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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 OSTI2026

Jumpstart Opportunities to Unleash Leadership in Energy Storage (JOULES)

Current-generation Li-ion batteries with cobalt- and nickel-containing cathodes and graphite anodes are approaching performance and cost limits. In this program, 24M Technologies, Inc. (24M) is teaming with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and University of Michigan (UM) to develop low cost and fast charging sodium metal batteries with good low-temperature performance and high energy density, building upon previous work performed under ARPA-E programs. Key achievements include optimization of solid electrolyte and anode current collector, optimized cathode active materials, development of high-performance electrolyte formulations, and integration of these components into full cells. The cell design incorporates (1) an ultra-thick cathode (>9 mAh/cm 2 ) comprising advanced cobalt-free, sodium cathode active material, (2) advanced fast-charging electrolyte (up to 12 mS/cm) developed using machine learning and automated high-throughput screening technology by UM, and (3) ceramic modified separator that enable smooth Na transport and deposition, developed at MIT, enabling a high-energy density anode-free configuration and maximizing the energy density of sodium batteries. The team has successfully combined these approaches to sodium chemistry and paved the way to meeting the fast-charging, high-energy density, and low-cost requirements of next-generation drone, electric vertical take-off and -landing, and electric vehicle batteries. Performance for anode-free sodium cells developed under this program is more powerful than the commercial Li-ion batteries. The final deliverable cell design has achieved over 300 Wh/kg and volumetric energy density above 800 Wh/L (Table 1). Additionally, the team has achieved over (1) a lifetime of 340 cycles, (2) 80% capacity retention at -20 °C (compared 25 °C), and (3) the ability to fast charge to 80% SOC in 20 minutes.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2026

Challenges and Opportunities for HVAC + Phase Change Material Thermal Energy Storage in Buildings

Phase-change material (PCM) thermal-energy storage (TES) integrated with HVAC and domestic hot water (DHW) can shift a large share of building thermal loads. By flattening and shifting loads, PCM TES reduces peak electricity use, eases stress on local and grid infrastructure, and lowers costs. It can also defer costly upgrades to service panels, distribution, and transmission. Higher energy density relative to chilled or hot water storage makes PCM TES practical for small, space limited, and retrofit projects, while packaged HVAC-integrated systems expand cost-effective load shifting to commercial buildings that previously lacked options. Despite this promise, deployment faces barriers. This paper presents challenges, opportunities, and lessons learned from lab and field integrations of PCM TES with packaged HVAC systems. Key challenges include misalignment between default heat pump controls tuned for direct-to-load operation and TES charge/discharge objectives, PCM properties that diverge from manufacturer claims and evolve with cycling, and high integration and deployment costs with off-the-shelf products. These studies underscore the need for factory built, integrated systems that arrive as prepackaged modules with proven controls, reducing design and installation effort and delivering predictable performance across projects. The paper outlines steps to enable viable and scalable PCM TES HVAC and DHW systems, including 1) validated methods that can be used to characterize PCM properties and TES system performance, 2) supervisory controls that optimize charge/discharge scheduling, and 3) factory integrated packaging that eliminates bespoke field engineering.

Dutton, Spencer↗
DOE OSTI2025

Robust and tunable oxide nanoscrolls for solar-driven H 2 generation and storage

Hydrogen gas is a promising alternative to fossil fuels due to its high energy output and environmentally safe byproducts. Various morphologies of photocatalytic materials have been explored for high-efficiency H 2 production, for instance, quasi-1D nanoscroll structures that provide a larger surface-to-volume ratio. Recently, we predicted layer-by-layer formation of stable oxide nanoscrolls directly from dichalcogenide precursors, eliminating the need for costly formation of two-dimensional oxides for a roll-up synthesis of nanoscrolls. Here, in this study, we evaluate the suitability of those oxide nanoscroll materials—MoO 3 , WO 3 , PdO 2 , HfO 2 , and GeO 2 —for solar-driven photocatalytic H 2 production and storage. Using excited state theory coupled with Bethe–Salpeter equation simulations, we discern their electronic and optical properties as a function of interlayer scroll spacing and find them to be highly conducive for solar-driven photocatalysis. Additionally, using ab initio molecular dynamics simulations, we show that they are also suitable for H 2 storage as the nanoscrolls exhibit an effective trapping of hydrogen, even in the presence of defects and vacancies in the oxides. This work thus demonstrates the discovery of robust and tunable oxide nanoscrolls as materials for advancing solar-driven hydrogen technologies.

Chemical compounds↗
NASA NTRS2026

Assessing the Adhesion of Nanofibrous PVDF-HFP as Passive Thermal Control Coatings for the Extraterrestrial Storage of Cryogenic Propellants

Cryogenic propellant passive thermal management techniques in space are essential complements to active thermal management methods, helping reduce absolute dependence on the latter. Particularly, materials with superior optical properties (high solar reflectance and infrared emittance) would be beneficial for passive thermal control to reject most of the incident solar radiation and enhance thermal emission from the storage tank, leading to self-cooling. We developed a nanofibrous, porous passive thermal control material by electrospinning polyvinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene (PVDF-HFP) co-polymer onto an aluminum foil substrate. The material exhibits a very high solar reflectance (>99%) and infrared emittance (~86%) when characterized in the ultraviolet-visible-near infrared and mid-infrared wavelengths. This study focuses on the adhesion of the nanofibrous PVDF-HFP to the substrate. We incorporated in-lab fabricated and commercial adhesives, under normal room conditions, between the nanofibers and the aluminum foil substrate to improve their adhesion. Some samples were also exposed to space-like conditions – vacuum and thermal cycling, to investigate their effects on the strengths of adhesives. Subsequently, adhesion peel tests were conducted on all the samples to assess the peel strengths of the bonds. Peel test strengths after space environment conditioning of the adhesives were generally higher than those observed in the pristine, unaged samples. The results are discussed in this study.

Chieloka Ibekwe↗
NASA NTRS2025

Airports as Energy Nodes Activity Summary

Advanced aircraft concepts that use non-traditional aviation energy storage methods such as batteries or cryogenic hydrogen are in development and expected to enter regular service at airports worldwide within the next decade. The energy needs for these aircraft may quickly overwhelm the existing energy infrastructure at airports, particularly at smaller and more remote facilities. Without energy upgrades, these airports will not be able to host these advanced vehicles, but without the advanced vehicle traffic, these airports will not have the rationale or funding to build up their energy infrastructure. The Airports as Energy Nodes (ÆNodes) activity, a collaboration between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), was executed to understand and model the energy needs that advanced aircraft concepts may levy on these smaller airports, determine cost-effective approaches to enhance the airport energy infrastructure, and demonstrate the enhanced resilience of these energy infrastructure upgrades to the airport and surrounding community via “digital twin” simulation at relevant energy and dynamic time scales. The ÆNodes team also investigated future reference aircraft designs and materials to enable cryogenic hydrogen storage for aircraft. The ÆNodes team conducted analysis at two U.S. airport partner sites — Winchester Regional Airport in Winchester, Virginia, and Tweed/New Haven Airport in New Haven, Connecticut. The goal of this partnership was to develop data and reference infrastructure designs that could accommodate advanced aircraft in the future at these airports while also enhancing the resiliency of the energy supply to the surrounding airport community, which could be used to capture funding to enable the infrastructure upgrades. Over the course of the study, a method was developed to estimate air traffic requiring advanced energy services over the course of a year using a mix of historical data and companion studies on advanced aircraft transportation networks. The study has concluded at NASA but continues at NREL, who will develop a final report discussing the energy infrastructure upgrades and digital twin results. Preliminary results indicate that unrestricted adoption of advanced battery-electric aircraft may double traffic at these airports and increase peak daily power usage by an order of magnitude, while increase electricity energy needs by a factor of two to four. The infrastructure upgrades necessary to accommodate these increased energy needs could be used to provide enhanced energy services to the airport community to offset the cost and increase the utility of the upgrades, which will be described in the NREL final report.

Airports↗
NASA NTRS1992

Mechanical properties of glasses impacted by debris or micrometeorites

Mechanical strength measurements on five glasses and one glass ceramic exposed on the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) have revealed no damage exceeding experimental limits of error after exposure. The measurement technique subjected less than 5 percent of the sample surface area to stresses above 90 percent of the failure strength. Seven micrometeorite or space debris impacts occurred at locations which were not in that portion of the sample subjected to greater than 90 percent of the applied stress. In consequence of this, the impact events on the sample were not detected in mechanical strength measurements. The physical form and structure of the impact sites was carefully examined to determine the influence of those events upon stress concentration associated with the impact and the resulting mechanical strength influence. The size of the impact site insofar as it determines flaw size for fracture purposes was examined. Surface topography of the impacts reveals that six of the seven sites display impact melting. The classical melt crater structure is surrounded by a zone of fractured glass. Residual stresses arising from shock compression and from cooling of the impact fused zone cannot be included in fracture mechanics analyses based on simple flaw size analyses. Strategies for refining estimates of mechanical strength degradation by impact events are presented.

Donald L. Kinser↗
DOE OSTI2024

A thermal evaporation–trapping strategy to synthesize flexible and robust oxygen electrocatalysts for rechargeable zinc–air batteries

Great efforts have been devoted to the development of bifunctional electrocatalysts to accelerate the sluggish kinetics of cathodic oxygen reduction/evolution reactions (ORR/OER) in zinc–air batteries (ZABs). Here we report a thermal evaporation–trapping synergistic strategy to fabricate a bifunctional electrocatalyst of flexible N-doped carbon fiber cloth loaded with both CoFe-oxide nanoparticles and single-atom Co/Fe–Nx sites, in which the thermal evaporation process functions in both downsizing CoFe-oxide nanoparticles and trapping the evaporated Co/Fe species to generate Co/Fe–Nx sites. The obtained flexible electrocatalyst, directly serving as an oxygen electrode, displays a small potential gap of 0.542 V for the OER/ORR, large peak power densities (liquid-state ZAB: 237.4 mW cm2 ; solid-state ZAB: 141.1 mW cm2 ), and excellent charge–discharge cycling stability without decay after working more than 770 hours. Furthermore, in situ Raman spectroscopy characterization and theoretical calculations reveal that CoFe2O4 species is responsible for the OER while atomic Fe/Co sites play a key role in the ORR

Zhang, Hong-Bo↗
DOE OSTI2026

Cation-Diffusive Carbon Interlayers Stabilize Na Metal and Double the Current in Na-S Redox-Flow Batteries for Grid-Scale Energy Storage

The sodium-sulfur nonaqueous redox-flow batteries (Na-S NARFBs) using earth-abundant elements are highly attractive due to the low material cost and improved energy density for grid-scale energy storage. However, the low current performance, poor Na0/Na+ redox kinetics, and Na dendrite growth pose severe challenges. We introduce cation-diffusive layers (CDLs): thin and Na+ affinitive interlayers at the Na anode that direct Na+ transport and stabilize Na deposition. Benchmarking three archetypal materials—carbon paper (CP), glass microfiber paper (GF), and foam—across Na-Na and Na-Cu, and Na-S cells identifies CP as the optimum. CP reduces symmetric cell overpotential by more than 70%, achieves 98% Na plating-stripping efficiency, and doubles the Na-S cell current density from 0.5 to 1.0 mA cm−2 without sacrificing capacity or efficiency. Ex situ electrochemical and SEM/XPS analysis, combined with molecular dynamics (MD) studies, reveal that electron-rich carbon fibers disperse supporting salt aggregates, enrich near-surface Na+ density, and create ion transport pathways for fast Na0/Na+ exchange while mitigating membrane degradation. Because of the ion-centric mechanism, CDLs can be generalized to other metal-anode designs. Further, this work establishes CDL design rules—cationic affinity and appropriate micro/nanostructure—as a simple, scalable route to high-current, durable metal-anode flow batteries.

Wu, Wenda [ORNL] (ORCID:000900033307687X)↗
NASA NTRS1993

Improved Treatment of Global Positioning System Force Parameters in Precise Orbit Determination Applications

Data collected from a worldwide 1992 experiment have been processed at JPL to determine precise orbits for the satellites of the Global Positioning System (GPS). A filtering technique has been tested to improve modeling of solar-radiation pressure force parameters for GPS satellites. The new approach improves orbit quality for eclipsing satellites by a factor of two, with typical results in the 25- to 50-cm range. The resultant GPS-based estimates for geocentric coordinates of the tracking sites, which include the three DSN sites, are accurate to 2 to 8 cm, roughly equivalent to 3 to 10 nrad of angular measure.

Y Vigue↗
DOE OSTI2026

Effect of Oxidizing Impurities on the Corrosion Behavior of Structural Alloys Exposed to MgCl 2 Molten Salt Vapor

The corrosion behavior of structural alloys SS304 and IN617 when exposed to vapors of MgCl 2 molten salt at 764 °C for 100 h in an argon atmosphere was investigated as a function of the level of oxidizing impurities (e.g., NaOH) present in the salt. Increasing the concentration of oxidizing impurities in the salt caused an increase in corrosion in both structural alloys, as measured by Cr depletion layers. A poorly adhered oxide scale layer containing Mg, Al, and Cr was observed on the surface of the metals, and local attack was observed as well. The Ni-based IN617 showed lower Cr depletion and less scale formation than the Fe-based SS304. These results demonstrate that oxidizing impurities in the molten salt will impact the vapor phase corrosion for structural members exposed to the molten salt headspace. This finding is highly relevant for understanding the effects of the vapor phase in molten salt applications, including molten salt thermal energy storage, molten salt nuclear reactors, and molten salt electrochemistry.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2026

Advanced-Research-on-Integrated-Energy-Systems-Based Analysis to Support Resilient System Upgrades: Energy to Communities Energyshed In-Depth Partnership with Molokai, Hawaii

The Molokai, Hawaii, Energy to Communities (E2C) Energyshed project represents a collaborative effort between the National Laboratory of the Rockies, Shake Energy Collaborative, the Molokai Clean Energy Hui, Sustainable Molokai, and Ho'ahu Energy Cooperative Molokai to advance Molokai's Community Energy Resilience Action Plan (CERAP). Supported by Hawaiian Electric Company and the Hawaii State Energy Office, the initiative aims to develop a community-defined portfolio of renewable energy solutions that enhance energy resilience while aligning with the Hawaiian Electric Integrated Grid Plan (IGP) and Molokai's energy goals. Phase 1 focused on technical analyses and community engagement to co-design feasible energy scenarios. Challenges such as grid upgrades, storage sizing, and inverter ride-through standards were addressed to align technical and operational requirements with community preferences. The project equips Molokai with actionable data and insights to implement energy initiatives while ensuring resilient and culturally informed solutions. Future efforts aim to finalize project designs, secure interconnection agreements, and deploy energy projects that reflect community priorities and technical feasibility.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2026

Preliminary Assessment for the Electric Load Shifting Potential of Integrating Thermal Energy Storage with Heat Pumps in Residential Buildings in Texas of United States

The widespread adoption of electric-driven heat pumps for heating and cooling is expected to significantly increase electric demand. Cooling electric demand will result in an increase in peak hours electric loads, placing additional strain on the grid during peak hours. This challenge, combined with the current rapidly increasing demand from data centers, exacerbates the electric demand duck curve problem. Integrating thermal energy storage (TES) with heat pump can shift electric use for heating and cooling from peak to off-peak hours of the electric grid, which can help flatten the daily electric demand profile of a building. This paper presents a novel design that integrates heat pump with TES (HP-TES), which uses phase change materials (PCM). Heat pump charges TES by melting or freezing PCM during off-peak hours when there is no thermal demand from the building. TES is then discharged (i.e., by freezing or melting PCM) during peak hours to provide a more favorable heat source or heat sink for the heat pump to meet the thermal demand of the building with lower electricity use than conventional air-source heat pumps. Computer simulations were developed to predict the performance of HP-TES applied to a typical single-family house in the US. The building-level simulation results were scaled up to preliminarily assess the aggregated impacts of deploying HP-TES across all single-family houses in Texas of the United States, including reduction of peak demand of the electric grid.

Anees, Fady [ORNL]↗
DOE OSTI2026

Commercial and Industrial Energy Procurement in Nigeria: A Consumer's Guidebook

Across Africa, countries have incorporated a variety of new energy sources into their energy mix to account for increasing demand. In Nigeria, electricity consumption per capita has grown nearly 50% in the past 20 years. To address rising demand for energy in Nigeria, the country has passed several recent policies and regulations aimed at increasing energy generation across the country, improving the country's transmission infrastructure, and ensuring that electricity reliably reaches end users, including commercial and industrial (C&I) customers. This guidebook is designed for C&I customers in Nigeria to use in the consideration of procuring such onsite, captive energy systems to supplement their energy needs. Each section of this guidebook touches on a step of the procurement process and details the relevant stakeholders, processes, and data needed to make decisions during that step.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Elimination of detrimental grain boundary segregation in garnets

Garnet Li 7 La 3 Zr 2 O 12 electrolyte is considered a key enabler of solid-state batteries with Li metal electrodes, but the grain boundaries impair its performance. To date, the understanding of grain boundary structures and its impact on performance remains elusive. Here, we show that element segregation at Li 7 La 3 Zr 2 O 12 grain boundaries critically governs Li transport and nucleation. During conventional sintering, Al, Ta, and La segregate at grain boundaries, locally depleting Li and creating space-charge layers that lower total ionic conductivity. Simultaneously, this segregation leads to higher electronic conductivity along grain boundaries, which promotes Li nucleation at grain boundary edges with increased risk of dendrite formation. The underlying mechanism of segregation is governed by both thermodynamic driving forces and diffusion kinetics. Building on this understanding, we develop a strategy to achieve segregation-free grain boundaries through a rapid sintering protocol that utilizes the onset of solid-state softening. This approach yields transparent, polycrystalline Li 7 La 3 Zr 2 O 12 with negligible grain boundary impedance and enhanced dendrite tolerance. By elucidating the structural origins and electrochemical consequences of grain boundary segregation, this work provides a guidance for the rational optimization of solid electrolytes.

Energy - Storage↗
NASA NTRS1984

Electrodynamic Tethers. 1: Power Generator in LEO. 2: Thrust for Propulsion and Power Storage

An electrodynamic tether consists of a long insulated wire in space whose orbital motion cuts across lines of magnetic flux to produce an induce voltage that in typical low orbits averages about 200 v/km. Such a system should be capable of generating substantial electrical power, at the expense of IXB drag acting on its orbital energy. If a reverse current is driven against the induced voltage, the system should act as a motor producing IXB thrust. A reference system was designed, capable of generating 20 KW of power into an electrical load located anywhere along the wire at the expense of 2.6N (20,000 J/sec) drag on the wire. In an ideal system, the conversion between mechanical and electrical energy would reach 100% efficiency. In the actual system part of the 20 KW is lost to internal resistance of the wire, plasma and ionosphere, while the drag force is increased by residual air drag. The 20 KW PMG system as designed is estimated to provide 18.7 KW net power to the load at total drag loss of 20.4 KJ/sec, or an overall efficiency of 92%. Similar systems using heavier wire appear capable of producing power levels in excess of 1 Megawatt at voltages of 2-4 KV, with conversion efficiency between mechanical and electrical power better than 95%. The hollow cathode based system should be readily reversible from generator to motor operation by driving a reverse current using onboard power.

James E Mccoy↗