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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Lean-Stratified Combustion System with Miller Cycle for Downsized Boosted Application - Part 2

Automotive manufacturers relentlessly explore engine technology combinations to achieve reduced fuel consumption under continued regulatory, societal and economic pressures. For example, technologies enabling advanced combustion modes, increased expansion to effective compression ratio and reduced parasitics continue to be developed and integrated within conventional and hybrid propulsion strategies across the industry. Here, a high-efficiency gasoline engine capable for use in conventional or hybrid electric vehicle platforms is highly desirable. This paper is the second of two papers describing the multi-cylinder integration of a technology package combining lean-stratified combustion with Miller cycle for downsized boosted applications. The first paper describes the design, analysis and single-cylinder testing conducted to down-select the combustion system deployed to the multi-cylinder engine. This paper defines a light-duty engine package capable of achieving a 35% fuel economy improvement at US Tier 3 emission standards over a naturally aspirated stoichiometric baseline vehicle. A multi-mode combustion system was developed enabling highly efficient lean-stratified operation at light-load and stoichiometric Miller-cycle operation at mid- to high-loads. A central direct-injection four-valve layout was designed with high-tumble ports and a bowl-in-piston capable of stable operation under highly dilute mixtures when properly matched to fuel spray characteristics, injection strategy, and a high-energy ignition system. Boost system layout and base engine architecture were selected to minimize parasitics and maximize after treatment effectiveness. A multi-cylinder engine was developed and calibrated over a steady-state map. Results fed vehicle simulations over the EPA city and highway test cycles to predict the fuel economy improvement and tailpipe emissions potential. Fuel economy improvements over the baseline vehicle were projected at 42% and 39% for active-urea and passive-ammonia SCR after treatment systems respectively. Controls complexity to achieve regulatory compliance and the cost of the lean after treatment system were identified as the primary challenges to commercial viability.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2020

Electrolytically Assisted Surface Decontamination (EASD{sup TM}) for POCO Operations - 20282

NNL in collaboration with C-Tech Innovation Ltd and Sellafield Ltd has been exploring innovative technologies to enable a significant reduction of radiological hazards within facilities during the Post Operational Clean Out (POCO) phase of a nuclear plant's life cycle. Reducing the hazard by effectively decontaminating plants in-situ during POCO delivers huge cost reductions for future decommissioning operations. These cost reduction benefits are realized by reducing the number and complexity of remote operations as well as lowering the long-term waste disposal costs. Whilst chemical decontamination can achieve the desired level of decontamination, applying aggressive chemical reagents is hazardous, potentially difficult to control and requires there to be complimentary effluent treatment and waste routes. This work has aimed to develop flexible and controllable decontamination processes which could be operated without the additional complexity and issues associated with chemical decontamination. The processes needed to be relatively fast and effective to minimize the time operators would spend in an active area. In addition, there was a driver to produce decontamination methodologies which generated a secondary waste compatible with current routes and which takes advantage of current waste capacity. The strategy therefore was to come up with a solution that works with, rather than against, the science and engineering behind process plants at Sellafield. Electrolytically Assisted Surface Decontamination (EASD{sup TM}) is an innovative electrochemical decontamination process (developed by NNL and C-Tech Innovation Ltd) that can remove activity from contaminated metal in very short time periods. Application of the patented electric waveform to the surface when treating contaminated metal with nitric acid has been shown to significantly enhance the decontamination performance. When compared to proposed baseline washout procedures at Sellafield, the only change to the process is the applied electrical waveform which is temporary and controllable. The current causes dissolution of the metal surface being decontaminated which leads to activity transferring from the plant item into the nitric acid effluent stream. This innovation has the potential to transform the POCO process and allow a nitric acid based washout approach to deliver POCO quickly and cost effectively within the existing infrastructure. Several devices have now been designed that incorporate this EASD{sup TM} technology and enable the decontamination process to be applied to a range items commonly identified as being contaminated during nuclear decommissioning programmes such as pipework, tanks and hotspots of walls/floors. Inactive and active laboratory-scale testing has been completed using both simulated and 'real-life' contaminated (low level waste) metallic items retrieved from different nuclear sites. Active trials demonstrated that contaminated items could be treated to free release levels within minutes. Engineering scale tests are currently being performed, with guidance from Sellafield's system engineers and plant managers, to provide the necessary re-assurance the designed devices could be successfully deployed in an on-plant scenario. The final stage of this development work is to carry out an active demonstration of the decontamination technology on Thorp at Sellafield. This paper aims to highlight progress made to date with the EASD{sup TM} technology and, more specifically, the development of an in-situ decontamination device for deployment within radioactive pipework. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2026

Exact Fock-State Preparation with $n^{1/4}$ Circuit Depth

Efficient, deterministic, and high-fidelity preparation of large Fock states is essential for scaling bosonic quantum technologies and exploring quantum phenomena at large excitation energies. We introduce a deterministic one-parameter (D1p) protocol that maps Fock-state preparation in an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space onto two-dimensional amplitude amplification. Starting from a coherent state with $|α|\simeq\sqrt{n}$, the initial target-state population scales as $n^{-1/2}$, yielding an iteration count and circuit depth of $\mathcal{O}(n^{1/4})$. Phase matching guarantees unit fidelity in the ideal model; remarkably, preparing $|{10^6}\rangle$ requires only 39 iterations. The protocol uses only displacements and number-selective phase operations, requires no numerical optimization, and further extends to state transfer, general superpositions, finite-dimensional systems, and multipartite entangled states. In the large-amplitude regime, its multi-target form prepares $L$-legged cat states with an iteration count determined only by $L$; cats with up to ten legs require only two iterations, independent of the coherent-state amplitude. This framework provides a broadly applicable route to highly excited bosonic states on platforms supporting these elementary controls.

Roy, Tanay [Fermilab] (ORCID:000000019442862X)↗
DOE OSTI2024

Enable superior performance of ultra-high loading electrodes through the cost-efficient solvent-free electrode manufacturing technology

This research explores an innovative solvent-free method for fabricating ultra-high loading NMC811 and graphite electrodes (~6mAh∙cm -2 ), showcasing remarkable electrochemical performance enhancements compared to the electrodes prepared by the conventional slurry-casting method. Here, the optimized microstructure with dry-printed (DP) electrodes enhanced electrolyte penetration and minimized lithium-ion diffusion tortuosity resulting in improved rate performance at high current rates. Additionally, this innovative electrode manufacturing approach enables more uniform CEI and SEI formation and growth, which effectively doubles the cycle life of single-layer pouch cells with DP electrodes. Beyond the performance enhancements, this method also offers a notable 29.2 % overall cost advantages, potentially revolutionizing future battery manufacturing. The findings presented in this work underscore the potential of solvent-free manufacturing technology as a high-loading capable and cost-efficient path for advanced battery production.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2021

A Technical and Economic Assessment of LWR Flexible Operation for Generation and Demand Balancing to Optimize Plant Revenue

With increased penetration of subsidized variable renewable energy (VRE) resources and competition from low natural gas prices, existing light water reactor (LWR) nuclear power plants (NPPs) are struggling to remain economically competitive. This work examines the potential economic competitiveness of various thermal energy storage (TES) technologies when coupled directly or indirectly with a NPP. To highlight their relative economic competitiveness, we contrast several energy storage solutions in stochastic dispatch optimization. We leverage data from recent work analyzing a range of TES technologies with varying capital costs, performance, and technology readiness level (TRL) to establish our case. We explore inserting these technologies into an electricity market with existing nuclear generation and large projected variable renewable energy (VRE) penetration. Although these technologies' projected capital costs may make them unlikely candidates in their current state, this analysis demonstrates a high-fidelity techno-economic analysis of energy storage. Furthermore, as the projected cost of energy storage technologies evolves, this analysis sets a precedent for similar future investigations. One region with projected trends that may be unfavorable for existing nuclear capacity is the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) market. New York state’s baseload generation has been historically provided by fossil-fired and nuclear assets. However, amid economic pressures from subsidized VREs and low natural gas prices, the state has recently deactivated Indian Point nuclear power plant units 2 and 3. Furthermore, the state plans to meet its zero-emission generation target by 2040 by replacing fossil-fired capacity with significant investments in VRE resources like wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) and battery storage. Increased intermittent resource penetration lowers the baseload power requirement, adding further economic pressure to the state’s three remaining NPPs still in operation. With three NPPs still in operation in New York, this work analyzes potential economic benefits to NPPs on the New York grid when directly or indirectly coupled with various TES technologies. This work requires two modeling steps to analyze the potential economic benefits of various system configurations of the TES directly or indirectly coupled with nuclear. First, this analysis leverages capacity expansion modeling by experts at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). Using their deterministic capacity expansion model, U.S. Regional Economy, Greenhouse Gas, and Energy (US-REGEN), EPRI analysts evaluated the capacity and generation evolution of the New York state energy market under four projection scenarios. These four projection scenarios were developed to represent the potential evolution of the capacity and generation in NYISO from 2015 to 2050 under various economic, technology, and policy constraints. The results from these capacity expansion models are then used as boundary conditions in the second modeling step. The second modeling step uses the Holistic Energy Resource Optimization Network (HERON) for a set of stochastic techno-economic analyses (STEAs) to investigate the potential increase in the economic viability of various configurations of the TES. With no current capacity expansion capabilities, HERON takes the data generated from US-REGEN for 2050 to generate synthetic load, solar, and wind data. Then HERON economically optimizes the capacity and dispatch of the various TES configurations. The potential economic benefit is the differential net present value (NPV) of the TES configurations from the no-TES baseline. As a stochastic techno-economic analysis package, HERON introduces uncertainty into the economic metrics, while US-REGEN trades resolution for reduced computational complexity. Using HERON also allows the modeling of direct thermal coupling, a feature not common in capacity and dispatch models. As expected, with high capital costs, the costs of introducing energy storage for all the technologies considered outweighed the potential economic benefit of this strategy for flexible plant operation. The benefit of this analysis is primarily in demonstrating a workflow that examines innovative solutions to increase NPP revenue via TES coupling. HERON’s stochastic capacity and dispatch optimization process used in this work has proven an effective tool in observing and evaluating the impact of introducing storage technologies in a grid energy system.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Advancing Geothermal Research: Fiscal Year 2024 Accomplishments Report

Geothermal resources have delivered renewable electricity for more than 100 years, and renewable heat for far longer, but recent research and advancements have shown that geothermal is more than a 24/7 clean energy source. With the ability to also provide cooling and storage - plus the potential to access critical minerals, capture and sequester carbon, produce green hydrogen, and more - geothermal technologies and resources are emerging as key solutions to the climate crisis. In fiscal year 2024 (FY24), the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) broadened its research, development, demonstration, and deployment (RDD&D) portfolio and partnerships with exciting innovations such as next-generation geothermal technologies for power, geothermal energy networks for heating and cooling, subsurface thermal energy storage, well repurposing, and more. In support of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Geothermal Technologies Office's (GTO) mission to increase geothermal energy deployment through research, development, and demonstration of innovative technologies that enhance exploration and production, NREL led impactful research in geothermal technologies and resources, market acceleration, and grid integration while also demonstrating leadership in the sector and increasing stakeholder engagement and outreach efforts.

annual report↗
DOE OSTI2023

Innovation in complementary energy technologies from renewable energy policies

Complementary renewable technologies support renewable energy use as they can help balance the intermittency of solar and wind generation. Previous research has shown that environmental policies directly targeting renewable energy can drive innovation in solar PV and wind technology. This study explores the impact of renewable policies on innovation in complementary renewable technology that assists with integration, including combustion with mitigation potential, efficient power transmission or distribution, and enabling technologies. We use negative binomial models and a panel of 25 OECD countries from 1997 to 2015 to evaluate these relationships. We are not able to find evidence that renewable policies incentivize innovation in complementary combustion or transmission and distribution technologies, and only limited evidence that demand-pull instruments are associated with increased innovation in smart grid technology. Technology-push policies, such as public research and development funds for renewable energy, have had limited impact on grid-supporting energy storage innovation. Our findings suggest that policymakers wishing to accelerate these complementary technologies need to go beyond policies targeting renewable energy in order to drive innovation in complementary fields.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Augmenting LLM-Based Agents for Improved Performance in Pentesting and Commissioning Operational Technology in Critical Infrastructure

Artificial intelligence (AI), and more specifically large language models (LLMs) have the potential for use in penetration testing (“pentesting”) against devices, networks, and computer systems in information technology (IT). We explore the possibility of extending pentesting from IT systems to operational technology (OT) systems, which are more obscure than IT systems in their protocols and design. A challenge therefore exists when applying pretrained LLMs to OT systems as corpora are likely to underrepresent OT systems in comparison to other more prevalent systems. We evaluate augmentations of LLMs with various methods, especially retrieval augmented generation (RAG), to improve performance of the LLMs in the OT domain. In addition to pentesting, some of the testing of these OT devices may include commissioning to ensure that the newly installed devices work correctly. Our framework may also be applied in such cases.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2025

New Mexico Clean Energy and Resilience Growth (NM CERG) Cluster

The New Mexico Clean Energy Resilience and Growth (NM CERG) project was designed to foster a clean energy cluster in New Mexico by providing a robust pipeline of support for clean-energy technology startups. By leveraging the expertise and resources of national laboratories, universities, and regional partners, the project contributed to a deeper understanding of how public-private partnerships can enhance the commercialization of innovative clean energy technologies. The project explored the key challenges faced by startups, such as securing capital, rapid prototyping, technology validation, and transitioning from research to market-ready products.

02 PETROLEUM↗
DOE OSTI2023

NETL Direct Air Capture Center

In 2022 Congress authorized the $25M National Energy Technology Laboratory Direct Air Capture Center. The facility will be specifically targeted at accelerating the commercialization of technologies beyond the conceptual stage which have not yet reached full pilot-scale (TRL 3 to 6). The ability to operate over a wide range of conditions will help the developers to understand how their technologies respond in different climates, from summer to winter and arid to tropical. NETL recognizes that DAC technology is still early in its evolution, and a wide variety of highly varied technologies are being explored. The Center will be designed with substantial flexibility to accommodate the rapidly evolving technological landscape. Testing systems at three scales will be included: lab-scale systems designed to examine the long-term stability of DAC materials, bench-scale module testing systems capable of probing flow dynamics, and small pilot-scale skid rooms able to test prototype DAC units under a wide variety of climate conditions. The NETL DAC Center will feature dedicated engineering, technician, scientific and logistical support for experimental system design, installation, operation of experiments, and interpretation of results for projects including but not limited to kinetics of absorption/desorption, thermal duty, and post-mortem elemental characterization to understand degradation. The NETL DAC Center projects will also have access to dedicated process modeling and analysis to evaluate the technoeconomic aspects of new technologies. NETL’s Systems Engineering and Analysis (SEA) team, the Carbon Capture Simulation Initiative (CCSI), and the Institute for the Design of Advanced Energy Systems (IDAES) are all potential collaborators with NETL’s testing partners from industry, academia, and other research institutions. NETL also has world class capabilities in device scale modeling (i.e., MFIX) that will be available to help design more efficient contactors and optimize unique internal configurations that can be realized by advanced manufacturing. The talk will cover the design and capabilities of the center, the planned availability, and feedback will be solicited from the audience on DAC testing needs.

Luebke, David↗
DOE OSTI2023

Accelerating commercialization of direct air capture technology

In 2022 Congress authorized the $25M National Energy Technology Laboratory Direct Air Capture Center. The facility will be specifically targeted at accelerating the commercialization of technologies beyond the conceptual stage which have not yet reached full pilot-scale (TRL 3 to 6). The ability to operate over a wide range of conditions will help the developers to understand how their technologies respond in different climates, from summer to winter and arid to tropical. NETL recognizes that DAC technology is still early in its evolution, and a wide variety of highly varied technologies are being explored. The Center will be designed with substantial flexibility to accommodate the rapidly evolving technological landscape. Testing systems at three scales will be included: lab-scale systems designed to examine the long-term stability of DAC materials, bench-scale module testing systems capable of probing flow dynamics, and small pilot-scale skid rooms able to test prototype DAC units under a wide variety of climate conditions. The NETL DAC Center will feature dedicated engineering, technician, scientific and logistical support for experimental system design, installation, operation of experiments, and interpretation of results for projects including but not limited to kinetics of absorption/desorption, thermal duty, and post-mortem elemental characterization to understand degradation. The NETL DAC Center projects will also have access to dedicated process modeling and analysis to evaluate the technoeconomic aspects of new technologies. NETL’s Systems Engineering and Analysis (SEA) team, the Carbon Capture Simulation Initiative (CCSI), and the Institute for the Design of Advanced Energy Systems (IDAES) are all potential collaborators with NETL’s testing partners from industry, academia, and other research institutions. NETL also has world class capabilities in device scale modeling (i.e., MFIX) that will be available to help design more efficient contactors and optimize unique internal configurations that can be realized by advanced manufacturing. The talk will cover the design and capabilities of the center, the planned availability, and feedback will be solicited from the audience on DAC testing needs.

Luebke, David↗
DOE OSTI2022

Graphene-Based Interconnect Exploration for Large SRAM Caches for Ultrascaled Technology Nodes

Graphene-based interconnects are considered promising replacements for traditional copper (Cu) interconnect due to their great electric properties. In this article, an interconnect-memory co- design framework is developed to efficiently optimize various graphene-based interconnect technologies. Four interconnect materials and heterogeneous design schemes are benchmarked against their traditional Cu counterparts to optimize large cache-level SRAM performance in terms of delay and energy per access, energy-delay product (EDP), and energy-delay-area product (EDAP). Here, a large design space exploration is performed based on realistic subarray design and device technology. Various interconnect- and array-level design parameters are studied to quantify the true potential of graphene-based wires for optimal memory performance.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2022

Chapter 8: Geothermal Energy

Geothermal resources are used at different temperatures for different applications, depending on the resource temperature; applications include power generation, direct heating and cooling, mineral recovery, and energy storage. This chapter focuses on the most prominent applications of geothermal energy today: power generation and direct heating and cooling, specifically, dry steam, flash, and binary technologies. Other topics explored include: direct use of geothermal resources, thermodynamic cycle applications, and the multiple steps and multiple technologies involved in capturing all minerals of interest in a cost-effective way.

cooling↗
DOE OSTI2023

Eos: conceptual design for a demonstrator of hybrid optical detector technology

Eos is a technology demonstrator, designed to explore the capabilities of hybrid event detection technology, leveraging both Cherenkov and scintillation light simultaneously. With a fiducial mass of four tons, Eos is designed to operate in a high-precision regime, with sufficient size to utilize time-of-flight information for full event reconstruction, flexibility to demonstrate a range of cutting edge technologies, and simplicity of design to facilitate potential future deployment at alternative sites. Results from Eos can inform the design of future neutrino detectors for both fundamental physics and nonproliferation applications. This paper describes the conceptual design and potential applications of the Eos

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Development of Thin Gap GEM-µRWELL Hybrid Detectors at Jefferson Lab

Over the past few decades, Micro Pattern Gaseous Detector (MPGD) technologies have been increasingly adopted as tracking detector options in High Energy and Nuclear Physics experiments thanks to their good spatial resolution, high-rate capability, stability and more importantly their ability for large area coverage at a relatively low cost compared to the alternative. The thin gap GEM-µRWELL hybrid detector is the latest addition to the MPGD family, that was introduced to vastly improve the spatial resolution capability of gaseous trackers when deployed in the barrel region to cover large angular acceptance of the central tracker in a collider experiment. In this talk, I will re-introduce the concept and motivation for the development of thin gap GEM-µRWELL hybrid technology with an emphasis on the initial studies that establish the proof-of-concept of the technology. I will then discuss the more recent results from latest beam test campaign at Jefferson Lab in May 2025 to study detector efficiency performance with various gas mixtures. I will also briefly present the ongoing activities to develop large area thin gap GEM-µRWELL tracking detectors for the ePIC experiment of the future Electron Ion Collider as well as the exploration of the technology to provide large area tracking options to the muon system of experiments at a future Higgs Factory Collider such as the FCC-ee for example. Finally, I will conclude with some perspectives on new ideas under exploration to develop the next generation of thin gap MPGD technologies with enhanced timing and spatial resolution capabilities

Gnanvo, Kondo [Thomas Jefferson National Accelerat↗
DOE OSTI2023

Operational and scaling-up barriers of SOEC and mitigation strategies to boost H 2 production- a comprehensive review

Solid oxide electrolysis cells (SOECs) proffer a flexible and environmentally friendly solution to reduce CO 2 emissions and/or produce H 2 fuel for various applications. Here, the integration of this technology with renewable energy systems makes them even more promising in realizing a near-perpetual green energy infrastructure in the near future. SOEC technology has achieved stupendous improvement in recent years, and some of the limiting factors to the commercialization of this technology have been explored. It is, therefore, necessary to have a succinct outlook of the different factors that contribute to the recent developments in SOEC technology. The current work presents a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art SOEC component materials and their degradation mechanisms, SOEC modeling essentials and efficiencies, and the scalability of SOECs. Although SOEC is considered a highly promising technology and sufficient multifaceted research has been done, yet not been widely commercialized. Despite the improvement to mitigate degradation of the SOEC materials, a large share of the degradation concerns sprang from charge transfer reaction at the triple-phase boundaries of the H 2 -electrode. Part of which can be improved by microkinetic modeling of these materials supported by their characterization to give insight into their development. Some other directions for the future in advancing this technology toward the commercialization stage are thoroughly addressed.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2021

Coordination and Planning for Water and Power System Resilience (Workshop Report)

Water and power utilities are interdependent, subject to many of the same natural and manmade hazards, and critical for the well-being of communities and society. In April 2021, a virtual workshop was held that brought together representatives from water, wastewater, and electric utilities; government organizations; water and electricity based professional associations; consulting firms; and researcher organizations to explore water and power system interdependencies and resilience. The workshop, organized by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and funded by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO), explored a vision for coordinated and resilient water and electric utilities of the future and identified barriers and strategies for increased coordination and integrated planning between water and power utilities. Workshop participants suggested next steps and areas where federal research and support would be beneficial. This report documents that key outcomes of the workshop.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗