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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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DOE OSTI2024

FY2023 NSTTF Annual Report

The National Solar Thermal Test Facility (NSTTF) is a DOE Core Capability and Technology Deployment Center located in Albuquerque, NM. It is operated by Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia) for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The NSTTF is the only multi-mission, multi-use, multi-story test facility of its type in the United States. The NSTTF was founded in 1978 and began testing with high heat flux that same year. Over the past 45 years, the NSTTF has been at the forefront of the research, design, fabrication, and testing of many of the critical Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technologies. These technologies have allowed costs to be dramatically reduced from over $\$ $0.40 /kWh to $\$$0.12 /kWh since the conception of this renewable energy technology. The NSTTF has worked to make the Solar Energy Generating Systems (SEGS) parabolic trough plants successful, while also working with the Solar One and Solar Two facilities for successful implementation. Over the four decades since its founding, the mission of the NSTTF has grown to include new receiver technologies, like our generation 3 falling particle system (G3P3 Tower), optical metrology techniques like SOFAST, molten salt testing, thermal energy storage, solar thermal chemistry, and more. We continue to expand our capabilities in pursuit of the DOE SETO mission and the DOE SunShot 2030 goals: unsubsidized LCOE of $\$$0.05/kWh for CSP that includes 12 or more hours of thermal energy storage. To support both the DOE SETO mission and support the CSP sector as a whole, we are working to develop our operations and maintenance framework to provide a world class testing facility in support of our technological achievements. To accomplish both of these missions, the NSTTF draws on the decades of experience and expertise of our staff along with the world-class facilities at Sandia National Laboratories to further the science of concentrated solar thermal technologies in diverse applications. We remain a trusted partner for high-quality and impactful research in both fundamental and applied arenas. We are able to provide our partners with both one-of-a-kind testing platforms as well as world-class analytics.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Roadmap to Advance Heliostat Technologies for High Temperature Solar-Thermal Systems

Since its establishment, the Heliostat Consortium (HelioCon) has made substantial progress toward closing many of the gaps in concentrating solar power (CSP) research. Numerous techno-economic studies have been performed, investigating topics ranging from the trade-off between size and temperature for industrial process heat applications to optimization of the heliostat design itself for various applications. Significant improvements have been made in optical metrology techniques, with first steps toward in situ measurement of heliostat fields. Several standards have been, and continue to be, developed with the coordination of an international group of CSP industry participants. Training programs have been developed, with universities including CSP in their engineering curricula, and many public webinars have been held to provide broad access to the latest CSP research. Improved CSP components such as mirror facets and wireless communication systems have been developed, and the solar tower at Sandia National Laboratories has been upgraded with a testbed for closed-loop controls research and development. Field deployment challenges involving heliostat foundations and sensitive wildlife habitats have been explored, with progress made toward methods for streamlining project development and permitting. Additional knowledge has been added to the body of work on wind behavior of heliostats and arrays of heliostats, with progress made toward a holistic understanding of wind design methods. Finally, techniques have been developed and demonstrated for assessing soiling conditions at a proposed project site, with predictive models for the soiling rate showing good results. Taking these results together, HelioCon has contributed greatly to the global CSP research and development effort over the past several years.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Editorial: Applications of spectroscopy and chemometrics in nuclear materials analysis

Optical analysis techniques, including spectroscopy and image analysis, have many advantages when applied to the study of nuclear materials. They require small sample sizes, can be performed remotely, and can be proceduralized through consistent practice. Most importantly, they provide a wealth of information by generating multivariate data. For example, ultraviolet–visible–near-infrared absorbance spectroscopy of actinides in aqueous and organic solutions is dependent on the oxidation state, anionic complexation, and temperature. These variables are important for solution-based separation processes, and sensitivity to these factors, combined with online monitoring, can drive the efficiency and control of these processes. The morphology and chemical composition of actinide particles can also provide a vital clue to the mechanisms by which the particles were formed, providing forensic information on the origins of the particles.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Sensing at the Nanoscale Using Nitrogen-Vacancy Centers in Diamond: A Model for a Quantum Pressure Sensor

The sensing of stress under harsh environmental conditions with high resolution has critical importance for a range of applications including earth’s subsurface scanning, geological CO2 storage monitoring, and mineral and resource recovery. Using a first-principles density functional theory (DFT) approach combined with the theoretical modelling of the low-energy Hamiltonian, here, we investigate a novel approach to detect unprecedented levels of pressure by taking advantage of the solid-state electronic spin of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond. We computationally explore the effect of strain on the defect band edges and band gaps by varying the lattice parameters of a diamond supercell hosting a single NV center. A low-energy Hamiltonian is developed that includes the effect of stress on the energy level of a ±1 spin manifold at the ground state. By quantifying the energy level shift and split, we predict pressure sensing of up to 0.3 MPa/Hz using the experimentally measured spin dephasing time. We show the superiority of the quantum sensing approach over traditional optical sensing techniques by discussing our results from DFT and theoretical modelling for the frequency shift per unit pressure. Importantly, we propose a quantum manometer that could be useful to measure earth’s subsurface vibrations as well as for pressure detection and monitoring in high-temperature superconductivity studies and in material sciences. Our results open avenues for the development of a sensing technology with high sensitivity and resolution under extreme pressure limits that potentially has a wider applicability than the existing pressure sensing technologies.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗