20 workplan entailing application of the Dynamic Correlation Processor (DCP) to International Monitoring System (IMS) primary seismic data in 2019 and 2020. The effective analysis period was curtailed to January 1 through November 12, 2019 due to a data compression change that rendered later data unusable. Fixing the data compression error is a priority for our data source, and we plan to extend the period of data analysis when the fix is implemented. We found that the percentage overlap between detections generated by the International Data Centre (IDC) DFX software and detections generated by DCP varied widely by station. Overlap is 30-40% at some stations, suggesting that a large percentage of DFX detections could be screened (removed) from the detection-event association algorithm. However, detection overlap was much lower, a few percent, at many stations and the percentage overlap was low at stations known to have many mines and other local sources of seismicity. Unexpectedly low detection overlap at many stations prompted us to examine results for the ARCES station in detail. There is considerable mine activity near ARCES, but our initial FY20 analysis found only ~2% DCP/DFX detection overlap. Differences in the pre-processing (e.g. beam recipes) used by DCP and DFX appear to be the cause of low detection overlap at ARCES. DCP uses wideband filters to improve detector robustness and the IDC uses narrow-band pre-filtering to improve sensitivity. After reprocessing ARCES using the IDC beam recipe, DCP/DFX overlap increased to ~74%. This result shows that we must reprocess the IMS network using the IDC station-specific beam recipes if we are to effectively screen DFX detections and improve automatic event building performance at the IDC.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Development of Luminescent Materials and Instrumentation for Critical Mineral Discovery and Monitoring

Presentation discussing career paths in chemistry as well as how chemical research is applied to address real-world problems. Here, a variety of different materials (metal-organic frameworks, carbon dots, thin films, etc.) are used as luminescent sensors to detect trace quantities of economically critical metals, which are used in applications ranging from renewable energy to national defense. In an application particularly relevant to Western Pennsylvania, the sensor technologies are deployed in coal utilization byproducts including fly ash leachates and acid mine drainage. Taken together, this research presents an exciting path towards reducing the characterization costs associated with metals prospecting and process monitoring, facilitating domestic production of these metals.

analytical chemistry↗

A New and Fast Method for Smoothing Spectral Imaging Data

The Airborne Visible Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) acquires spectral imaging data covering the 0.4 - 2.5 micron wavelength range in 224 10-nm-wide channels from a NASA ER-2 aircraft at 20 km. More than half of the spectral region is affected by atmospheric gaseous absorption. Over the past decade, several techniques have been used to remove atmospheric effects from AVIRIS data for the derivation of surface reflectance spectra. An operational atmosphere removal algorithm (ATREM), which is based on theoretical modeling of atmospheric absorption and scattering effects, has been developed and updated for deriving surface reflectance spectra from AVIRIS data. Due to small errors in assumed wavelengths and errors in line parameters compiled on the HITRAN database, small spikes (particularly near the centers of the 0.94- and 1.14-micron water vapor bands) are present in this spectrum. Similar small spikes are systematically present in entire ATREM output cubes. These spikes have distracted geologists who are interested in studying surface mineral features. A method based on the "global" fitting of spectra with low order polynomials or other functions for removing these weak spikes has recently been developed by Boardman (this volume). In this paper, we describe another technique, which fits spectra "locally" based on cubic spline smoothing, for quick post processing of ATREM apparent reflectance spectra derived from AVIRIS data. Results from our analysis of AVIRIS data acquired over Cuprite mining district in Nevada in June of 1995 are given. Comparisons between our smoothed spectra and those derived with the empirical line method are presented.

Gao, Bo-Cai↗

Carbon Anode Material from Biomass Pyrolysis Oil

Lithium-ion batteries (LIB) are an important component of electric vehicles and sodium-ion batteries (SIB) are an attractive alternative for grid electric storage. We are investigating a novel approach to synthesizing the carbon anode materials for these batteries from biomass pyrolysis oil as part of conversion processes to produce biofuels. Graphite is used as anode material in LIB and is exclusively produced from petroleum residue or mined mineral carbon. We have synthesized drop-in graphite by coking the heavy residual oil from the distillation of catalytic fast pyrolysis oil and by catalytic graphitizing raw pyrolysis oil. XRD and Raman spectroscopies were used to verify the production of high purity crystalline graphite. Figure 1 shows typical XRD spectra of the bio-graphite compared to commercial material as well as the charge/discharge cycle. Graphite particle sizes and morphologies were adjusted to improve performance using jet milling and carbon coating. The bio-graphite delivered a high capacity (335 mAh/g) when tested in a graphite half-cell. Full cell coin cell experiments were also conducted to verify the observations from half-cell testing. The high value of graphite (>$9/kg) can positively impact the economics of biofuels production and can be an important part of a future circular carbon economy. We have also investigated synthesizing hard carbon from pyrolysis oil for use as anode material in SIB. These batteries are not commercially mature but have great promise in grid storage and use earth abundant elements. We have demonstrated that pyrolysis oil can be used to synthesize hard carbon, which was subsequently be used in SIB experiments. This material achieved a sodium-ion capacity of 250 mAh/g and a first cycle efficiency of 78%, with opportunities to further optimize this performance from optimizing the composition of the pyrolysis oil to shaping the hard carbon particles. As with graphite, hard carbon is a high value (> $10/kg) material that could facilitate biofuels production.

BIOMASS FUELS,INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND AN↗

Solar Heat for Industrial Processes: Integration with Chemical Reactors

The integration of solar thermal systems with chemical reactors has been proposed as part of a larger effort to develop and deploy solar heat for industrial processes (SHIP) technologies. A strong motivation for SHIP processes and technologies is the potential for high thermal efficiency coupled with low-cost thermal energy storage (TES) which can enable commercial deployment of such systems. While there are different ways to categorize SHIP technologies, one important such distinction is between directly irradiated systems and indirect off-sun process driven by a SHIP system. While directly irradiated systems can provide high thermal efficiencies and high fluxes, they usually require complex engineering solutions due to the need for redesigning the established processes and unit operations. In most cases, it is also more challenging to couple such a process to a TES system, losing some of the benefits of SHIP. On the other hand, using a SHIP system to drive an industrial process off-sun can allow better integration with existing process chains, easier TES capabilities, and potential for more applications fitting a specific SHIP technology. However, the integration of SHIP systems with the industrial processes is not fully explored in detail, especially in the case of high-temperature processes such as reforming, cracking, cement manufacturing, and iron/steelmaking. Many of these systems require heating fluxes of >50 kW/m^2, supplied via combustion of hydrocarbons in a fire box and benefitting from radiative heat transfer between the flue gases and the reaction zones. As such, using SHIP systems for such processes is more complex than providing the same thermal input in the form of a heat transfer medium (HTM) entering the reactor, kiln, or furnace. Moreover, in case convective heat transfer using SHIP is envisioned, for example using supercritical CO2 as the HTM from a particle receiver, the thermal integration might be more challenging than initially envisioned: lower heat transfer coefficients and limited approach temperature might require large flow rates, causing a mismatch between the process thermal requirements and the thermal capacity of the SHIP system. In addition, even if the heat exchange between SHIP and reactor is effective, there is still a cold leg HTM at the reaction temperature or slightly below it. Chemical plants usually include a set of heat exchangers, heat recovery steam generators, and even power generation units - in a tightly integrated design - to recover the flue gases which are eventually vented. With SHIP systems mostly operating on a closed HTM loop, bottoming the cold leg is crucial. In this talk, we will present different modeling results for a variety of syngas production reactions, using catalytic and chemical looping processes, and discuss some of the challenges and design considerations for off-sun chemical reactors using SHIP systems.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Evaluation of the NASA Artemis Regions of Interest for ISRU Water Mine Potential

The NASA Artemis Campaign has a stated goal to return to the Moon to maintain a sustainable presence; In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) is a key part of sustainability. The regions of interest identified for the Artemis campaign are at Lunar the South Pole where water ice, a valuable resource for ISRU, has been identified. As such, a preliminary evaluation of the ISRU ice mining potential has been performed for of these regions of interest. A set of ground rules for this evaluation were developed to align with current assumptions for customer needs, hardware capabilities, an initially limited infrastructure, and lunar environments/terrain. These ground rules, and the evaluation of six regions of interest, are presented here. The site selections (ISRU and customer assets) and their associated traverses are notional and were intended only to provide a broad preliminary evaluation of the water ISRU potential of the regions. Evaluation of these regions are subject to change as decisions regarding utilization are made. Water ISRU is possible at all regions, though the degree to which each criterion are met is variable. The two regions near Shackleton ranked highest in this evaluation, while the de Gerlache region presented the most difficulties meeting the current criteria. The regions were not explicitly ranked due to the nuances associated with the high number of variables but evaluation summaries of each are presented. It should also be noted that all ISRU ‘mine’ sites in this analysis focused on smaller (few kilometer) size permanently shadowed regions (PSRs). This was necessary to meet proximity requirements between these PSRs and the highly illuminated regions needed for customers and ISRU processing. The areas identified in this study are meant to focus exploration and reconnaissance efforts needed to better evaluate the ISRU potential.

In-situ resource utilization↗