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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 793 records · Page 44
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2019

Elucidation of Separator Effect on Energy Density of Li-Ion Batteries

Fast charging of batteries is the key to increase the adoption of electric vehicles. All the components of a battery: anode, cathode, electrolyte and separator, contribute to the limiting factors of fast charging. While majority efforts are focused on novel electrode architecture and electrolyte formulation for high rate capabilities, studies on separators are mostly pertaining to their mechanical and physical properties and little attention has been paid to their effect on rate performance. In this study, we report a comprehensive analysis of the physical properties, electrochemical performance and high rate capabilities of the widely used battery separator Celgard 2325 and Celgard 2500. It is demonstrated that the Celgard 2500 has better electrolyte wettability and ~2 × in electrolyte uptake, and 2.23 Ω/cm 2 less in resistance. Consequently, 57% and 47% improvement in capacity is obtained when charged at 2C and 3C, respectively. This indicates that separator can also play an important role in enabling fast charging for lithium-ion batteries.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2024

The Chalkboard: An Introduction to Electrochemical Separations

Chemical separations are a cornerstone of industrial manufacturing processes that generate products and services that have improved the standard of living for humans across the globe. To give some context as to how ubiquitous separations are in the modern world, they are involved in the production of fuels, medicines, clean water, fertilizers, materials used in semiconductor chip manufacturing, and other goods. A 2019 report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine highlights that chemical separations account for about 10 to 15% of energy use in the United States. Of the four broad sectors (residential, transportation, industry, and commerce) that use energy in the United States, industry has the largest use at 32% and about half of the energy use in industry hails from separations. It is likely that the transportation and residential sectors will experience significant decarbonization in the next 25 years with the proliferation of wind and solar energy sources coupled with electrochemical energy storage and electrification of vehicles. Finally, industrial decarbonization, on the other hand, is far more complex and challenging and it is imperative that future engineers and scientists work hard to devise alternative processes that can be powered on renewable electrons while generating little waste to produce the goods and services that make up our modern lives.

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

Development of Mixed Matrix Membranes by Using NH 2 ‐Functionalized UiO‐66 and [APTMS][AC] Ionic Liquid for the Separation of CO 2

The ever‐escalating CO 2 concentration in the atmosphere calls for accelerated development and deployment of carbon capture processes to reduce emissions. Mixed matrix membranes (MMMs), which are fabricated by incorporating the beneficial properties of highly selective inorganic fillers into a polymer matrix, have exhibited significant progress and the ability to enhance the performance of a membrane for gas separation. In this research, an amine‐based ionic liquid (IL) [APTMS][AC] was prepared, which has greater CO 2 affinity and greater solubility due to its amine moiety. The metal–organic framework (MOF) UiO‐66 with a multidimensional crystalline structure was used as a filler due to its appropriate porosity and tunable properties, and it was functionalized with NH 2 . MOFs were further modified with an IL to prepare UiO‐66@IL and UiO‐66‐NH 2 @IL, and MMMs incorporating each MOF were fabricated with the polymer Pebax‐1657. All the prepared membranes and MOFs were characterized to predict their separation efficiency. Several characterization techniques, namely, FTIR spectroscopy, XRD, and SEM, were used to successfully synthesize UiO‐66@IL and UiO‐66‐NH 2 @IL composites and confirmed proper dispersion and excellent polymer‒filler compatibility at filler loadings ranging from 0 to 30 wt.%. The separation performances were investigated, and the results showed that the incorporation of RTIL with the highly crystalline structure and large surface area of UiO‐66 enhanced the separation efficiency of the membrane. The permeability of CO 2 for all fabricated membranes continuously increased with increasing filler concentration, wherein the permeability was comparatively high for the UiO‐66‐NH 2 MMMs. The CO 2 /CH 4 selectivity improved by 35%, 54%, and 60%, respectively, for UiO‐66@IL, UiO‐66‐NH 2 , and UiO‐66‐NH 2 @IL MMMs compared to simple UiO‐66 for CO 2 /CH 4 and by 28%, 36%, and 63%, respectively, for CO 2 /N 2 , with an increase in filler loading in the MMMs.

Khalid, Hafiza Mamoona (ORCID:0009000135165855)↗
DOE OSTI2017

Indentation cracking behaviour and structures of nanophase separation of glasses

Correlative microscopy is used to compare the performance and nanophase structures of soda–lime–silica, fused silica and borosilicate glasses using Vickers indentation crack analysis and the transmission electron microscopy (TEM) Fresnel contrast method. In this paper, it is found that the observed indentation cracking behaviour is correlated to the nanophase separation structure of these glasses. The so-called "normal" cracking behaviour of soda–lime–silica glass is influenced by its spinodal nanophase separation; while the "anomalous" cracking behaviour of fused silica is due to the uniform single phase structure. Borosilicate glass has a droplet nanophase separation and shows "intermediate" cracking behaviour. Finally, these results indicate that in order to produce low brittleness glasses it is important to control nanophase separation structure of a glass.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2019

Improving Energy Efficiency of Air Separation via Hollow Fiber Sorbents

This report summarizes the work performed under the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (DOE-NETL) Advanced Energy Systems Program award number DE-FE0026163 Improving Energy Efficiency of Air Separation via Hollow Fiber Sorbents. The overall objective of the project was to develop technology to produce oxygen for use in coal gasification processes at a significantly lower cost than that of the commercial state-of-the-art technology. The focus of the project was development and optimization of hollow fiber sorbents for use in a pressure swing adsorption (PSA) process for producing oxygen from air. The key technical advancement under this program was the development of a hollow fiber sorbent capable of producing oxygen in a PSA process. PSAs produce oxygen by using a beaded zeolite material (typically lithium exchanged zeolites or LiX) that selectively adsorb nitrogen over oxygen. For a fiber to adsorb nitrogen, LiX needed to be integrated into a polymer fiber and then activated at over 350C to remove residual moisture. After screening multiple materials and process techniques, Matrimid/LiX hollow fibers were produced that were able to withstand the activation and had crystalline nitrogen capacity close to pure LiX crystals. The fibers were dual layer fibers with a barrier layer isolating the hollow bore from the LiX embedded layer. The barrier layer was formed from an Ultem® based solution. The hollow bore was intended for encapsulating phase change materials to ensure isothermal PSA operation. Modeling work from the project suggested that the benefits of this additional complexity were marginal, thus the team fabricated non-hollow fibers comprised of Matrimid and LiX. The Matrimid/LiX fibers were loaded into a module and tested on a bench scale PSA unit. The fibers were able to separate oxygen from air, but the purity and recovery were lower than expected and lower than traditional beaded LiX zeolites, although modeling results suggested that the bed sizes for fiber sorbents could be half the size of a beaded LiX bed. Additional work will be needed to understand the shortfall and to produce fiber sorbent modules with performance equal to the targets set for this program. In addition to producing fibers, modeling work was carried out at both the fiber level and process level to guide both fiber sorbent development and to determine the optimal process conditions for a PSA using fiber sorbents. A 2D hollow fiber model was developed in gPROMS Model Builder. This model was based on literature data for mass transfer and other parameters. This model used a basic single bed PSA process to determine important fiber properties and process conditions for achieving high oxygen recovery. The preliminary 2D fiber model was a valuable tool, however, for step-out technologies, such as a PSA process with fiber sorbents, intelligent optimization and plant control was needed to effectively determine minimum power designs. Therefore, a gPROMS Process Builder-based optimization tool was developed with an “Automated Cycle Optimizer” model that was able to determine optimal cycle conditions for a fiber sorbent PSA. The results from the optimizer were used in the final power analysis. Flow sheet analysis and techno-economic analysis (TEA) was carried out to determine a lower power solution versus the baseline case. The original project scope suggested that the fiber sorbent PSA could be used to debottleneck a cryogenic air separation plant (cryo-ASU) with the combined plant having lower power than a standalone cryo-ASU. However, early flowsheet analysis showed that the PSA/cryo-ASU concept would not lead to a lower power solution. However, further flowsheet analysis suggested that an oxygen PSA combined with a nitrogen PSA could have lower power versus state-of-the-art air separation technology. Work concluded with the TEA showing a fiber sorbent oxygen PSA combined with an advanced nitrogen PSA could be up to 8% lower power versus the base case cryo-ASU. Overall, there is significant potential remaining for the zeolite hollow fiber sorbent concept, and this project successfully identified -- and ultimately remedied -- many technical challenges associated with scale-up.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2019

Separations for Radiochronometry and Forensics: Chemistry - Nuclear and Radiochemistry [Slides]

The term “separation” means multiple things when applied to radiochronometry efforts in C-NR: 1) How efficiently and rapidly can we separate trace-level nuclides used for age dating from bulk matrices? 2) Do we have pure (separated) well-calibrated single isotope tracers needed for high-precision trace level quantification of nuclides? 3) How much knowledge do we have about how nuclides used for radiochronometry are separated during uranium and plutonium production?

38 RADIATION CHEMISTRY, RADIOCHEMISTRY, AND NUCLEA↗
DOE OSTI2020

Bioprocessing Separations Consortium Three-Year Overview: Technical Advances, Process Economics Influence, and State of the Science

The Bioprocessing Separations Consortium solves separations challenges that are unique to bioprocessing. To do this, the Consortium uses two methods: applying existing technologies to new challenges and developing new technologies that may address these unique challenges better than today’s commercial technologies. In its research and development, the Consortium leverages its three core capabilities: materials development and evaluation, process development, and analysis and computation. In its first three years, from 2016 to 2019, the Consortium addressed four critical challenges in biochemical and thermochemical processing. First, the Consortium targeted the fractionation of lignin to enable valorization of this portion of biomass that offers diverse, complex, and valuable building blocks and products. Second, Consortium researchers developed technologies to enable process intensification, which can reduce equipment needs, energy consumption, and waste generation, thereby cutting bioprocessing capital costs and rendering processes more efficient. Third, the Consortium sought to recover carbon from dilute aqueous streams that are common to bioprocessing; recovering dilute carbon can improve process efficiency and economics. Finally, Consortium researchers designed and developed new materials and catalysts to reduce targeted foulants and poisons in bioprocessing streams that can limit the lifetime of downstream catalysts or fermenting microorganisms. Table 1 lists the technologies that were examined and places them in the context of the Consortium’s capabilities, types of bioprocesses, and critical challenges in bioprocessing separations. Overall, across these projects, we have developed separations technologies for 10 bioprocesses, addressed 9 target compounds in bioprocessing, developed 10 materials, and evaluated 4 processes for cost and sustainability.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Bioprocessing Separations Consortium Three-Year Overview: Technical Advances Process Economics Influence, and State of the Science

The Bioprocessing Separations Consortium solves separations challenges that are unique to bioprocessing. To do this, the Consortium uses two methods: applying existing technologies to new challenges and developing new technologies that may address these unique challenges better than today’s commercial technologies. In its research and development, the Consortium leverages its three core capabilities: materials development and evaluation, process development, and analysis and computation. In its first three years, from 2016 to 2019, the Consortium addressed four critical challenges in biochemical and thermochemical processing. First, the Consortium targeted the fractionation of lignin to enable valorization of this portion of biomass that offers diverse, complex, and valuable building blocks and products. Second, Consortium researchers developed technologies to enable process intensification, which can reduce equipment needs, energy consumption, and waste generation, thereby cutting bioprocessing capital costs and rendering processes more efficient. Third, the Consortium sought to recover carbon from dilute aqueous streams that are common to bioprocessing; recovering dilute carbon can improve process efficiency and economics. Finally, Consortium researchers designed and developed new materials and catalysts to reduce targeted foulants and poisons in bioprocessing streams that can limit the lifetime of downstream catalysts or fermenting microorganisms. Table 1 lists the technologies that were examined and places them in the context of the Consortium’s capabilities, types of bioprocesses, and critical challenges in bioprocessing separations. Overall, across these projects, we have developed separations technologies for 10 bioprocesses, addressed 9 target compounds in bioprocessing, developed 10 materials, and evaluated 4 processes for cost and sustainability.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2023

Extraction, Separation, and Production of High Purity Rare Earth Elements and Critical Minerals from Coal-Based and Related Resources

The general objectives of this project are to develop concepts for rare earth metal and critical mineral production from coal-based and related (minerals associated with coal) resources and incorporate them into a Technical Research Plan with an associated overall flow sheet. The project team has extensive expertise in market evaluation, mineral separation, leaching, chemical separations, alternative metallothermic reaction technology, electrowinning, and electrorefining that was critical to the success of the proposed project. The project included critical industrial partners needed for project success. The project team has extensive expertise in market evaluation, mineral separation, leaching, chemical separations, alternative reduction technology, electrowinning, and electrorefining as well as appropriate pilot-scale facilities to enable this project. The project encompassed broader opportunities for developing domestic resources of REE/CM materials for a more resilient, diverse, and secure supply chain for REE/CM materials with built-in redundancies and appropriate resource stockpiles. The production of REE/CM materials will help to revitalize and rebuild world-class American manufacturing capacity and the related workforce through new jobs and infrastructure. Furthermore, due to the nature and location of the production sites, economic growth in diverse communities of color and economically distressed areas will be cultivated. Finally, this technology can be applied to reuse and remediate coal waste tailings for REE/CM production.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2024

Nanoconfined Interfaces for Highly Selective Separation of Critical Rare Earth Elements

Industrial demand for rare earth elements (REEs) has surged over the past three decades due to their unique properties that support sustainable energy and new technologies. Separating individual REEs is challenging and hazardous, typically done through liquid-liquid extraction. There is an urgent need for environmentally friendly and efficient separation technologies for REEs. Porous materials offer promising advances for sustainable REE separation via ion-selective capture. We hypothesize that REE separation can be efficiently achieved in reactive nanopores, such as Zr(IV) and Cr(III) metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), through surface functionalization. By integrating material synthesis, interfacial chemistry experiments, theory, computation, and machine learning, we gained insights into the chemical factors controlling REE speciation and their competitive adsorption on MOFs. Our findings show that these materials’ selectivity can be tuned by surface functionalization. The machine learning component addressed ion-specific diffusion based on MOF topology and chemistry.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Leveraging Macrocyclic Chelators for Rare Earth Element Separations

The long-term objective of this project is to develop new, more energy-efficient and environmentally benign separations of the rare earth elements. The current approaches to separate the rare earth elements employ liquid-liquid extraction methods, using a biphasic mixture of aqueous and organic solvents containing different metal-binding agents. Although a significant amount of work has been carried out to develop new organic-phase extractants, significantly less has been executed for the design of aqueous complexants. Our approach to achieve better rare earth separations is to modify and optimize these aqueous complexants for achieving different rare earth-binding properties. Once synthesized, these new complexants were evaluated for more environmentally friendly and energy-efficient separations of the rare earth elements.

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

Operation of Argonne's Liquid Salt-Liquid Metal Separation Testbed for U/TRU Product Processing

Argonne National Laboratory has constructed a liquid salt-liquid metal separation testbed for use in the development and advancement of cathode processing of U/TRU co‑deposits generated by pyroprocessing of used nuclear fuel. The U/TRU product recovered from the electrorefiner contains adhered and entrained salt that must be removed prior to consolidation of the U/TRU alloy for use in advanced reactor fuel fabrication. The bottom pour operation utilizes the low melting points of U/TRU co‑deposits and higher densities of molten metals compared to molten salts to separate and consolidate the U/TRU product. Argonne’s testbed is designed to support the development and optimization of bottom-pouring configurations for batch and semi-continuous operations, integration of process monitoring and control technologies, and determination of operational requirements for implementing in an industrial setting. Scoping tests were performed to demonstrate operational aspects of the testbed, including operation using single-pour spout and dual-pour spout configurations, effectiveness of salt containment and extent of salt vaporization, and the use of sensor probes to detect the location of the interface between the metal and salt phases during pouring. Recommendations for process optimization testing for further development of bottom pour processing to separate U/TRU alloys from adhered salt were made based on the results of scoping tests. Completing the recommended activities will increase the technical readiness level (TRL) of the liquid salt-liquid metal separation operation and consolidation of U/TRU alloys to support industrialization of pyroprocessing.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2026

BOTTLE: Hybrid Chemical-Mechanical Separation and Upcycling of Mixed Plastic Waste

The main objective of this project is to develop a hybrid mechanical-chemical recycling technology for multilayered and laminated plastics. We aimed to separate and upcycle up to more than 80% of the two main constituents of such structures, polyolefins and polyesters, for a significantly lower cost and at higher energetic efficiency and much larger throughputs than chemical recycling. At the end of the project, the team was able to: a) Develop an extrusion-based separation technology that resorts to polyester depolymerizaton and extraction and allows for more than 90% of the polyester to be separated in the melt from the main polyolefin stream. b) Depolymerize the separated PET to more than 90%, which facilitates its posterior repolymerization and guarantees its retention in the polymer value-chain. c) Develop a zeolite-induced extrusion-based technology able to conduct continuous catalytic cracking of polyolefins, including highly contaminated PCR streams, at temperatures as low as 350 OC. d) Show, using LCA/TEA analysis that the two technologies are much more advantageous techno-economically and over the material’s life cycle than existing recycling technologies.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2017

PSYM-WIDE: A Survey for Large-separation Planetary-mass Companions to Late Spectral Type Members of Young Moving Groups

We present the results of a direct imaging survey for very large separation (>100 au), low-mass companions around 95 nearby young K5–L5 stars and brown dwarfs. They are high-likelihood candidates or confirmed members of the young (≲150 Myr) β Pictoris and AB Doradus moving groups (ABDMG) and the TW Hya, Tucana–Horologium, Columba, Carina, and Argus associations. Images in i{sup ′} and z{sup ′} filters were obtained with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on Gemini South to search for companions down to an apparent magnitude of z{sup ′} ∼ 22–24 at separations ≳20″ from the targets and in the remainder of the wide 5.′5 × 5.′5 GMOS field of view. This allowed us to probe the most distant region where planetary-mass companions could be gravitationally bound to the targets. This region was left largely unstudied by past high-contrast imaging surveys, which probed much closer-in separations. This survey led to the discovery of a planetary-mass (9–13 M{sub Jup}) companion at 2000 au from the M3V star GU Psc, a highly probable member of ABDMG. No other substellar companions were identified. These results allowed us to constrain the frequency of distant planetary-mass companions (5–13 M{sub Jup}) to 0.84{sub −0.66}{sup +6.73}% (95% confidence) at semimajor axes between 500 and 5000 au around young K5–L5 stars and brown dwarfs. This is consistent with other studies suggesting that gravitationally bound planetary-mass companions at wide separations from low-mass stars are relatively rare.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

OGLE-2016-BLG-1227L: A Wide-separation Planet from a Very Short-timescale Microlensing Event

We present the analysis of the microlensing event OGLE-2016-BLG-1227. The light curve of this short-duration event appears to be a single-lens event affected by severe finite-source effects. Analysis of the light curve based on a single-lens single-source (1L1S) model yields very small values of the event timescale, t{sub E}∼3.5 days, and the angular Einstein radius, θ{sub E}∼0.009 mas, making the lens a candidate of a free-floating planet. Close inspection reveals that the 1L1S solution leaves small residuals with an amplitude of ΔI ≲ 0.03 mag. We find that the residuals are explained by the existence of an additional widely separated heavier lens component, indicating that the lens is a wide-separation planetary system rather than a free-floating planet. From Bayesian analysis, it is estimated that the planet has a mass of M{sub p}=0.79{sub −0.39}{sup +1.30} M{sub J} and it is orbiting a low-mass host star with a mass of M{sub host}=0.10{sub −0.05}{sup +0.17} M{sub ⊙} located with a projected separation of a{sub ⊥}=3.4{sub −1.0}{sup +2.1} au. The planetary system is located in the Galactic bulge with a line-of-sight separation from the source star of D{sub LS}=1.21{sub −0.63}{sup +0.96} kpc. The event shows that there is a range of deviations in the signatures of host stars for apparently isolated planetary lensing events and that it is possible to identify a host even when a deviation is subtle.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Holography vs. Scale Separation

In this work, we point out a contradiction between holography and scale-separated AdS (i.e. parametrically large mass gap) in string theory, making the standard assumption that the holographic CFT describes the IR degrees of freedom on a brane that decouple from gravity. We show that the CFT can only decouple from gravity if the scalar potential in the dual AdS satisfies a certain criterion. Namely, there must exist a scalar field trajectory that follows the gradient of the scalar potential to the asymptotic region of the scalar field space in which limit $\partial_ϕ\ln(V)\partial_ϕ\ln(Λ_s)\leq2/(d-2)$, where $Λ_s$ is the quantum gravity cut-off. This condition, which generically implies lack of scale-separation, is satisfied in the standard examples of AdS/CFT. However, proposed attempts at achieving scale separation, such as DGKT, employ scalar potentials that violate this condition. We therefore conclude that the CFT duals of DGKT vacua cannot exist in string theory. Barring fine-tuning, our conclusions apply to other Ricci-flat flux compactifications including the KKLT scenario which relies on scale separation to obtain a metastable de Sitter uplift.

FOS: Physical sciences↗
NASA NTRS1972

Lifetime estimates for sterilizable silver-zinc battery separators

The lifetime of separator membranes currently employed in the electrolyte environment of silver-zinc batteries was estimated at 3 to 5 years. The separator membranes are crosslinked polyethylene film containing grafted poly (potassium acrylate)(PKA), the latter being the hydrophilic agent which promotes electrolyte ion transport. The lifetime was estimated by monitoring the rate of loss of PKA from the separators, caused by chemical attack of the electrolyte, and relating this loss rate to a known relationship between battery performance and PKA concentration in the separators.

Cuddihy, E. F.↗
NASA NTRS1973

Separation over a flat plate-wedge configuration at oceanic Reynolds numbers

An experimental study of flow over a two-dimensional flat plate-wedge configuration is presented. The investigation encompasses a range of Reynolds numbers characteristics of conditions encountered by deep submersible oceanic vehicles. Flow separation, similar to that found on high speed aircraft control surfaces, is reported and discussed in light of the laminar or transitional nature of the separated shear layer. As discovered in previous high Mach number studies of plate-wedge or ramp configurations, the dependency of the size of the separated region on free stream Reynolds number is reversed for laminar and transitional types of flow separation.

Campbell, D. R.↗