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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 91 records · Page 5
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Process Systems Engineering-Informed Design and Scale-Up of Multi-stage Diafiltration Cascades for Lithium and Cobalt Recovery from Spent Lithium-Ion Batteries

These slides present work jointly completed by Tasks in PrOMMiS. The first half of the presentation motivates the importance of critical materials for national security and how the recovery of critical minerals via membrane separations can be more cost effective than currently used technology. The second half of the presentation presents cost-optimal results for the custom cost model for diafiltration using the superstructure flowsheet developed by CMU. These results highlight how PSE can inform process targets (i.e., product purity targets) and suitable design strategies for scaled-up membrane cascades.

critical materials↗
DOE OSTI2025

Cascade Dielectrophoretic Separation for Selective Enrichment of Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB)-Producing Cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803

Maintaining favorable biological productivities in photosynthetic biomanufacturing systems, especially when the risk of contamination with competing microbes is high, remains a challenge to achieve while maintaining economic feasibility. This study presents a dielectrophoresis (DEP)-based microfluidic approach for isolating a desired strain within a co-culture. The cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 (a strain capable of producing the bioplastic precursor polyhydroxybutyrate, or PHB) was enriched from mixed cultures containing the competing cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942 (which does not naturally produce PHB). A DEP cascade electrode system was established to increase purification efficiency through sequential enrichment, which leveraged inherent differences in cell morphology and dielectric properties, to achieve the selective separation of these strains under physiological conditions. A substantial increase in the relative abundance of PHB-producing cells was assessed by optical microscopy and flow cytometry characterization, confirming more than five-fold reduction of the Synechococcus fraction in the refined cell mix. The presented electrokinetic platform offers a scalable and effective approach for selectively enhancing desired microbial components within microbial biomanufacturing systems, leading towards improved product yields.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Sub-Alfvénic Turbulence: Magnetic-to-kinetic Energy Ratio, Modification of Weak Cascade, and Implications for Magnetic Field Strength Measurements

Abstract We study the properties of sub-Alfvénic magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence, i.e., turbulence with Alfvén mach number M A = V L / V A < 1, where V L is the velocity at the injection scale and V A is the Alfvén velocity. We demonstrate that MHD turbulence can have different properties, depending on whether it is driven by velocity or magnetic fluctuations. If the turbulence is driven by isotropic bulk forces acting upon the fluid, i.e., is velocity driven, in an incompressible conducting fluid we predict that the kinetic energy is M A − 2 times larger than the energy of magnetic fluctuations. This effect arises from the long parallel wavelength tail of the forcing, which excites modes with k ∥ / k ⊥ < M A . We also predict that as the MHD turbulent cascade reaches the strong regime, the energy of slow modes exceeds the energy of Alfvén modes by a factor M A − 1 . These effects are absent if the turbulence is driven through magnetic fluctuations at the injection scale. We confirm our predictions with numerical simulations. Since the assumption of magnetic and kinetic energy equipartition is at the core of the Davis–Chandrasekhar–Fermi (DCF) approach to measuring magnetic field strength in sub-Alfvénic turbulence, we conclude that the DCF technique is not universally applicable. In particular, we suggest that the dynamical excitation of long azimuthal wavelength modes in the galactic disk may compromise the use of the DCF technique. We discuss alternative expressions that can be used to obtain magnetic field strength from observations and consider ways of distinguishing the cases of velocity and magnetically driven turbulence using observational data.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2025

A Cascaded Random Access Quantum Memory

Dynamic random access memory is critical to classical computing but notably absent in experimental quantum computers. Here we realize an 8-bit cascaded random access quantum memory using superconducting circuits and cavities and showcase the ability to perform arbitrary gate operations on it. In addition to individual error channels such as photon loss, quantum memories can also experience decoherence from many-body self-interaction. We characterize the origin and contributions of many-body infidelity throughout the memory cycle. We find that individual modes can be accessed with $\lesssim 1.5\%$ infidelity per mode and that the entire memory can be accessed in arbitrary order with an error rate below the depolarization threshold of the surface code, paving the way for fault-tolerant quantum memories.

Li, Ziqian [Stanford U., Appl. Phys. Dept.; Stanfo↗
DOE OSTI2024

Heating performance of a vapor compression heat pump cascaded with a thermoelectric heat pump

Air source heat pumps (ASHPs) are widely utilized for heating and cooling in residential buildings; however, their effectiveness in heating mode is compromised during extreme weather conditions. Extensive research endeavors have been undertaken to develop, test, and assess a cost-effective vapor compression ASHP suitable for cold climate regions. Further, this study takes an innovative approach by developing component and system prototypes for a cold climate heat pump. This design combines a thermoelectric heat pump (TEHP) with a traditional residential split ASHP to augment heating capacity in low ambient temperature conditions. The component and system prototypes underwent experimental testing in the psychrometric chambers. The experimental findings revealed a 13.6% to 13.7% increase in total heat pump heating capacity, accompanied by a 3.1% to 5.0% decrease in the coefficient of performance (COP) at ambient temperatures of -15°C and -19°C, when compared to the original ASHP. The COP of the TEHP is relatively constant, ranging from 1.63 to 1.76. This prototype offers a solution to address the challenges associated with reduced heat pump capacity at low ambient temperatures. The experimental results indicated that the lower the ambient temperature, thermoelectric heat pump auxiliary heating can increase the heating efficiency 60% in comparison to electric resistance.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Multi-GPU porting of a phase-change cascaded lattice Boltzmann method for three-dimensional pool boiling simulations

The Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) has proven effective in simulating phase-change phenomena, such as melting, solidification, evaporation, and boiling. In this work, we develop a highly parallelized multi-GPU implementation of LBM for three-dimensional pool boiling simulations. The code is based on the OpenACC programming model, which enables the code to be deployed efficiently on multi-core CPUs, GPUs, and potentially other accelerators, without the need for architecture-specific rewrites. To support large-scale simulations, the domain is decomposed and distributed across multiple compute nodes using MPI. We demonstrate that the code exhibits excellent scaling properties, with ideal strong-scaling running with up to 256 GPUs on the MareNostrum5 cluster.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Effects cascade debris and helium bubbles on the strength of aged plutonium

The radioactive decay of aging Pu is dominated by α-decay. This persistent α-decay produces crystalline defects in the form of dislocation loops and helium bubbles that evolve with time. Comparable defects are produced in other metallic alloys when subject to neutron irradiation, and these defects are known to modify the plastic deformation of irradiated materials. Models have been developed for these irradiated materials and validated against experimental confirmations of yield strength and the concomitant microstructural evolution. In this paper, we deploy those previously developed models and apply their mechanics to plutonium aging.

Chemical elements↗
DOE OSTI2024

Optimal Membrane Cascade Design for Critical Mineral Recovery through Logic-based Superstructure Optimization

In this work, we extend the superstructure model proposed by Wamble et al. (2022) that considers feed input locations, recycling strategies, split fractions, stage numbers, and membrane area. We include the total number of stages as a decision variable, which might be particularly useful when there is cost as- sociated with adding additional stages. We propose a Generalized Disjunctive Programming (GDP) superstructure model that integrates all the design variables of the system. We also investigate the scalability of the model by varying the number of stages and the number of finite elements per stage to determine the impact on recovery and solution time.

Tran, Norman↗