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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Liquid lithium wetting and percolation in a porous tungsten/liquid Li plasma facing component (PFC)

This work explores the concept of a hybrid material system designed to protect the plasma from high-Z material emission while also protecting an underlying high-Z wall material from erosion by integrating a low-Z component in the liquid phase. Plasma-surface interaction properties of a porous tungsten (W)-liquid metal hybrid system, having the favorable bulk thermomechanical properties of W while serving as a scaffold for a liquid metal with self-healing and radiative vapor shielding characteristics, are examined. W-substrates with 70% density of bulk W and 1–5 μm sized pores have been fabricated with 50-nm W powders using spark plasma sintering. Enhanced lithium (Li) wettability, driven by percolation through the porous W architecture, is demonstrated with in-situ liquid Li drop measurements. Finally, results show complete wetting of liquid Li at 250 °C in the porous W, 100 °C lower temperature than what has been observed on traditional W surfaces. In operando ion beam analysis of Li films deposited on porous W substrates provides microscopic evidence of Li percolation into the substrate and a first look at D retention up to a depth of 100 nm after plasma exposure at a flux of 10 20 m –2 s –1 , 250 eV/amu D + plasma to a fluence of 1.16 × 10 23 m –2 at a temperature of 200 °C.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Electrostatic Barriers to Nanoparticle Accessibility of a Porous Matrix

Translocation from one cavity to another through a narrow constriction (i.e., a “hole”) represents the fundamental elementary process underlying hindered mass transport of nanoparticles and macromolecules within many natural and synthetic porous materials, including intracellular environments. This process is complex and may be influenced by long-range (e.g., electrostatic) particle–wall interactions, transient adsorption/desorption, surface diffusion, and hydrodynamic effects. In this study, we used a three-dimensional (3D) tracking method to explicitly visualize the process of nanoparticle diffusion within periodic porous nanostructures, where electrostatic interactions were mediated via ionic strength. The effects of electrostatic interactions on nanoparticle transport were surprisingly large. For example, an increase in the Debye length of only a few nanometers (in a material with a hole diameter of ~100 nm) increased the mean cavity escape time 3-fold. A combination of computational and experimental analyses indicated that this hindered cavity escape was due to an electrostatic energy barrier in the region of the hole, which was quantitatively explained using DLVO theory. These findings explicitly demonstrate that the cavity escape process was barrier-limited and dominated by electrostatic effects.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2022

An improved pressure drop correlation for modeling localized effects in a pebble bed reactor

Advances in the development of pebble bed reactors (PBRs) has created a desire for accurate and cost-effective simulation tools for design scoping studies and safety analysis. The current state-of-the-art for these simulations is the use of porous media models, although these models rely on correlations to capture the effects of flow features that are not explicitly modeled. One of the areas where correlation accuracy is currently lacking is in the near-wall region of the bed. In this region, the presence of the wall causes the pebbles to pack more orderly, drastically changing the geometry and flow behavior in this region. This work presents a new generalized pressure drop correlation for PBRs based on the KTA equation. A high-to-low methodology is applied, where large eddy simulation (LES) is performed on two beds of 1568 and 1700 pebbles to generate a high-fidelity dataset. The flow fields are then averaged in time and separated into concentric rings of 0.05 D peb width. Average porosity, velocity, and pressure drop are extracted for each ring and the friction and form losses are calculated. The Reynolds number range for this study is 625–10,000, and thus the form losses are dominant over the friction losses. The form losses across the rings are investigated, and a correction term for the form loss calculation is determined and applied to the KTA equation to drastically improve the capability of modeling localized porosity effects in a porous media code. Finally, the improved correlation reduces near-wall velocity prediction error from over 50% with the KTA correlation to around 5%. Agreement in pressure drop prediction between LES and porous media simulations is also improved.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Molecular scale insight of pore morphology relation with mechanical properties of amorphous silica using ReaxFF

Porous materials are typically heterogeneous and they contain large variations of micro-/nano-pore structures, causing complicated behaviors. In continuum models, most mechanical properties of porous materials are estimated based on porosity, while the variations of micro/nano structures are ignored. That could be problematic as the microscopic heterogeneity may affect the mechanical response of porous materials. Thus, understanding micro/nano heterogeneity impact has been the focus in many scientific and engineering subjects. In the present study, we investigated the effect of nanopore structure (including pore shape and orientation) as well as porosity on mechanical properties of amorphous silica (a-SiO 2 ). The pore sizes in our simulations are comparable to the corresponding ones observed in a-SiO 2 based materials. We found that the existing of nanopores strongly influences Young’s modulus (E) and critical energy release rate (G IC ). These properties decrease with increasing porosity. Importantly, the impact of nanopores was characterized by structural parameters of porous materials. In addition to dependency on porosity, Young’s modulus also was found to vary as a function of potential energy per atom, which highly depends on nanopore shape. Furthermore, critical energy release rate was found to increase with increasing ligament length (also known as pore wall thickness). Finally, the results highlighted the importance of nanopore structures, which must be taken into account when studying fracture mechanisms in porous materials. Based on our findings, it was proposed that mechanical properties of porous materials can be controlled by nano-engineering pore structures.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Understanding solvent effects on adsorption and protonation in porous catalysts

Abstract Solvent selection is a pressing challenge in developing efficient and selective liquid phase catalytic processes, as predictive understanding of the solvent effect remains lacking. In this work, an attenuated total reflection infrared spectroscopy technique is developed to quantitatively measure adsorption isotherms on porous materials in solvent and decouple the thermodynamic contributions of van der Waals interactions within zeolite pore walls from those of pore-phase proton transfer. While both the pore diameter and the solvent identity dramatically impact the confinement (adsorption) step, the solvent identity plays a dominant role in proton-transfer. Combined computational and experimental investigations show increasingly favorable pore-phase proton transfer to pyridine in the order: water < acetonitrile < 1,4 – dioxane. Equilibrium methods unaffected by mass transfer limitations are outlined for quantitatively estimating fundamental thermodynamic values using statistical thermodynamics.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2021

Wood Carbon Based Single-Atom Catalyst for Rechargeable Zn–Air Batteries

Low-cost and efficient oxygen reduction reaction (ORR)/oxygen evolution reaction (OER) bifunctional electrocatalysts are vital for the applications of rechargeable Zn-air batteries (ZABs). Given the high catalytic activity of single-atom catalysts (SACs), preparing SACs on a large scale for ZABs is desirable but remains challenging. Herein, in situ formation of single-atom Fe-N-C catalysts on plate wood-based porous carbon is achieved via a facile Lewis acid pretreatment and carbonization process. Lewis acid FeCl3 pretreatment on the cell wall of wood not only produces abundant microchannels but also successfully introduces atomically dispersed Fe-N active species into the hierarchical structure. Such uniformly dispersive SACs on the hierarchical structure enhance the ORR/OER performance and durability. A ZAB using the catalyst in the cathode shows a high power density (70.2 mW cm -2 , at quasi solid state) and long-term stability. This work provides a new path for the large-scale preparation of high-performance SACs.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Machine Learning Self-Diffusion Prediction for Lennard-Jones Fluids in Pores

Predicting the diffusion coefficient of fluids under nanoconfinement is important for many applications including the extraction of shale gas from kerogen and product turnover in porous catalysts. Due to the large number of important variables, including pore shape and size, fluid temperature and density, and the fluid–wall interaction strength, simulating diffusion coefficients using molecular dynamics (MD) in a systematic study could prove to be prohibitively expensive. Here, we use machine learning models trained on a subset of MD data to predict the self-diffusion coefficients of Lennard-Jones fluids in pores. Our MD data set contains 2280 simulations of ideal slit pore, cylindrical pore, and hexagonal pore geometries. We use the forward feature selection method to determine the most useful features (i.e., descriptors) for developing an artificial neutral network (ANN) model with an emphasis on easily acquired features. Our model shows good predictive ability with a coefficient of determination (i.e., R 2 ) of ~0.99 and a mean squared error of ~2.9 × 10 –5 . Finally, we propose an alteration to our feature set that will allow the ANN model to be applied to nonideal pore geometries.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2022

Coupling subsurface and above-surface models for optimizing the design of borefields and district heating and cooling systems in the presence of varying water-table depth. In: Proceedings, 46th Workshop on Geothermal Reservoir Engineering

Dynamic energy simulation is important for the design and sizing of district heating and cooling systems with geothermal heat exchange. Current modeling approaches in building and district energy simulation tools typically consider heat conduction through the ground between boreholes, without flow of groundwater. On the other hand, detailed simulation tools for subsurface heat and mass transfer exist, but these fall short in simulating above-surface energy systems. To support the design and operation of such systems, we have developed a coupled model including a software package for building and district energy simulation, and software for detailed heat and mass transfer in the ground. For the first, we use the open-source Modelica Buildings Library, which includes dynamic simulation models for building and district energy and control systems. For the heat and mass transfer in the soil, we use the TOUGH simulator. TOUGH can model heat and multi-phase, multi-component mass transport for a variety of fluid systems, as well as chemical reactions, in fractured porous media. In previous work, we described the coupling of these software packages, including how time-dependent boundary conditions for the borehole walls are synchronized for use in Modelica and TOUGH. We verified that the coupled Modelica/TOUGH code produced consistent results with the original Modelica code for an idealized problem in which heat transfer was purely by conduction in a uniform geologic medium. Here, we examine less idealized problems for which TOUGH’s advanced capabilities for modeling fluid flow are required. The first problem has a shallow vadose zone, and the second problem has a thicker vadose zone with a water-table depth that varies in time, which requires a fine vertical grid discretization for the TOUGH model.

Doughtry, Christine↗
DOE OSTI2021

Volumetrically Absorbing Thermal Insulator (VATI) for High-temperature Receivers

This project seeks to exploit volumetric absorption of concentrated solar irradiation in a thin, high-temperature, thermally conductive medium. High efficiency thermal conversion is achieved by volumetric absorption of both incoming solar irradiation (short wavelength) and emitted irradiation (long wavelength), demonstrating a volumetrically absorbing thermally insulating (VATI) effect. The thermalized energy is conducted to the back wall, enclosing the working fluid (molten salt or supercritical CO 2 ). Reliance on conductive thermal transport requires a thermally conductive medium, in the absence of which large temperature gradients drive losses due to emission. The project’s outcomes are important to realize a cost-effective approach to reduce optical and thermal losses from CSP receivers at high temperatures (720°C). High-temperature stable and commercially available porous SiC structures (open-cell foams) were explored as a volumetrically absorbing and thermally insulating layer. To the best of our knowledge, the current state-of-the-art for industrially deployed coatings is Pyromark. However, Pyromark suffers degradation at 700+°C and diurnal temperature changes. This necessitates periodic recoating, and the downtime increases the overall levelized cost of energy (LCOE) production. On the other hand, contemporary research activities have generated significant advances in the development of selective emitter coatings, which present challenges with costs, scalability, and stability. The pursued approach alleviates these concerns by developing a receiver that utilizes the inherent structure of high-temperature stable porous materials to enable robust and cost-effective receivers which require no periodic maintenance downtimes. The overall goal of the project is to experimentally demonstrate a figure of merit (FOM) of 0.92 at a temperature of 720°C and solar irradiation of 1000x concentration with porous receivers. The relevant crystallographic (phase) optical and thermal properties of porous SiC were first characterized. Second, the 3-D geometry of the porous SiC was analyzed using micro-X-ray tomography and converted to CAD data using image processing analysis. Utilizing this 3-D geometry and relevant optical/thermal properties, Monte Carlo- Ray Tracing (MCRT) analysis was performed to extract important parameters governing solar-thermal energy conversion such as extinction coefficient (β, 1/m), scattering albedo (ω) and the scattering phase function (Φ). These properties were then integrated into an in-house radiative and conduction transport model to solve for temperature and transport fluxes characterizing the solar-thermal energy conversion. This model was utilized to predict the FOM for various SiC porous geometries and to identify the highest possible FOM. Testing of the optimized porous structures will be accomplished with a custom-built high-accuracy (< ±4%) FOM measurement test-stand and a 1000x solar concentrator. When neglecting convective losses and resistance at the open boundary and the back wall, the optimized SiC foam leads to a FOM of 0.84. This FOM does not surpass the performance of Pyromark 2500. Yet, conversely to Pyromark 2500, SiC is stable at high temperatures and does not degrade over time. Also, it is possible to boost the FOM of SiC by engineering its effective thermal conductivity and its scattering albedo. A FOM of 0.92 is predicted for an optimized foam by accounting for convective losses and resistance at the open boundary and the back wall. This largely exceeds the FOM of Pyromark 2500 (~0.86) predicted by neglecting convective losses and resistance. Therefore, further engineering of the foam could lead to unprecedented FOMs.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

A 1D–0D–3D coupled model for simulating blood flow and transport processes in breast tissue

In this work, we present mixed dimensional models for simulating blood flow and transport processes in breast tissue and the vascular tree supplying it. These processes are considered, to start from the aortic inlet to the capillaries and tissue of the breast. Large variations in biophysical properties and flow conditions exist in this system necessitating the use of different flow models for different geometries and flow regimes. In total, we consider four different model types. First, a system of 1D nonlinear hyperbolic partial differential equations (PDEs) is considered to simulate blood flow in larger arteries with highly elastic vessel walls. Second, we assign 1D linearized hyperbolic PDEs to model the smaller arteries with stiffer vessel walls. The third model type consists of ODE systems (0D models). It is used to model the arterioles and peripheral circulation. Finally, homogenized 3D porous media models are considered to simulate flow and transport in capillaries and tissue within the breast volume. Sink terms are used to account for the influence of the venous and lymphatic systems. Combining the four model types, we obtain two different 1D–0D–3D coupled models for simulating blood flow and transport processes: The first model results in a fully coupled 1D–0D–3D model covering the complete path from the aorta to the breast combining a generic arterial network with a patient specific breast network and geometry. The second model is a reduced one based on the separation of the generic and patient specific parts. The information from a calibrated fully coupled model is used as inflow condition for the patient specific sub-model allowing a significant computational cost reduction. Several numerical experiments are conducted to calibrate the generic model parameters and to demonstrate realistic flow simulations compared to existing data on blood flow in the human breast and vascular system. Moreover, we use two different breast vasculature and tissue data sets to illustrate the robustness of our reduced sub-model approach.

multiscale blood flow models↗
DOE OSTI2021

Diffusion-to-Imbibition Transition in Water Sorption in Nanoporous Media: Theoretical Studies

The ability to predict multiphase fluid transport in nanoporous rocks such as shales is critical for many geoscience applications, for example unconventional hydrocarbon production, geologic carbon sequestration, and nuclear waste disposal. When the pore sizes approach nanoscales, the impact of the molecular interaction forces between fluids and solids becomes increasingly important. These forces can alter macroscopic fluid phase behavior and control transport. Recent experimental studies have shown that capillary condensation and subsequent imbibition of liquid water can occur in hydrophilic nanoporous media even if the vapor phase is at a critical relative humidity (rhcrit) well below vapor saturation. This study presents a theoretical investigation of the processes controlling adsorption, capillary condensation and imbibition in nanoporous media, using the square-gradient classical density functional theory. The proposed theoretical model explicitly includes the relevant interaction forces among fluids and solids in macroscopic porous media. Application of the model to a relative-humidity-controlled water adsorption experiment is presented to demonstrate the impact of water-pore wall attractive forces on multiphase water behavior in a hydrophilic silicon nanoporous medium. Here, the model represents well the measured time-dependent evolution of the water imbibition front inside the nanoporous medium and also explains the diffusion-like water transport regimes observed at rh < rh crit and the imbibition-like flow regimes observed at rh > rh crit . The study furthermore gives an insight on hysteresis phenomenon in adsorption and desorption isotherms.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Comparison Study of Conventional and Adaptive Mesh Refinement in Organic Material Decomposition Models

This study compares conventional mesh refinement techniques, specifically Uniform Mesh Refinement (UMR), with a new Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) method, applied to Organic Material Decomposition (OMD) models. The proposed benefit of AMR is that only areas that require refinement, based on minimizing a specific field gradient, are refined thus decreasing model wall time compared to conventional UMR methods. This work specifically focuses on comparing UMR and AMR methods on decomposing (both No-Flow and Porous-Flow material models) Polymeric Methylene Diisocyanate (PMDI) polyurethane foam. Throughout the work, the geometry increased in complexity to assess the refinement methods performance at varying levels geometric intricacy. While AMR has been shown to work well in a variety of applications, the UMR approach proved to be computationally faster, for many of the geometries and foam decomposition models, than AMR. However, it was observed that at higher levels of refinement, greater than 3 UMR, AMR begins to be computationally better. Additionally, the settings used to perform AMR greatly impact its performance, and lessons learned, in terms of OMD models, are shared. Due to physics involved in material decomposition, specifically the evolution of state variables, these problems don’t fully benefit from the advantages of AMR.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Deciphering the Distribution and Crystal-Chemical Environment of Arsenic, Lead, Silica, Phosphorus, Tin, and Zinc in a Porous Ferrihydrite Grain Using Transmission Electron Microscopy and Atom Probe Tomography

Here the interaction of contaminants and nutrients with soil constituents is controlled by processes in intergranular and intragranular pore spaces of organic matter or/and common secondary minerals such as ferrihydrite, ~Fe 3+ 10 O 14 (OH) 2 . This contribution shows that distribution and clustering of the contaminants As, P, Pb, Si, Sn, and Zn in a porous ferrihydrite grain is greatly affected by the heterogeneous size distribution and chemical composition of the pores as well as the ability of their polyhedra to polymerize with the same type of polyhedron. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atom probe tomography (APT) studies are conducted on focused ion beam (FIB) sections extracted from a porous ferrihydrite grain from the smelter-impacted topsoil in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. The ferrihydrite grain has pore spaces ranging in diameter from tens to hundreds of nanometers. TEM and scanning-TEM studies indicate that the surfaces of the pore walls are enriched in Si. APT data in conjunction with First Near Neighbor (1NN) analyses indicate different degrees of clustering of Pb, As, Sn, Zn, Si, and P within the sample and selected domains. Careful evaluations of 3D atomic plots and 1NN distances indicates the occurrence of polymerized arsenite-, silica-, Sn-, and Zn-polyhedra within pore spaces of the ferrihydrite. Deciphering adsorption, polymerization, and nucleation processes in porous Fe-(hydr)oxides and other soil constituents requires multianalytical approaches and, in this regard, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the combination of TEM and APT for characterizing complex environmental samples at the atomic to nanometer scale.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2020

High-temperature and high-pressure NMR investigations of low viscous fluids confined in mesoporous systems

Abstract In this contribution, the relaxation and diffusional behaviors of low viscous fluids, water and methanol confined into mesoporous silica and controlled size pore glass were investigated. The engineered porous systems are relevant to geologically important subsurface energy materials. The engineered porous proxies were characterized by Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface analyzer, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, and electron microscopy (EM) to determine surface area, pore-wall protonation and morphology of these materials, respectively. The confined behavior of the low viscous fluids was studied by varying pore diameter, fluid-to-solid ratio, temperature, and pressure, and then compared to bulk liquid state. Both relaxation and diffusion behaviors for the confined fluids showed increasing deviation from pure bulk fluids as the fluid-to-solid ratio was decreased, and surface-to-volume ratio ( S / V ) was varied. Variable pressure deuteron NMR relaxation of confined D 2 O and confined methanol, deuterated at the hydroxyl or methyl positions, were performed to exploit the sensitivity of the deuteron quadrupole moment to molecular rotation. The methanol results demonstrated greater pressure dependence than those for water only in bulk. The deviations from bulk liquid behavior arise from different reasons such as confinement and the interactions between confined fluid and the nano-pore wall. The results of the present report give insight into the behavior of low viscosity fluid in nano-confined geometries under different state conditions.

Chemistry↗
DOE OSTI2022

Enhancing Even Gas Distribution in Porous Media with Radial Flow

Packed beds, such as those used in thermal energy storage (TES) systems, typically use flow from one end to the other. This axial flow configuration leads to inefficiencies due to dispersion effects and high pressure drop. Instead of axial flow, this work proposes radial flow in packed beds, where a central tube provides flow that transports fluid from the center to the bed’s wall. Radial flow could be a promising solution to increase the efficiency of charging/discharging processes in TES systems. For instance, studies have been conducted on the thermal behavior during the charging process using radial flow and axial flow, and it was found that radial flow is better than axial flow in terms of thermal performance, where more energy can be stored in the storage tank during the charging process. However, the design of the radial pipe should be optimized to improve even flow distribution. In this work, numerical investigations on different designs were analyzed to enhance even flow gas distribution in the porous media when using this radial technique. This work shows the impact of different parameters on the even flow distribution into the packed bed for two different designs: 1) one radial tube at the center to provide the radial flow along with an annular tube at the wall to receive the flow, and 2) one radial tube at the center and four radial tubes at the wall. Air was used as fluid and 6 mm alumina beads as packing materials. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models in COMSOL Multiphysics were used to simulate the behavior of air flow through the piping and packed bed. It was found that the flow into the bed from the radial tube can be affected by different parameters: space between the holes, size/diameter of the holes, number of segments/zones, number of the holes in each zone and the length of each zone.

Beck, David M.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Study on the Carbon Nanostructures for Nanosized Si Electrodes

Silicon (Si) has been considered as a next-generation anode material due to natural abundance, low operating potential (<0.5 V vs. Li/Li+), and high theoretical specific capacity of 4200 mAh g-1.[1] However, the electrochemical alloying reaction of Si involves large volume changes of 400% during lithiation and delithiation, causing cracking and pulverization of Si.[1] In addition, solid electrolyte interface (SEI) of Si anode experiences constant changes due to unstable SEI reactivity.[2] Considerable efforts have been made to design nanostructured Si materials to address the issues because nanostructuring can relieve the mechanical strain.[3] However, when compared to micrometer-sized active materials having sufficient electrolyte pathway through interparticle space, the nanoparticle (NP)-based electrodes tend to be densely packed. As mass loading is higher and electrode is thicker, ion transport issue can become more severe in the densely packed electrodes.[4] In this work, we will present studies on engineered porosity impacts performance in Si NP electrodes by altering carbon nanostructures. We explore the extreme limit of effectively non-porous electrodes using quasi-spherical, Si NPs, which result in densely packed electrodes when slurry is prepared with conventional carbon black. We engineer porosity using carbon nanostructures including multi-walled carbon nanotubes and carbon nanorods in place of conventional carbon black to create pore structure in Si NP-based electrodes. These experiments provide a correlation between mass loading, porosity and silicon utilization in Si NP-based electrodes. References: [1] C. K. Chan, H. Peng, G. Liu, K. Mcllwrath, X. F. Zhang, R. A. Huggins, Y. Cui, "High-performance lithium battery anodes using silicon nanowires", Nat. Nanotechnol., 2008, 3, 31, [2] J. D. McBrayer, M.-T. F. Rodrigues, M. C. Schulze, D. P. Abraham, C. A. Apblett, I. Bloom, G. M. Carroll, A. M. Coclasure, C. Fang, K. L. Harrison, G. Liu, S. D. Minteer, N. R. Neale, G. M. Veith, C. S. Johnson, J. T. Vaughey, A. K. Burrel, B. Cunningham, "Calendar aging of silicon-containing batteries", Nat. Energy, 2021, 6, 1164, [3] H. Wu, G. Zheng, N. Liu, T. J. Carney, Y. Yang, Y. Cui, "Engineering Empty space between Si Nanoparticles for Lithium-Ion Battery Anodes", Nano Lett., 2012, 12, 904, [4] X. Zhang, Z. Ju, Y. Zhu, K. J. Takeuchi, E. S. Takeuchi, A. C. Marschilok, G. Yu, "Multiscale Understanding and Architecture Design of High Energy/Power Lithium-Ion Battery Electrodes", Adv. Energy Mater., 2021, 11, 2000808

carbon nanostructure↗
DOE OSTI2022

Localized growth and remodelling drives spongy mesophyll morphogenesis

The spongy mesophyll is a complex, porous tissue found in plant leaves that enables carbon capture and provides mechanical stability. Unlike many other biological tissues, which remain confluent throughout development, the spongy mesophyll must develop from an initially confluent tissue into a tortuous network of cells with a large proportion of intercellular airspace. How the airspace in the spongy mesophyll develops while the tissue remains mechanically stable is unknown. Here, we use computer simulations of deformable polygons to develop a purely mechanical model for the development of the spongy mesophyll tissue. By stipulating that cell wall growth and remodelling occurs only near void space, our computational model is able to recapitulate spongy mesophyll development observed in Arabidopsis thaliana leaves. We find that robust generation of pore space in the spongy mesophyll requires a balance of cell growth, adhesion, stiffness and tissue pressure to ensure cell networks become porous yet maintain mechanical stability. The success of this mechanical model of morphogenesis suggests that simple physical principles can coordinate and drive the development of complex plant tissues like the spongy mesophyll.

Science & Technology - Other Topics↗