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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 487 records · Page 27
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Materials for electrification of everything: Moving toward sustainability

We report society is at a unique tipping point in a move from conventional fossil fuel based technologies to renewable sourced electrified technologies which can enable creating a carbon neutral or carbon negative energy economy. Many of the key approaches to achieving this transition in the critical areas of transportation, buildings and manufacturing depend on new materials and new approaches to rapidly increase electrification. This article reviews the overall energy landscape and highlights specific areas where new materials are critical to enabling transitions in energy storage, hydrogen utilization, transportation, buildings and the chemical industry and the articles on these topics that follow. How these transitions can be best integrated and the global societal impact of these transitions is also discussed. The development of new materials is instrumental in accelerating the move to a cleaner electrified society. The "electrification of everything" is increasingly important if we are to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change and materials will play a critical role realizing this goal.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Bioenergy and Climate Change in Ukraine: How climate can impact the sustainability of bioenergy production

The Russian invasion has exacerbated Ukraine’s energy security issues, prompting a shift toward diversifying energy supply sources. Additionally, strategic documents aim to align Ukraine’s energy system with EU climate requirements, focusing on reducing reliance on fossil fuels and advancing decarbonization efforts. This report focuses on the expansion of bioenergy as an alternative source of energy in Ukraine. Current assessments suggest that Ukraine has substantial bioenergy potential, primarily from agricultural residues and energy crops. However, the challenges posed by climate change and the ongoing war might impact the outcome of these projections. This report highlights the importance of integrating climate factors into energy modeling using tools like the integrated assessment models to provide a comprehensive understanding of Ukraine’s bioenergy potential under various climate scenarios. It also emphasizes the need for climate-smart agriculture and forestry practices to mitigate risks, enhance energy efficiency, and support resilient crop supplies. Recommendations for stakeholders include diversification of the energy supply sources, developing adaptation strategies, diversifying bioenergy feedstocks, and ensuring robust decision-making to navigate the impacts of climate change on Ukraine’s energy system.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Catalytic Processes to Accelerate Decarbonization in a Net-Zero Carbon World

Reducing carbon dioxide emissions is one of the critical challenges to mitigate global climate change, which is having detrimental impacts on society and the environment. Fossil fuel combustion in transportation, power generation, and industrial processes is the dominant contributor to carbon emissions. Over the past decades, sustainable solutions and strategies have been investigated and developed to enable decarbonization. Catalysis plays an essential role to address this global challenge by increasing energy efficiency, reducing carbon emissions, capturing carbon dioxide, and utilizing clean energy sources to displace fossil fuels. In this Review, the role of catalysis in reducing energy demand was discussed, enhancing process efficiency, displacing carbon-intensive feedstocks and products, and therefore, reducing carbon emissions. Here, recent advances in catalyst development were summarized, focusing on applications to enhance industrial processes efficiency and enable utilization of clean energy sources. Emerging approaches in catalysis were reviewed, including the manufacture of iron and steel, direct air capture of CO 2 , production of ethylene, ammonia, and sustainable aviation fuels, plastic recycling, and the synthesis of biobased plastics. The Review was concluded with suggested research directions to achieve a carbon net-zero world.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Utilization of formic acid by extremely thermoacidophilic archaea species

The exploration of novel hosts with the ability to assimilate formic acid, a C1 substrate that can be produced from renewable electrons and CO 2 , is of great relevance for developing novel and sustainable biomanufacturing platforms. Formatotrophs can use formic acid or formate as a carbon and/or reducing power source. Formatotrophy has typically been studied in neutrophilic microorganisms because formic acid toxicity increases in acidic environments below the pKa of 3.75 (25°C). Because of this toxicity challenge, utilization of formic acid as either a carbon or energy source has been largely unexplored in thermoacidophiles, species that possess the ability to produce a variety of metabolites and enzymes of high biotechnological relevance. Here we investigate the capacity of several thermoacidophilic archaea species from the Sulfolobales order to tolerate and metabolize formic acid. Metallosphaera prunae, Sulfolobus metallicus and Sulfolobus acidocaldarium were found to metabolize and grow with 1–2 mM of formic acid in batch cultivations. Formic acid was co-utilized by this species alongside physiological electron donors, including ferrous iron. To enhance formic acid utilization while maintaining aqueous concentrations below the toxicity threshold, we developed a bioreactor culturing method based on a sequential formic acid feeding strategy. By dosing small amounts of formic acid sequentially and feeding H 2 as co-substrate, M. prunae could utilize a total of 16.3 mM of formic acid and grow to higher cell densities than when H 2 was supplied as a sole electron donor. These results demonstrate the viability of culturing thermoacidophilic species with formic acid as an auxiliary substrate in bioreactors to obtain higher cell densities than those yielded by conventional autotrophic conditions. Our work underscores the significance of formic acid metabolism in extreme habitats and holds promise for biotechnological applications in the realm of sustainable energy production and environmental remediation.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Creating Accurate Methane Emission Inventories through Data-Driven Airborne Survey Strategies

Because natural gas emits less carbon than other fossil fuels, it holds promise as a green energy transition fuel. However, the overall carbon footprint of natural gas is significantly elevated by methane emissions that occur during its production and transmission (Cusworth et al. 2022). Methane “super-emitters,” while comprising only about 1% of sites, are responsible for the majority of oil- and gas-sourced methane emissions, making their detection and mitigation critical in reducing the climate impact of natural gas and in meeting national and global sustainability goals (Sherwin et al. 2024). Yet, despite advancements in detection, significant uncertainties remain regarding the size, frequency, and duration distributions of methane emissions (e.g., Frankenberg et al. 2016, Cusworth et al. 2022, Chen, Sherwin et al. 2022, Conrad et al. 2023, Johnson et al. 2023, Sherwin et al. 2024) underscoring the need for comprehensive emissions inventories segmented by basin across the US. Airborne surveys are well-suited for collecting data to build these comprehensive, basin-level inventories because they allow for extensive spatial coverage, and have the spatial resolution, and the sensitivity to pinpoint individual methane sources. As remote sensing technologies enable rapid basin-scale surveys, it is imperative to establish scientifically and statistically robust standards to generate reliable and actionable emissions inventories. Recent work has shown that differences in airborne sampling strategies, detection technologies, and analysis can lead to large differences between survey conclusions if not correctly accounted for (Chen et al. 2024). This elevates the importance of incorporating proper sampling and analysis techniques when designing a methane emissions monitoring campaign to produce accurate results and facilitate cross-study comparisons. In this paper, we describe a survey strategy designed using the latest conclusions from the literature to align results from different aerial surveys. We identify several sampling and analysis principles, including large sample sizes, balanced sampling across oil and gas production, careful survey area definition, and a unified protocol for analysis, to be vital to producing an unbiased estimate of basin-scale emissions. We present results from a Department of Energy-funded project that deployed this survey strategy in two understudied oil and gas- producing regions in the United States: the Haynesville Basin in Texas and Louisiana, and the Woodford Shale in the Anadarko Basin in Oklahoma.

03 NATURAL GAS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Recent Advances in Functional Materials through Cellulose Nanofiber Templating

Advanced templating techniques have enabled delicate control of both nano- and microscale structures and have helped thrust functional materials into the forefront of society. Cellulose nanomaterials are derived from natural polymers and show promise as a templating source for advanced materials. Use of cellulose nanomaterials in templating combines nanoscale property control with sustainability, an attribute often lacking in other templating techniques. Use of cellulose nanofibers for templating has shown great promise in recent years, but previous reviews on cellulose nanomaterial templating techniques have not provided extensive analysis of cellulose nanofiber templating. Cellulose nanofibers display several unique properties, including mechanical strength, porosity, high water retention, high surface functionality, and an entangled fibrous network, all of which can dictate distinctive aspects in the final templated materials. Many applications exploit the unique aspects of templating with cellulose nanofibers that help control the final properties of the material, including, but not limited to, applications in catalysis, batteries, supercapacitors, electrodes, building materials, biomaterials, and membranes. A detailed analysis on the use of cellulose nanofibers templating is provided, addressing specifically how careful selection of templating mechanisms and methodologies, combined toward goal applications, can be used to directly benefit chosen applications in advanced functional materials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Funneled Depolymerization of Ionic Liquid-Based Biorefinery “Heterogeneous” Lignin into Guaiacols over Reusable Palladium Catalyst

The efficient utilization of lignin, the direct source of renewable aromatics, into value-added renewable chemicals is an important step towards sustainable biorefinery practices. Nevertheless, owing to the random heterogeneous structure and limited solubility, lignin utilization has been primarily limited to burning for energy. The catalytic depolymerization of lignin has been proposed and demonstrated as a viable route to sustainable biorefinery, however, low yields and poor selectivity of products, high char formation, and limited to no recycling of transition-metal-based catalyst involved in lignin depolymerization demands attention to enable practical-scale lignocellulosic biorefineries. In this study, we demonstrate the catalytic depolymerization of ionic liquid-based biorefinery poplar lignin into guaiacols over a reusable zirconium phosphate supported palladium catalyst. The essence of the study lies in the high conversion (>80 %), minimum char formation (7–16 %), high yields of guaiacols (up to 200 mg / g of lignin), and catalyst reusability. In conclusion, both solid residue, liquid stream, and gaseous products were thoroughly characterized using ICP-OES, PXRD, CHN analysis, GC-MS, GPC, and 2D NMR to understand the hydrogenolysis pathway.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2026

Catalytic monoterpenes conversion over Pd and zeolite to sustainable aviation fuel

Waste terpenes from wood drying are typically processed using a Regenerative Thermal Oxidizer (RTO) and converted to CO2 which is then released to the atmosphere. A novel alternative to this approach is to capture these terpenes using Fluidized Bed Concentrator (FBC) technology developed by CaptisAire which provides a useful waste carbon feedstock for subsequent upgrading. We have developed a catalytic approach where these waste terpenes (comprised of pinenes, limonene, and camphene), are converted to aromatic, and cycloalkane hydrocarbons suitable for use as a Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) blendstock without the need for additional hydrogen. This provides a renewable source for aviation fuel aromatics and increases the potential blend content of renewably sourced alkanes from Hydroprocessed Esters and Fatty Acids (HEFA) and Alcohol to Jet (ATJ) processes. Terpenes were converted in a batch reactor at 260 °C and 120 psi N2 using a combination of Pd/C and H-BEA zeolite. Experimental results infer the role of the zeolite Brønsted acid to facilitate isomerization of pinenes and camphene to limonene, which then undergoes subsequent dehydro-aromatization to p-cymene using Pd/C. Hydrogen release from the dehydro-aromatization process, enables inert conversion of monoterpenes to cycloalkanes without additional hydrogen. Monoterpenes conversion to C10 aromatics (60%) and C10 cycloalkanes (40%) in an inert environment, provides a viable route for SAF blendstock sourced directly from captured waste terpenes. Transition to commercial off-the-shelf catalysts, facilitates scale-up of the terpene conversion process and improves commercial viability. We subsequently created hydrocarbon blends using HEFA or ATJ and converted terpenes, providing a 100% SAF blend with potential to replace traditional Jet-A.

Lawal, Ajibola [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000187266570)↗
DOE OSTI2023

JUST-R metrics for considering energy justice in early-stage energy research

We report achieving sustainable decarbonization of the energy sector requires implementing and improving energy technologies while simultaneously managing sources of social inequity in the energy system. Centering energy justice, which has "the goal of achieving equity in both the social and economic participation in the energy system, while also remediating social, economic, and health burdens on those historically harmed by the energy system," in the transition to clean energy has become an increasingly urgent priority for social scientists, policymakers, and community activists alike. However, late-stage consideration of social impacts of energy technologies may result in identifying inequities only after substantial time, money, and effort have been expended on research and development (R&D). This issue is exemplified by concerns over environmental and human health impacts related to cobalt in lithium-ion batteries, which has spurred research into alternatives only after decades of R&D and the establishment of supply chains, infrastructure, and markets for cobalt-containing chemistries. Other examples include issues with land use and resource consumption related to first-generation biofuel feedstocks as well as occupational hazards and pollution associated with photovoltaics manufacturing. In all these cases, subsequent R&D to improve technologies or processes cannot undo the effects already experienced. Incorporating energy justice from the earliest stage of R&D will enable more just technology implementation, but integrating justice considerations into early-stage research is a challenge due to a lack of tools to assess and manage them. To fill this gap, we center early-stage research to develop the Justice Underpinning Science and Technology Research (JUST-R) metrics framework - energy justice metrics specifically targeted at early-stage researchers to assess their work on an immediate timescale. By applying these metrics to a case study focused on materials for next-generation photovoltaics, we highlight potential benefits and barriers to implementing this framework in early-stage research and discuss necessary institutional and individual actions needed for researchers to effectively leverage the tool to incorporate justice-focused criteria into R&D decision making.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Bioconversion of self-neutralized chemically depolymerized lignin streams into polyhydroxyalkanoates

Lignin is a chemically complex, diverse, and abundant plant polymer mainly composed of aromatic monomers. These aromatic monomers make lignin a potential source of aromatics and a viable substitute for petrochemically-derived aromatics. However, the structural recalcitrance of lignin requires harsh reagents from the chemical process and expensive catalysts for effective depolymerization. This chemical process often results in poor yields of chemical intermediate mixtures of varying bioavailability and/or toxicity. Furthermore, the cost of additional reagents required to separate or detoxify these intermediates makes processing lignin impractical. We report progress towards the use of such chemically depolymerized lignin streams by employing bacterial strains to produce polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA). PHAs are a group of biodegradable microbial polyesters that have potential as a replacement for petroleum-based plastics. In this study we utilized two distinct lignin streams obtained after chemical depolymerization of lignin under alkaline and acidic pH in the presence of catalysts. We mixed the alkali-treated depolymerized stream with the acid-treated depolymerized stream to create a solution of neutral-pH chemically depolymerized lignin (CDL). We found moderate to substantial growth of both native and non-native PHA producers on the mixture of CDL as well as its aliphatic and aromatic components. PHA was detected by Sudan Black B staining in C. necator H16, P. putida KT2440, and E. coli LSBJ STQKAB grown on mixed CDL as the sole carbon source. For C. necator H16 and E. coli LSBJ STQKAB we found that PHA content was greater when grown on mixed CDL when compared to their preferred carbon source by GC-FID quantification. Our study provided progress towards a cost-competitive, sustainable, and industrially relevant use for lignin.

Winkler, Gordon L. W. [Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison↗
DOE OSTI2024

Corn stover variability drives differences in bisabolene production by engineered Rhodotorula toruloides

Microbial conversion of lignocellulosic biomass represents an alternative route for production of biofuels and bioproducts. While researchers have mostly focused on engineering strains such as Rhodotorula toruloides for better bisabolene production as a sustainable aviation fuel, less is known about the impact of the feedstock heterogeneity on bisabolene production. Critical material attributes like feedstock composition, nutritional content, and inhibitory compounds can all influence bioconversion. Further, the given feedstocks can have a marked influence on selection of suitable pretreatment and hydrolysis technologies, optimizing the fermentation conditions, and possibly even modifying the microorganism's metabolic pathways, to better utilize the available feedstock. Here, this work aimed to examine and understand how variations in corn stover batches, anatomical fractions, and storage conditions impact the efficiency of bisabolene production by R. toruloides. All of these represent different facets of feedstock heterogeneity. Deacetylation, mechanical refining, and enzymatic hydrolysis of these variable feedstocks served as the basis of this research. The resulting hydrolysates were converted to bisabolene via fermentation, a sustainable aviation fuel precursor, using an engineered R. toruloides strain. This study showed that different sources of feedstock heterogeneity can influence microbial growth and product titer in counterintuitive ways, as revealed through global analysis of protein expression. The maximum bisabolene produced by R. toruloides was on the stalk fraction of corn stover hydrolysate (8.89 ± 0.47 g/L). Further, proteomics analysis comparing the protein expression between the anatomic fractions showed that proteins relating to carbohydrate metabolism, energy production, and conversion as well as inorganic ion transport metabolism were either significantly upregulated or downregulated. Specifically, downregulation of proteins related to the iron–sulfur cluster in stalk fraction suggests a coordinated response by R. toruloides to maintain overall metabolic balance, and this was corroborated by the concentration of iron in the feedstocks.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Hierarchical Model-Free Transactive Control of Residential Building Loads: An Actual Deployment

The transformation of electricity systems into more sustainable configurations brought some new challenges. The uncertain, intermittent, and variable nature of renewable energy sources require a significant amount of load demand flexibility, in which grid-interactive buildings (GEBs) are important flexible assets for electricity systems. In this regard, many demand response (DR) tools have been developed to harness this demand flexibility. However, such tools are mostly simulation-based or deal with a single load, which may not be sufficient to demonstrate their effectiveness. Towards this end, this paper presents a real-world field implementation and testing of a hierarchical model-free transactive DR control approach on actual GEBs. The control implementation incorporates elements of virtual battery, game theory, and model-free control mechanisms. The proposed approach was tested using a total of five GEBs, each having three zones. The results show that the proposed approach can mostly achieve all intended objectives, including flexibility estimation, peak load reduction, power tracking, and controlling GEBs while maintaining occupants’ comfort.

Amasyali, Kadir↗
DOE OSTI2026

Advancing Conduction-Cooled 650 MHz SRF Technology for Industrial Accelerators at Fermilab's IARC

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) funds the Illinois Accelerator Research Center (IARC) at Fermilab in developing a high-power, conduction-cooled Superconducting Radio Frequency (SRF) accelerator tailored for industrial applications requiring robust and efficient operation. A 650 MHz, 1.6 MeV, 20 kW SRF accelerator is currently under development, employing a conduction cooling approach to simplify cryogenic requirements and enhance accessibility for industrial use. The accelerator’s control system is implemented on the Blinky Lite platform, selected for its open-source architecture, secure remote access capabilities, and operational flexibility—attributes advantageous for industrial deployment and sustained operation. A dedicated beamline is designed to measure essential beam parameters and test the integrated performance of the accelerator and control systems, thereby validating their operational readiness for intended applications

Ji, Y. [Fermilab] (ORCID:0000000233981752)↗
DOE OSTI2021

Postdoctoral Program Overview October 2021 [Slides]

The primary institutional role of the Postdoc Program Office is to provide guidance and support to postdocs, mentors, and management regarding the appointment review and selection process, extensions, management of program awards and publication prizes, as well as the offering of Career Development workshops and events. Program participants sustain the Lab’s reputation for scientific excellence and are one of the primary recruitment sources for early career staff scientists and engineers. For those who do not stay at LANL, they move on to very promising careers in academia, industry, and government and continue to collaborate with the Lab, as well as become ambassadors of the Program.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Sitka Energy Inventory

The City and Borough of Sitka was chosen for an Energy Technology Innovation Partner Project award starting in Fall 2023, the third cohort of the program. The scope of the following work was driven by the city, as well as the city-appointed Sustainability Commission. The community asked for a method to track their reliance on outside fuel sources, as well as the emissions associated with those fuels and other processes in Sitka. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) provided research and methodology in line with this community driven ask. This project is a community wide inventory, requiring methods to estimate the fuel usage and emissions from various industries. For each estimate, PNNL presents methodologies that can be repeated by the community in future years to understand how the city is changing.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Advancing Conduction-Cooled 650 MHZ SRF Technology for Industrial Accelerators at Fermilab S IARC

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) funds the Illinois Accelerator Research Center (IARC) at Fermilab in developing a high-power, conduction-cooled Superconducting Radio Frequency (SRF) accelerator tailored for industrial applications requiring robust and efficient operation. A 650 MHz, 1.6 MeV, 20 kW SRF accelerator is currently under development, employing a conduction cooling approach to simplify cryogenic requirements and enhance accessibility for industrial use. The accelerator's control system is implemented on the Blinky Lite platform, selected for its open-source architecture, secure remote access capabilities, and operational flexibility attributes advantageous for industrial deployment and sustained operation. A dedicated beamline is designed to measure essential beam parameters and test the integrated performance of the accelerator and control systems, thereby validating their operational readiness for intended applications.

Ji, Yichen [Fermilab]↗
NASA NTRS1976

Some early perspectives on ground requirements of liquid hydrogen air transports

The paper examines the problem of liquid-hydrogen (LH2) subsonic long-range air transport from the perspectives of airplane manufacturers, the airline operator, the air terminal authority and the LH2 supplier. Emphasis is placed on identifying common problems and interfaces that are likely to occur in preparing for commercial airline operations of LH2 subsonic air transport in the 1990-1995 period. General considerations are discussed relative to sources and cost of gaseous hydrogen, hydrogen liquefaction, and LH2 availability. The fact that hydrogen sustains combustion at altitudes substantially higher than hydrocarbon fuels suggests that air transport can be designed to operate at higher enroute air traffic flight levels. This can be an advantage if only to relieve traffic congestion on heavily traveled routes. Pertinent interfaces in planning for the use of LH2 in air transportation are identified, including productivity and profitability, passenger-fuel compatibility, and lightning and electrical discharges.

Korycinski, P. F.↗
NASA NTRS2008

Technology Infusion of CodeSonar into the Space Network Ground Segment (RII07)

The NASA Software Assurance Research Program (in part) performs studies as to the feasibility of technologies for improving the safety, quality, reliability, cost, and performance of NASA software. This study considers the application of commercial automated source code analysis tools to mission critical ground software that is in the operations and sustainment portion of the product lifecycle.

Benson, Markland↗