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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 73 records · Page 4
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2026

Bipolar Membranes Electrodialysis for Water Purification and Resource Recovery

Reverse osmosis concentrate (ROC) from inland brackish water desalination and wastewater recycling presents moderate salinity, posing significant challenges for treatment and disposal. Existing treatment technologies predominantly rely on energy-intensive thermal methods, large-area evaporation strategies, or deep-well disposal, which often result in the loss of water value. Electrified membrane brine treatment offers a promising alternative by utilizing renewable energy sources, enabling complete water recycling. This work proposes the development of next-generation bipolar membrane electrodialysis (BMED) systems capable of desalinating brine while simultaneously recovering valuable resources. However, several critical challenges remain in the areas of membrane engineering for BMED. These include: 1) decreased current efficiency during desalination due to the low conductivity of feed chambers, 2) fouling and scaling from multivalent ions and contaminants in the feed, and 3) the retention and carryover of ROC contaminants, including PFAS compounds. Our research focuses on the development of novel anion exchange membranes (AEMs) and cation exchange membranes (CEMs) based on synthesized multiblock copolymers. We investigate the effects of block length, ion exchange capacity (IEC), and polymer backbone structure on cation and anion transport (e.g., Na+, Cl-, OH-, H+) for both our synthesized membranes and commercial membranes. Fundamental properties of these membranes, such as water uptake, IEC, and ionic conductivity, are also evaluated to optimize performance for BMED applications.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2024

Pueblo of Laguna Village Community Solar

The project was to install approximately 11.44 kilowatts (kW) rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) system on the Mesita Village Community Center, an approximately 9.24 kW rooftop solar PV system on the Paguate Village Community Center, an approximately 21.56 kW rooftop solar PV system on the Paraje Village Community Center, and an approximately 11.00 kW rooftop solar PV system on the Seama Community Center, for a total of about 53.24 kW on four village community centers. The systems were expected to generate approximately 93,329 kWh annually. Installing solar PV systems on the four village community centers would have helped achieve the Pueblo of Laguna’s six energy objectives: community development (decreased utility bills, funds for other needs), economic development (training and participation in the renewable energy economy), energy reliability (future storage), community resilience (alternative sources), relationship to people and the natural world (reducing fossil fuel use), and energy sovereignty (Pueblo decision-making). Installing solar PV systems would have also met specific project goals to offset not less than 85% of each selected building’s annual electricity use, ranging from 87% to 103% of demand; save a minimum of 70% of the cost of utility bills per year for each building, ranging from 75% to 77% percent (including service charges); and would have had payback periods shorter than the estimated useful life of the project

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Tool-Based Case Studies on Strategic Deployment of Untapped Micro-Pumped Hydro Storage in Michigan

With most classical hydropower sites already utilized and the global push for rapid integration of renewable energy sources accelerating, there is a critical need to identify alternative energy storage solutions. Pumped hydro energy storage, which accounts for the vast majority of global grid-scale storage, remains one of the most cost-effective and long-duration storage technologies available. Hence, this study presents a novel tool designed to assess the untapped potential of inland lakes and reservoirs for micro-PSH, using Michigan’s relatively flat landscape as a case study due to its extensive but underutilized water infrastructure. To ensure accuracy and reliability, the tool incorporates extensive data gathered from authorized sources, covering more than 420 water facilities and potential reservoirs in the state. The tool evaluates key parameters such as horizontal and vertical distances, volume, and the total storage capacity of each reservoir. Its robust assessment framework integrates these metrics to evaluate each site’s potential. The tool’s intuitive interface and geospatial visualizations support actionable insights for planners and scalable deployment of distributed storage infrastructure.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Recycled Cardboard Containers as a Low Energy Source for Cellulose Nanofibrils and Their Use in Poly(l-lactide) Nanocomposites

Cellulose nanomaterials have attracted a great deal of interest as sustainable alternatives to nonrenewable or fossil fuel-derived materials, particularly in composite applications. Cellulose nanofibrils (CNF) are most often derived from wood sources through energy-intensive and costly mechanical fibrillation processes. Here, recycled cardboard, referred to as old corrugated cardboard (OCC), was investigated as an alternate CNF source. OCC is a recycled material that can be obtained at one-tenth the cost of the commonly used bleached softwood Kraft pulp and can be refined to similar levels with nearly one-half of the energy consumption. Additionally, the distinct composition and morphology of OCC-derived CNF provides a more favorable fiber–matrix interface and better reinforcement capabilities of the cellulose nanofibrils in polymer matrices, displaying an over 70% increase in tensile modulus at a loading of 40 wt % with no decrease in tensile strength. When paired with biobased poly(l-lactide) (PLLA), OCC-derived CNF is proven to be an attractive low-cost and low-energy reinforcing agent for sustainable, high performance nanocomposites.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2024

Market optimization and technoeconomic analysis of hydrogen-electricity coproduction systems

Decarbonization efforts across North America, Europe, and beyond rely on variable renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, as well as alternative fuels, such as hydrogen, to support the sustainable energy transition. These advancements have prompted a need for more flexibility in the electric grid to complement non-dispatchable energy sources and increased demand from electrification. Integrated energy systems are well suited to provide this flexibility, but conventional technoeconomic modeling paradigms neglect the time-varying dynamic nature of the grid and thus undervalue resource flexibility. In this work, we develop a computational optimization framework for dynamic market-based technoeconomic comparison of integrated energy systems that coproduce low-carbon electricity and hydrogen (e.g., solid oxide fuel cells, solid oxide electrolysis) against technologies that only produce electricity (e.g., natural gas combined cycle with carbon capture) or only produce hydrogen. Our framework starts with rigorous physics-based process models, built in the open-source Institute for the Design of Advanced Energy Systems (IDAES) modeling and optimization platform, for six energy process concepts. Using these rigorous models and a workflow to optimally design each technology, the framework is shown to be capable of evaluating new and emerging technologies in varying energy markets under a plethora of future scenarios (i.e., renewables penetration, carbon tax, etc.). Ultimately, our framework finds that solid oxide fuel cell-based coproduction systems achieve positive profits for 85% of the analyzed market scenarios. From these market optimization results, we use multivariate linear regression (R 2 values up to 0.99) to determine which electricity price statistics are most significant to predict the optimized annual profit of each system. The proposed framework provides a powerful tool for directly comparing flexible, multi-product energy process concepts to help discern optimal technology and integration options.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2022

A sustained high-temperature fusion plasma regime facilitated by fast ions

Nuclear fusion is one of the most attractive alternatives to carbon-dependent energy sources. Harnessing energy from nuclear fusion in a large reactor scale, however, still presents many scientific challenges despite the many years of research and steady advances in magnetic confinement approaches. State-of-the-art magnetic fusion devices cannot yet achieve a sustainable fusion performance, which requires a high temperature above 100 million kelvin and sufficient control of instabilities to ensure steady-state operation on the order of tens of seconds. Here, in this study, we report experiments at the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research device producing a plasma fusion regime that satisfies most of the above requirements: thanks to abundant fast ions stabilizing the core plasma turbulence, we generate plasmas at a temperature of 100 million kelvin lasting up to 20 seconds without plasma edge instabilities or impurity accumulation. A low plasma density combined with a moderate input power for operation is key to establishing this regime by preserving a high fraction of fast ions. This regime is rarely subject to disruption and can be sustained reliably even without a sophisticated control, and thus represents a promising path towards commercial fusion reactors.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Mysteries of Nuclear Fusion: How can we build a star on Earth? [Slides]

This presentation given at the Women's Physics Summer Camp focuses on nuclear fusion as an alternative to fossil fuels, renewable energy sources and nuclear fission energy. The presentation explains plasma physics and how it might be used to generate power. Current attempts and potential applications are outlined. An appeal is made for people trained in mathematics, physics, chemistry, engineering, computer science to solve these problems. If technical problems can be overcome, fusion technology will play a part in a clean, prosperous Earth and expand humanity’s reach to the stars.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Multi-Fidelity Scheme for Accelerating 4D Finite Element Analysis for Mircoreactors

Next-generation microreactors are currently being designed to be operated terrestrial and extraterrestrial for remote surface power production. These systems will provide an alternative source of carbon-free energy that is versatile and can be utilized for various applications. These applications of microreactors have prompted the usage of high-fidelity unstructured finite element (FE) based approaches to provide time-dependent solutions for multiple physics fields. Computing these high-fidelity (4-D) solutions for multiple design iterations, physics fields, and transient events requires an immense computational cost. These high-fidelity solutions are computational expensive and the cost can be reduced through the implementation of less accurate low-fidelity solutions. Unlike the current fleet of commercial nuclear reactors, these next-gen systems present challenges due to the material and physical limitations required. Due to these constraints, the brute force technique of parameterizing important system characteristics determines whether a design meets the project objective. A system such as a nuclear reactor could have thousands of design parameters that affect system performance. In order to analyze the entire parameter space of such a complex system would require millions of CPU hours and countless design iterations. This costly approach is not practical due to regulatory and budget limitations. In this proposal, an approach that utilizes hybrid high-fidelity and low-fidelity FE models to reduce the computational cost of evaluating these applications in 4-D will be presented. The accuracy of the high-fidelity model and the computational efficiency of the low-fidelity model are taken advantage of to produce a solution that closely resembles the full order high-fidelity solution. By utilizing an unconverged coarse FE mesh, operation limits such as temperature, structural loading, etc., can be evaluated in an accelerated fashion and then can be spatially interpolated onto a finer mesh. The resulting error arising from the coarse mesh can be mitigated with a discrepancy function that actively quantifies and corrects the error in the coarse solution. This discrepancy function can be periodically updated with high-fidelity calculations across the temporal domain thus requiring less iterations on the fine mesh. As a result, the computational cost can be reduced for the evaluation and design iteration of microreactors. The proposal for this research contains three sections: Section 2 provides a literature review, Section 3 outlines the methodology for the proposed multi-fidelity scheme, and Section 4 displays preliminary results of the proposed research.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Comparison of Planar and Tubular Flow Field Plates for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFCs) through Simulation

Proton exchange membrane fuel cells are excellent clean energy alternatives to current non-renewable energy sources. Bipolar plates are a key component of these fuel cells and directly responsible for their performance. Traditional bipolar plates are created in a planar form, but recent research has revealed a novel tubular design that performs similarly to conventional plates. Here, this study compares traditional planar designs with tubular ones. The finite element ANSYS software was used to determine and visualize velocity and pressure distributions of fluid flow through the bipolar plate channels.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Effect of electron–electron interactions on the emission characteristics of ultracold, nanoscale photoemission-based electron sources

For nearly 60 years, cold field emitters have been the source of choice for electron microscopy due to their high brightness and relatively low energy spread. In this paper, we have examined an alternative: nanoscale electron sources based on near-threshold photoemission. While these sources have not yet been realized, they hold the potential to produce significantly brighter beams than cold field emitters. We model electron–electron Coulomb interactions in beams emitted from such sources to calculate the impact of these interactions on the brightness and the energy spread. Our results show that these sources can theoretically deliver more than an order of magnitude brighter electron beams compared to cold field emitters along with more than an order of magnitude smaller energy spread, before being limited by the Coulomb interactions. Electron sources with such high brightness and low energy spread would be transformational for electron microscopy, enabling electron energy loss-based vibrational spectroscopy at the sub-nanometer scale.

Gevorkyan, G S↗
DOE OSTI2020

Community Engagement - A Citizen-Centric Approach to Seeking a Social License - 20017

The long regulatory road has finally been completed-after years of effort a Record of Decision has been signed and a Permit to Construct has been granted or a Permit to Operate has been obtained. But what about the other road that should be taken in parallel-community engagement? Working with the public is not a sequential activity, rather it is a consequential one and needs to be integrated with overall project planning. Unless you have effectively, meaningfully, and patiently engaged with the project's communities of impact, you may find your project trying to obtain a social license or a social license to operate (SLO). The SLO has its origins in the mining industry and its roots in the business model of corporate social responsibility and sustainability. These latter practices are well known to the US DOE and its contractor community. Aspects of the SLO are emerging as individuals and communities are becoming more informed and have increased expectations for being able to influence and shape decisions. When local community issues are not sought out, listened to, or addressed early, and questions are left unanswered, they can become agenda items for larger unaffiliated groups, and project loss (through delays and/or cancellation) can occur. Issues can transition from resolvable to intractable, a type of SLO face-off. Social media campaigns, serial negative media coverage, and protest signs at project sites opposing regulatory decisions already made are no longer anomalies. These types of incidents demonstrate the increasingly delicate relationship between approved regulatory/technical decisions and public acceptance of those decisions. A SLO is not a requirement. However, the building-blocks of a SLO - working with members of affected communities to build understanding, potentially to obtain and maintain community acceptance or even gain approval or support - are evidence of leadership by project sponsors. Actions taken, or not taken, by project sponsors truly have the ability to influence an outcome. While projects are not assured of success or failure, engaging the community in an empowered process is an investment of time and resources toward success for the project and thus for the communities of impact. Authors Note: Extensive literature searches were performed in developing this paper. The majority of the published literature on SLO as a 'movement' was found from sources in Canada, the European Union (Germany and France in particular), South Asia, South Korea, and many Latin American countries. The literature addressed resource development (mining), infrastructure, and energy projects. Articles written by US sources often spoke to origins and structural theory, specific project issues such as Not in My Back Yard (NIMBY) and to protests/demonstrations related to those projects, rather than systemic opposition/conflict phenomena. For these reasons many international SLO experiences and sources are cited in the discussion. The authors recognize these non-US experiences with SLO as having a 'forecast' value to US projects, especially those related to nuclear projects of any type, waste treatment and disposal, energy development (especially fossil fuels as well as alternative sources), mining, and infrastructure. The body of future SLO experiences in the US will shape the future responses to it. (authors)

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Combined Nitrogen and Phosphorous Recovery via Electrochemical Technology Integration into Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants

This project developed electroN-P, an electrochemical technology for recovering nitrogen and phosphorus as a fertilizer product from anaerobic digester centrate, targeting an advancement from TRL 4 to 6. The reactor was scaled 220× from a 250 mL batch cell to a continuous 4-channel system treating 55 L of wastewater, recovering >80% of phosphorus. Energy consumption under constant-voltage operation was lower than the embedded energy of conventional fertilizers, while constant-current operation produced a cost-competitive product with a smaller reactor footprint. TEA and LCA outcomes were highly sensitive to the magnesium source; alternative magnesium salt configurations projected reduced costs and embedded energy compared to sacrificial rods, but at the expense of significantly longer operation times. The recovered fertilizer performed comparably to diammonium phosphate and triple superphosphate in soil and plant trials. Integrating the technology into a whole-plant model reduced aeration energy by nearly 50%, lowering the levelized cost of water treatment from $0.668/m 3 to $0.648/m 3 . Results support targeting commercialization at smaller (≤1 MGD) facilities with high-strength digester streams. Further investigation into the transport and corrosion kinetics governing sacrificial anode wear is recommended to support continuous, longer-term operation.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2024

Life-cycle analysis of lithium chemical production in the United States

To achieve its ambitious national decarbonization goals, the United States has incentivized the domestic production of materials critical to decarbonization technologies, including lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). These materials include battery-grade lithium chemicals (Li-chemicals), for which the U.S. is encouraging domestic production from resources (sedimentary clays and low Li-content brines (LLCBs)) that differ substantially from conventional sources (Salar brines and spodumene ores). Here, we conduct the first-ever comparative life-cycle analysis of Li-chemical production from all alternative resources (in the U.S.) and conventional sources based on data from company literature for U.S.-related production efforts. Two energy sources (electricity and natural gas), four material inputs (HCl, NaOH, Na 2 CO 3 , and CaO), and process carbon emissions dominate the life-cycle impacts (≥90% share) of U.S.-based Li-chemical production. Comparatively, the life-cycle impacts of alternative sources-based Li-chemicals lie between those for Li-chemical production from Salar brines and from spodumene ores. At the battery level, the shift in Li-chemical sourcing causes a notable change in LIB's life-cycle impacts (by ~5–15%), independent of the cathode chemistry employed. Our study highlights the relevance of a decarbonized electric grid and the capture and sequestration of process carbon emissions generated during Li-chemical and upstream material production in decarbonizing Li-chemical production from alternative sources. Further decarbonization would necessitate using decarbonized material inputs and a shift away from natural gas towards renewable energy for alternative resource-based Li-chemical production processes.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2025

Persistent fatty acid catabolism during plant oil synthesis

Plant lipids are an essential energy source for diets and are a sustainable alternative to petroleum-based fuels and feedstocks. Fatty acid breakdown during seed germination is crucial for seedling establishment but unexpected during seed filling. Here, we demonstrate that the simultaneous biosynthesis and degradation of fatty acids begins early and continues across all phases of oil filling and throughout the photoperiod. Tests in camelina, rapeseed, and an engineered high-oil tobacco line confirmed that concomitant synthesis and breakdown in oil-producing tissues over development is the rule rather than the exception. Furthermore, we show that transgenics, designed to elevate fatty acid biosynthesis, failed to achieve anticipated increases in storage lipid levels due to increased degradation, potentially explaining the underperformance of engineered lines compared to expectations more generally.

coenzyme A↗
DOE OSTI2023

Design, Manufacture, and Testing of an Open-Source Benchmark Composite Hydrokinetic Turbine Blade: Preprint

In a trend toward clean energy alternatives, recent years have seen great strides in the marine energy space. Consequently, there is a pressing need for the design, development, and validation of novel energy harvesting technologies such as hydrokinetic devices, which capture kinetic energy from waves, tides, and currents. However, these devices span numerous concepts and designs that often lack solid benchmark research that can be freely referenced throughout their development. This work focuses on the design process of an open-source composite hydrokinetic turbine blade for a three-bladed marine turbine rotor assembly with a diameter of 2.5 m. The proposed blade consists of two structural composite skins that are bonded with an adhesive and filled with a foam core. This study also explores and contrasts the efficiency and resolution of low-fidelity rapid design methodologies and comprehensive high-fidelity approaches in the context of blade design, modeling, and analysis efforts, a key objective in this research. Blade hydrodynamic loads were modeled and applied to finite-element blade models to study deformations and potential failure. Ongoing and upcoming efforts will result in blade manufacture and structural testing at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. In future work, multiple blades will be deployed at the Living Bridge site at the University of New Hampshire and will be compared to rigid aluminum blades of the same geometry, developed by Sandia National Laboratories. Ultimately, this research will lay foundational groundwork for researchers and manufacturers, establishing a baseline composite blade design that will serve as a benchmark in the development of future hydrokinetic turbine blades.

blade design↗
DOE OSTI2020

Hierarchical Distribution System Adaptive Restoration with Diverse Distributed Energy Resources

Distributed energy resources (DERs) can be utilized as alternative power sources for fast service recovery in cases of distribution system outages. However, the diverse characteristics and stochastic nature of DERs impose challenges on the optimal operation of di-verse resources during the restoration phase. Here, we introduce a hierarchical structure to coordinate distribution system entities and propose an adaptive restoration strategy to sustain a reliable power supply to outage loads in an unbalanced distribution system utilizing DERs. An efficient system reconfiguration model is developed to guarantee the radiality of restoration islands. The flexibility of DERs is evaluated by a novel method that focuses on the cumulative energy consumption, the superiority of which is also proven. Model predictive control (MPC) is adopted to enable the adjustment of system topology and DER operation strategies based on up-to-date data. The performance of the proposed restoration model is validated on a modified IEEE 123-bus test system. Moreover, the effectiveness of the proposed novel flexibility assessment and the MPC-based adaptive restoration strategy are verified through comparative studies.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2021

Vehicle-Cycle Inventory for Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles

The United States has witnessed multiple attempts to improve fuel economy and reduce pollutant emissions in the transportation sector, guided chiefly via technological interventions by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and by specific policies of the U.S. Federal Government, like Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) norms (Burnham et al., 2006; U.S. DoT, 2013). These efforts have resulted in the growing adoption of alternatives to conventional materials, fuels, and vehicle propulsion technologies across various transportation modes, while also helping to lower global pollution (greenhouse gas, or GHG, emissions). Yet, a holistic evaluation of the ecofriendliness of these alternatives, particularly their energy use and emissions, merits detailed focus on their entire life-cycle, and thereby, on the life-cycle of associated transport modes. This is vital since alternative fuels and materials can differ vastly in energy sources and production methods employed for their processing vis-à-vis their existing counterparts — and this difference causes significant variation in their respective upstream emissions.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Alternative Energy Carriers: Unique Interfaces for Electrochemical Hydrogenic Transformations

Abstract The shift toward renewable energy generation sources, characterized by their non‐carbon emitting but variable nature, has spurred significant innovation in energy storage technologies. Advancements in foundational understanding from investments in basic science and clever engineering solutions, coupled with increasing industrial adoption, have resulted in a notable reduction in the cost of storing electricity from variable energy generation sources. These developments have paved the way for the exploration of new and innovative forms of energy storage that deviate from traditional technologies. In this perspective, it is posited that the progress made in energy storage research over recent years has opened the door to the development of energy carriers for technologies that are yet to be realized. To illustrate this concept, examples of alternative energy carriers are provided within the context of unique electrochemical interfaces for electrochemical hydrogenic transformations. The unique properties of these interfaces and electrochemical systems can be leveraged in ways not yet imagined, creating new possibilities for energy storage. A perspective on the progress and challenges for each interface as well as a general outlook for the advancement of energy carrier systems are provided.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗