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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 901 records · Page 50

3D Ferroelectric Phase Field Simulations of Polycrystalline Multi‐Phase Hafnia and Zirconia Based Ultra‐Thin Films

Abstract HfO 2 – and ZrO 2 –based ferroelectric thin films have emerged as promising candidates for the gate oxides of next‐generation electronic devices. Recent work has experimentally demonstrated that a tetragonal/orthorhombic (t/o‐) phase mixture with partially in‐plane polarization can lead to negative capacitance (NC) stabilization. However, there is a discrepancy between experiments and the theoretical understanding of domain formation and domain wall motion in these multi‐phase, polycrystalline materials. Furthermore, the effect of anisotropic domain wall coupling on NC has not been studied so far. Here, 3D phase field simulations of HfO 2 – and ZrO 2 –based mixed‐phase ultra‐thin films on silicon are applied to understand the necessary and beneficial conditions for NC stabilization. It is found that smaller ferroelectric grains and a larger angle of the polar axis with respect to the out‐of‐plane direction enhances the NC effect. Furthermore, it is shown that theoretically predicted negative domain wall coupling even along only one axis prevents NC stabilization. Therefore, it is concluded that topological domain walls play a critical role in experimentally observed NC phenomena in HfO 2 – and ZrO 2 –based ferroelectrics.

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION↗

Catalytic and electrocatalytic performance of Sr(Ti 0.3 Fe 0.7 Ru 0.07 )O 3-δ for applications in solid oxide fuel cells supplied with ethanol steam reforming mixtures

We discuss how direct utilization of alcohols in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) can improve the conversion efficiency by using excess heat for internal reforming and simplify the system balance of plant. Thanks to their scarce carbon- formation tendency, perovskite oxide anodes are promising alternatives to Ni-based cermets. Here we show that Sr(Ti 0.3 Fe 0.7 Ru 0.07 )O 3-δ (STF-Ru) exsolution anodes provide both catalytic reforming activity and electro- chemical activity with steam/ethanol (S/E) mixtures at 3:1 and 2:1 M ratio between 700 and 800 °C. Electrolyte- supported scandia stabilized zirconia SOFCs with STF-Ru anodes and Sr 0.95 Ti 0.3 Fe 0.7 O 3-δ (STF) cathodes are reasonably stable in the 3:1 S/E mixture over 20 h at 800 °C, with maximum power density of 195 mW/cm 2 and 140 mW/cm 2 at 0.7 V. Deactivation instead occurs with the 2:1 S/E mixture. Comparatively, cells with Ni-YSZ anodes rapidly coke and fail under the same conditions. Ethanol steam reforming experiments in a fixed bed powder reactor reveal that, above 650 °C, gas phase reactions convert ethanol to CO, hydrogen, acetaldehyde and ethylene, while STF-Ru catalyzes steam reforming. Thermogravimetric and Raman characterizations show that a moderate amount of carbon is deposited on the STF-Ru surface, which is more amorphous than the disruptive carbon which degrades Ni-YSZ.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Probing lead acetate in solution using X-ray diffraction

Here, for the purpose of water purification involving toxic metal sensing and removal, high energy X-ray diffraction experiments have been performed on lead acetate Pb(Ac) 2 solutions, liquid and amorphous glutathione disulfide (GSSG), and their mixtures. The data have been interpreted using Empirical Potential Structure Refinement and pair distribution function analysis. At the highest concentration of 1 M Pb(Ac) 2 in water, the lead molecules are found to cluster and the second shell in the water structure becomes slightly more ordered as the water molecules become compressed. Liquid and amorphous GSSG are found to hydrogen bond primarily via OH-O interactions, while NH-O bonds are much more distorted. Aqueous solutions of Pb(Ac) 2 + GSSG show the closest Pb-O (carboxyl) and Pb-N (amine) bonds both at a distance of 2.5 ± 0.1 Å at a concentration of 1 M Pb(Ac) 2 in water. At 0.75 M Pb(Ac) 2 in water, strong Pb-S bonds are found at a distance of 2.8 ± 0.1 Å. The implications for lead removal using capacitive deionization are discussed.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Evaluating the biogas potential of the dry fraction from pretreatment of food waste from households

Highlights: ► A novel approach for biogas production from a waste fraction that today is incinerated. ► Biogas production is possible in spite of the impurities of the waste. ► Tracer studies are applied in a novel way. ► Structural material is needed to improve the flow pattern of the waste. ► We provide a solution to biological treatment for the complex waste fraction. - Abstract: At the waste handling company NSR, Helsingborg, Sweden, the food waste fraction of source separated municipal solid waste is pretreated to obtain a liquid fraction, which is used for biogas production, and a dry fraction, which is at present incinerated. This pretreatment and separation is performed to remove impurities, however also some of the organic material is removed. The possibility of realising the methane potential of the dry fraction through batch-wise dry anaerobic digestion was investigated. The anaerobic digestion technique used was a two-stage process consisting of a static leach bed reactor and a methane reactor. Treatment of the dry fraction alone and in a mixture with structural material was tested to investigate the effect on the porosity of the leach bed. A tracer experiment was carried out to investigate the liquid flow through the leach beds, and this method proved useful in demonstrating a more homogenous flow through the leach bed when structural material was added. Addition of structural material to the dry fraction was needed to achieve a functional digestion process. A methane yield of 98 m{sup 3}/ton was obtained from the dry fraction mixed with structural material after 76 days of digestion. This was in the same range as obtained in the laboratory scale biochemical methane potential test, showing that it was possible to extract the organic content in the dry fraction in this type of dry digestion system for the production of methane.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

NMR of Fully and Partially 13 C-Enriched Biomass Enhances Pendent Group Structural Characterization

Traditional solution-state NMR experiments may either fail or yield unsatisfactory results when employing fully- 13 C-labeled biomass due to complications arising from 13 C– 13 C coupling. Constant-time analogs of HSQC experiments mitigate such issues and deliver enhanced sensitivity. A rarely reported CT-HSQC-TOCSY experiment allows the proton coupling network to deliver much of the same value as the parent experiment on unlabeled or 10–15%- 13 C-labeled biomass polymers but with enhanced sensitivity. In the absence of a viable HMBC analog for long-range correlations, a relayed C–C experiment, i.e., via directly bonded 13 C-labeled networks, enables the reliable assignment of coupled carbons, with the added advantage of correlating the more elusive quaternaries. A C–C-FLOPSY experiment takes advantage of fully- 13 C-labeled materials for mapping extensive carbon networks in the complex polymer mixtures inherent in biomass. Various pendent groups (tricin units, cis- and trans-p-coumarates, and p -hydroxybenzoates) that adorn lignins, and the cis- and trans-ferulates on arabinoxylan polysaccharides, are exquisitely revealed in spectra from isolated lignins or whole-cell-wall materials from maize, sorghum, and poplar.

biopolymers↗

Photon Counting Data Analysis: Application of the Maximum Likelihood and Related Methods for the Determination of Lifetimes in Mixtures of Rose Bengal and Rhodamine B

It is often convenient to know the minimum amount of data needed in order to obtain a result of desired accuracy and precision. It is a necessity in the case of subdiffraction-limited microscopies, such as stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy, owing to the limited sample volumes and the extreme sensitivity of the samples to photobleaching and photodamage. We present a detailed comparison of probability-based techniques (the maximum likelihood method and methods based on the binomial and the Poisson distributions) with residual minimization-based techniques for retrieving the fluorescence decay parameters for various two-fluorophore mixtures, as a function of the total number of photon counts, in time-correlated, single-photon counting experiments. The probability-based techniques proved to be the most robust (insensitive to initial values) in retrieving the target parameters and, in fact, performed equivalently to 2-3 significant figures. This is to be expected, as we demonstrate that the three methods are fundamentally related. Furthermore, methods based on the Poisson and binomial distributions have the desirable feature of providing a bin-by-bin analysis of a single fluorescence decay trace, which thus permits statistics to be acquired using only the one trace for not only the mean and median values of the fluorescence decay parameters but also for the associated standard deviations. Lastly, these probability-based methods lend themselves well to the analysis of the sparse data sets that are encountered in subdiffraction-limited microscopies.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Near Quantitative Removal of Selenate and Sulfate Anions from Wastewaters by Cocrystallization with Chelating Hydrogen-Bonding Guanidinium Ligands

Selenium (Se) has become an environmental contaminant of aquatic ecosystems as a result of human activities, particularly mining, fossil fuel combustion, and agricultural activities. By leveraging the high sulfate concentrations relative to Se oxyanions (i.e., SeO n 2– , n = 3, 4) present in some wastewaters, we have developed an efficient approach to Se-oxyanion removal by cocrystallization with bisiminoguanidinium (BIG) ligands that form crystalline sulfate/selenate solid solutions. The crystallization of the sulfate, selenate and selenite, oxyanions and of sulfate/selenate mixtures with five candidate BIG ligands are reported along with the thermodynamics of crystallization and aqueous solubilities. Oxyanion removal experiments with the top two performing candidate ligands show a near quantitative removal (>99%) of sulfate or selenate from solution. When both sulfate and selenate are present, there is near quantitative removal (>99%) of selenate, down to sub-ppb Se levels, with no discrimination between the two oxyanions during cocrystallization. Reducing the selenate concentrations by 3 orders of magnitude or more relative to sulfate, as found in many wastewaters, led to no measurable loss in Se removal efficiencies. This work offers a simple and effective alternative to selective separation of trace amounts of highly toxic selenate oxyanions from wastewaters, to meet stringent regulatory discharge limits.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

The CPA Equation of State and an Activity Coefficient Model for Accurate Molar Enthalpy Calculations of Mixtures with Carbon Dioxide and Water/Brine

Thermodynamic property calculations of mixtures containing carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and water, including brines, are essential in theoretical models of many natural and industrial processes. The properties of greatest practical interest are density, solubility, and enthalpy. Many models for density and solubility calculations have been presented in the literature, but there exists only one study, by Spycher and Pruess, that has compared theoretical molar enthalpy predictions with experimental data. In this report, we recommend two different models for enthalpy calculations: the CPA equation of state by Li and Firoozabadi, and the CO 2 activity coefficient model by Duan and Sun. We show that the CPA equation of state, which has been demonstrated to provide good agreement with density and solubility data, also accurately calculates molar enthalpies of pure CO 2 , pure water, and both CO 2 -rich and aqueous (H 2 O-rich) mixtures of the two species. It is applicable to a wider range of conditions than the Spycher and Pruess model. In aqueous sodium chloride (NaCl) mixtures, we show that Duan and Sun’s model yields accurate results for the partial molar enthalpy of CO 2 . It can be combined with another model for the brine enthalpy to calculate the molar enthalpy of H 2 O-CO 2 -NaCl mixtures. We conclude by explaining how the CPA equation of state may be modified to further improve agreement with experiments. This generalized CPA is the basis of our future work on this topic.

02 PETROLEUM↗

Combined Technologies for In Situ Remediation of Tc-99 and U in Subsurface Sediments

In this study, combinations of chemical remedies were tested in bench-scale batch experiments to evaluate a two-step reduction-sequestration approach to effectively stabilize high concentrations of inorganic contaminant mixtures. Bench tests simulated contaminant and geochemical conditions of a perched aquifer located within the Central Plateau at the Hanford Site, located in southeastern Washington State (USA). Pairwise combinations of a reductant [e.g., zero valent iron, sulfur modified iron (SMI), or calcium polysulfide] and a sequestering agent [e.g., calcite, apatite, or dilute alkaline solution (e.g., NaOH)] were evaluated for immobilization and stabilization of technetium (Tc) (50,000 pCi/L), uranium (U) (150 mg/L), and nitrate (NO 3 ) (200 mg/L) in high ionic strength groundwater. The results of these batch studies demonstrated that reduction by SMI and sequestration in apatite or calcite are the most effective combination for these contaminant mixtures and conditions. Aqueous concentrations of Tc and U decreased by 95.6% ± 2.5% and 101.1% ± 5.2%, respectively, with SMI-apatite and 98.3% ± 0.0% and 101.2% ± 5.2%, respectively, with SMI-calcite. Sequential extractions showed that sequestered contaminants had limited capacity for re-oxidation; in fact, less than 10% of immobilized Tc and U was recovered by selective extraction of mineral phases most susceptible to oxidation. In addition, X-ray absorption near edge structure analysis of the sediment samples treated with SMI-calcite showed the presence of only U(IV), while both U(IV) and U(VI) were present in the SMI apatite combination [ratio of 0.43 U(IV):0.59 U(VI)].This study describes preliminary results that a two-step approach for stabilizing contaminant mixtures of long-lived radionuclides can be effective at reducing contaminant fluxes to groundwater from vadose and perched water zones.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

High-speed 4-D Imaging Study of Isooctane Combustion in a Shock Tube

The igniton behavior of the primary reference fuel isooctane was studied behind reflected shockwaves in a shock tube using high-speed, 4-D imaging. Mixtures of 0.1%C8H18/5.94%Air/Ar were used to study the ignition behavior of the fuel. For the majority of experiments conducted in this study, a mild ignition of iso-octane was observed, characterized by ignition first occurring outside of the visible test section and then by local reaction centers that gradually develop in the test region as time progresses. If the energy within the system is increased sufficiently, a strong ignition behavior characterized by ignition occurring at the end wall surface can be observed. This phenomenon was observed for temperatures >1500K.

02 PETROLEUM↗

Duplication in a shock tube of stagnation region conditions on a Jovian atmosphere-entry probe

Measurements are presented of the radiative emission from a shock-heated mixture of .85 H2 plus .15 He - the presumed composition of the dominant species in the Jovian atmosphere. The experiments were performed behind the incident wave in a Voitenko-compressor-driven shock tube at shock velocities of 61 and 67 km/sec. Agreement with predictions is good for both radiative emission and radiative cooling.

Compton, D. L.↗

A flash photolysis-resonance fluorescence study of the formation of O/1D/ in the photolysis of water and the reaction of O/1D/ with H2, Ar, and He

The technique employed in the study utilizes the vacuum ultraviolet flash photolysis of H2O combined with time resolved, simultaneous detection of H and O via resonance fluorescence at 121.6 and 130.2 nm respectively. The measurements were made by means of photon counting and multichannel scaling. The sensitivity of the system for H and O is discussed. Experiments are reported in which signals due to H and O were accumulated from the flash photolysis of a mixture of 0.1 torr H2O and 100 torr Ar. Attention is given to the relative importance of two primary processes in the photolysis of water.

Stief, L. J.↗

Nitric oxide formation in gas turbine engines: A theoretical and experimental study

A modified Zeldovich kinetic scheme was used to predict nitric oxide formation in the burned gases. Nonuniformities in fuel-air ratio in the primary zone were accounted for by a distribution of fuel-air ratios. This was followed by one or more dilution zones in which a Monte Carlo calculation was employed to follow the mixing and dilution processes. Predictions of NOX emissions were compared with various available experimental data, and satisfactory agreement was achieved. In particular, the model is applied to the NASA swirl-can modular combustor. The operating characteristics of this combustor which can be inferred from the modeling predictions are described. Parametric studies are presented which examine the influence of the modeling parameters on the NOX emission level. A series of flow visualization experiments demonstrates the fuel droplet breakup and turbulent recirculation processes. A tracer experiment quantitatively follows the jets from the swirler as they move downstream and entrain surrounding gases. Techniques were developed for calculating both fuel-air ratio and degree of nonuniformity from measurements of CO2, CO, O2, and hydrocarbons. A burning experiment made use of these techniques to map out the flow field in terms of local equivalence ratio and mixture nonuniformity.

Mikus, T.↗

Temperature dependence of the rate constants for reactions of O/1D/ atoms with a number of halocarbons

Results are reported for an experimental study of the reactions of O(1D) with CCl4, CFCl3, CF2Cl2, CHFCl2, CHF2Cl, and CF2ClCFCl2 over the temperature range from 173 to 343 K, based on the time-resolved emission of O(1D) at 630 nm. The experiments involved photolysis of O3 by Nd-YAG laser pulses and measurements of 630-nm emission intensity in mixtures with He and the various halocarbons. Pseudo-first-order rate constants are derived from plots of the logarithms of the 630-nm emission intensities as a function of time for particular He/O3/halocarbon mixtures, and second-order rate constants are then obtained from plots of these pseudo-first-order rate constants as a function of halocarbon concentration at constant He and O3 concentrations. No temperature dependence of the second-order rate constants is observed over the range studied, within the precision of the measurements. It is found that the rate constants decrease as H is substituted for Cl in a halocarbon molecule and as F is substituted for H or Cl.

Davidson, J. A.↗

Investigation of the hydrochlorination of SiCl4

A research and development program on the hydrochlorination of silicon tetrachloride and metallurgical grade (m.g.) silicon metal to trichlorosilane was carried out as scheduled. Effects of pressure and temperature on this reaction are reported. The presence of HCl in the reaction product mixture was successfully analyzed. Approximately 0.1% to 0.5% HCl based on total chlorosilanes were produced by the hydrochlorination reaction. Experiments on the corrosion study were carried out to evaluate a variety of metals and alloys as the material of construction for the hydrochlorination reactor. Material includes carbon steel, nickel, copper, Alloy 400 (Monel), stainless steel (Type 304), Incoloy 800H and Hastelloy B-2. The corrosion test was carried out at reaction temperature of 500 C, pressure of 300 psig and H2/SiCl4 feed ratio of 2.0 for a total of 87 hours. Results of the corrosion test show that all the test samples achieved a weigh gain.

Mui, J. Y. P.↗

Chemistry of the outer planets: Investigations of the chemical nature of the atmosphere of Titan

It is clear from the experiments that a variety of complex organic models can be produced by lightning in a Titan-like gas mixture. The dominant products were found to be acetylene and hydrogen cyanide, with smaller amounts of many other species. Any aerosol produced by lightning inititated process will consist of a complex mixture of organic compounds, many of which should easily be identified by pyrolytic gas chromatography. Work will continue to expand the data base of molecules produced by lightning and other processes in order to assist in the design of appropriate analytical instruments for the upcoming Saturn/Titan mission and any other planetary probes.

Scattergood, Thomas W.↗

Effect of alcohol addition on shock-initiated formation of soot from benzene

Soot formation in benzene-methanol and benzene-ethanol argon-diluted mixtures was studied behind reflected shock waves by monitoring the attenuation of an He-Ne laser beam. The experiments were performed at temperatures 1580-2250 K, pressures 2.0-3.0 bar, and total carbon atom concentrations (2.0-2.7) x 10 to the 17th atoms/cu cm. The results obtained indicate that the addition of alcohol suppresses the formation of soot from benzene at all temperatures, and that the reduction in soot yields is increased with the amount of alcohol added. The analysis of the results indicates that the suppression effect is probably due to the oxidation of soot and soot precursors by OH and the removal of hydrogen atoms by alcohol and water molecules.

Frenklach, Michael↗