Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “mixture experiments”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,441 records · Page 80
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2017

NiAl Oxidation Reaction Processes Studied In Situ Using MEMS-Based Closed-Cell Gas Reaction Transmission Electron Microscopy

The nanoscale oxidation mechanisms and kinetics of a model β-NiAl system were investigated using in situ closed-cell gas reaction scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM). Here, we directly visualize the dynamic structural and chemical changes that occur during high-temperature oxidation at a high spatial resolution of 50.3Ni–49.7Al (at.%) nanoparticles under static air conditions at 730 Torr with heating up to 750 °C at 5 °C/s. A MEMS-based gas cell system, with microfabricated heater devices and a gas delivery system, was used to reveal site-specific oxidation initiation sites. Through time-resolved annular dark-field STEM imaging, we tracked the nanoscale oxidation kinetics of Al 2 O 3 . After oxidation at 750 °C, nucleation of voids at the Ni/Al 2 O 3 interface was observed along a NiAl grain boundary, followed by the formation of faceted NiO crystals. Small faceted cubic crystals of NiO were formed at the initial stage of oxidation at high PO 2 due to the outward self-diffusion of Ni 2+ ions, followed by the formation of a mixture of metastable and stable α-Al 2 O 3 at the oxide/metal interface that is attributed to a PO 2 decrease with oxidation time, which agreed with thermodynamic modeling calculations. Furthermore, the results from these in situ oxidation experiments in the β-NiAl system are in agreement with the established oxidation mechanisms; however, with in situ closed-cell gas microscopy it is now feasible to investigate nanoscale oxidation mechanisms and kinetics in real time and at high spatial resolution and can be broadly applied to understand the basic high-temperature oxidation mechanisms for a wide range of alloy compositions.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Effects of unburnt reaction progress on stretch flame dynamics under elevated temperatures

Flames in practical combustors and engines are inevitably subject to the effects of upstream chemical reaction progress and stretch, induced by elevated thermodynamic conditions and flow non-uniformities, respectively. Recent shock tube experiments and simulation studies on flame propagation have shown that flame speed under engine-relevant conditions can be enhanced with non-negligible upstream chemical reaction progress, especially when low-temperature heat release is involved in the unburnt mixture. On the other hand, depending on the mixture equivalence ratio and diluents, nonequidiffusion (including the non-unity Lewis number effect and the preferential diffusion effect) can couple with the flame stretch to fundamentally affect the flame propagation, which can manifest as either facilitation or suppression. Depending on the transport property of a reacting mixture, there hence can be either inhibition or promotion from unburnt reaction progress and stretch effects on flame propagation. In the current work, through one-dimensional numerical simulations of transient planar and spherical flames of n-heptane/air under elevated thermodynamic conditions, the combined effects of upstream chemical reaction progress and stretch on flame propagation are investigated. Results show that for both lean and rich n-heptane/air mixtures, flame speed can be substantially promoted with reaction progress, while the rich mixtures can exhibit opposite stretch dependence after first-stage ignition. Different definitions of effective Lewis number are adopted to explain the change in Markstein length for spherical flame in lean and rich mixtures reformed by the low temperature chemistry. Further, this work fills an important gap in laminar premixed flame research relevant to practical combustion systems and can provide useful insight into local turbulent flame behaviors and phi-sensitivity in engine combustion.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2019

Reactive flash sintering of the complex oxide Li 0.5 La 0.5 TiO 3 starting from an amorphous precursor powder

We report the transformation of an amorphous mixture of Li 0.5 La 0.5 TiO 3 (LLTO) directly into a single phase dense polycrystal, all within a few seconds at about 800°C by the flash method. The starting material is a chemically-prepared precursor powder that experiences concurrent crystallization and densification to cubic LLTO during the flash event, as shown by in-situ X-ray measurements. The experiments were conducted at a constant heating rate with fields from 80 to 120 V cm –1 and a current limit of 60 mA mm –2 . Here, the resulting polycrystal yielded a bulk conductivity of 0.5 mS cm –1 .

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2016

Nanoscale Morphology of PTB7 Based Organic Photovoltaics as a Function of Fullerene Size

High efficiency polymer:fullerene photovoltaic device layers self-assemble with hierarchical features from ångströms to 100’s of nanometers. The feature size, shape, composition, orientation, and order all contribute to device efficiency and are simultaneously difficult to study due to poor contrast between carbon based materials. This study seeks to increase device efficiency and simplify morphology measurements by replacing the typical fullerene acceptor with endohedral fullerene Lu 3 N@PC 80 BEH. The metal atoms give excellent scattering contrast for electron beam and x-ray experiments. Additionally, Lu 3 N@PC 80 BEH has a lower electron affinity than standard fullerenes, which can raise the open circuit voltage of photovoltaic devices. Electron microscopy techniques are used to produce a detailed account of morphology evolution in mixtures of Lu 3 N@PC 80 BEH with the record breaking donor polymer, PTB7 and coated using solvent mixtures. We demonstrate that common solvent additives like 1,8-diiodooctane or chloronapthalene do not improve the morphology of endohedral fullerene devices as expected. The poor device performance is attributed to the lack of mutual miscibility between this particular polymer:fullerene combination and to co-crystallization of Lu 3 N@PC 80 BEH with 1,8-diiodooctane. This negative result explains why solvent additives mixtures are not necessarily a morphology cure-all.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Come for predictions, stay for complexity: synthesis and experimental probing of ionic conductivity in Li 9 B 19 S 33

Lithium thioborates, despite their potential cost-effectiveness and low density, have received considerably less attention as solid electrolytes compared to their thiophosphate counterparts. A primary obstacle to their widespread investigation has been the inherent challenge in synthesizing single-phase materials. Computational studies have predicted several lithium thioborate phases exhibiting high ionic conductivity, with Li 9 B 19 S 33 notably predicted to reach 80 mS cm −1 . However, experimental validation of these theoretical predictions remains absent. This work addresses this gap by detailing a successful synthesis of the previously elusive Li 9 B 19 S 33 phase, facilitated by in situ temperature dependent powder X-ray diffraction. Our findings reveal the peritectic nature of phase formation, necessitating an excess of boron sulfide in the reaction mixture. We further present a comprehensive structural characterization of Li 9 B 19 S 33 utilizing spectroscopic techniques like NMR, FT-IR, and diffuse reflectance and report on its ionic conductivity. Solid-state 6 Li NMR line narrowing experiments revealed an ion mobility activation energy of 0.26 eV whereas activation energies derived from impedance spectroscopy measurements were significantly higher, resulting in lower than theoretically predicted ionic conductivity.

Oppong, Richeal A. [Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA (Un↗
DOE OSTI2015

Interactions between water and 1-butyl-1-methylpyrrolidinium ionic liquids

We report experimental results on the diffusivity of water in two ionic liquids obtained using the pulsed-gradient spin-echo NMR method. Both ionic liquids have the same cation, 1-butyl-1-methylpyrrolidinium, but different trifluoromethyl-containing anions. One has a strongly hydrophobic anion, bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)amide, while the second has a hydrophilic anion, trifluoromethylsulfonate. Transport of water in these ionic liquids is much faster than would be predicted from hydrodynamic laws, indicating that the neutral water molecules experience a very different friction than the anions and cations at the molecular level. Temperature-dependent viscosities, conductivities, and densities are reported as a function of water concentration to further analyze the properties of the ionic liquid-water mixtures. These results on the properties of water in ionic liquids should be of interest to researchers in diverse areas ranging from separations, solubilizing biomass and energy technologies.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2022

Flow Loop Study of ECT-Based Volume Fraction Monitoring in Oil–Water Two-Phase Flows

Measurement of phase volume fractions in water-containing multiphase flows is necessary for the optimization of a host of industrial flow processes. Many water-containing multiphase flows can be classified as either water-dispersed or water-continuous mixtures. A recently developed approach based on Hanai’s mixture formula and utilizing electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) sensors have shown good potential for obtaining water volume fraction estimates in two-phase water-containing flows with different water salinity levels. However, the proposed approach was investigated via controlled experiments restricted to static configurations while, in practice, multiphase flows can be dynamic and unpredictable. In this work, we perform a flow loop study of the proposed ECT-based method for volume fraction estimation in oil–water two-phase flows. Here, we evaluate the performance of the proposed method in both water-dispersed and water-continuous flow regimes by employing different types of capacitive sensors in cylindrical arrangements and parallel-plate rectangular arrangements.

02 PETROLEUM↗
DOE OSTI2016

FORTÉ Machine Learning

Of the non-corrupted data collected by the Orbiting Experiment (forté) satellite’s Photo-Diode Detector during the year 2001, I estimate that 7.9% of 914 894 signals are noise. My result differs dramatically from Guillen’s estimate of 96%. To arrive at this estimate, I used Gaussian mixture model (GMM) clustering–unsupervised machine learning–to aggregate the wave forms into groups based on the absolute value of the lowest 25 positive frequency discrete Fourier transform coefficients. Then, I marked several of the groups as noise by inspecting a random sampling of wave forms from each group. Marking groups as either noise or non-noise is a supervised binary classification operation. After removing the signals in noise groups from further consideration, I clustered the remaining signals into families. Again, I used a GMM, but for the familial clustering I used a Non-Negative Matrix Factorization feature vector transform. The result was 9 distinct families of lightning signals, as well as a second stage of noise filtering. To efficiently represent the entirety of the signal space, I broke each family into deciles based on their distance from the family mean. In this case, distance means the log-likelihood based on the GMM. Signals in lower deciles are more similar in shape and amplitude to their family average. I took the top 200 samples from each decile of each group, resulting in 18 000 signals. These signal approximately represent the entirety of the forté observations. To represent outliers, I also kept a zoo of the 1000 signals furthest from any family’s average. All told, the resulting data set represents the forté data with a reduction of about 51:1. To allow synthesis of an arbitrarily large number of test signals, I also captured each family’s average signal and the time-sample covariance matrix over the signals in each family. Using these two pieces of information, I can synthesize new waveforms by using a Gaussian random realization from the family average and covariance matrix. I wrote a program to test the synthesis quality. The program shows me two signals on the screen, one synthesized and one randomly drawn from the data. I attempted to identify the synthesized signal. Although the synthesis is imperfect, in an A/B comparison I only correctly chose the synthesized signal 36% of the time.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS1987

An ab initio study on (C5H5V)2C8H8

The bonding in the organometalic compound nu-(eta exp 5-(cyclooctatetraene) bis (eta exp 2 cyclopentadienyl) vanadium) involves a complex mixture of metal-metal and metal-ligand contributions. Although there is a direct V-V 3d interaction it is not as strong as a double bond with some triple bond character as has been suggested based upon experiment. The balance between metal-metal and metal-ligand bonding results in the appearance of a low-lying triplet state which retains the V-V 3d bonding. A small singlet-triplet separation is consistent with the change in magnetic properties with temperature.

Luthi, Hans P.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Study on the mechanism of liquid phase sintering (M-12)

The objectives were to (1) obtain the data representing the growth rate of solid particles in a liquid matrix without the effect of gravity; and (2) reveal the growth behavior of solid particles during liquid phase sintering using the data obtained. Nickel and tungsten are used as the constituent materials in liquid phase sintering. The properties of the constituent metals are given. When a compact of the mixture of tungsten and nickel powders is heated and kept at 1550 C, nickel melts down but tungsten stays solid. As the density of tungsten is much greater than that of nickel, the sedimentation of tungsten particles occurs in the experiment on Earth. The difference between the experiments on Earth and in space is illustrated. The tungsten particles sink to the bottom and are brought into contact with each other. The resulting pressure at the contact point causes the accelerated dissolution of tungsten. Consequently, flat surfaces are formed at the contact sites. As a result of dissolution and reprecipitation of tungsten, the shape of particles changes to a polygon. This phenomenon is called 'flattening.' An example of flattening of tungsten particles is shown. Thus, the data obtained by the experiment on Earth may not represent the exact growth behavior of the solid particles in a liquid matrix. If the experiments were done in a microgravity environment, the data corresponding to the theoretical growth behavior of solid particles could be achieved.

Kohara, S.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Reactivation of a tin oxide-containing catalyst

A method for the reactivation of a tin oxide-containing catalyst of a CO.sub.2 laser is provided. First, the catalyst is pretreated by a standard procedure. When the catalyst experiences diminished activity during usage, the heated zone surrounding the catalyst is raised to a temperature which is the operating temperature of the laser and 400.degree. C. for approximately one hour. The catalyst is exposed to the same laser gas mixture during this period. The temperature of the heated zone is then lowered to the operating temperature of the CO.sub.2 laser.

Upchurch, Billy T.↗
DOE OSTI2017

Differential Fragmentation of Mobility-Selected Glycans via Ultraviolet Photodissociation and Ion Mobility-Mass Spectrometry

The alternative dissociation pathways initiated by ultraviolet photodissociation (UVPD) compared with collision-induced dissociation (CID) may provide useful diagnostic fragments for biomolecule identification, including glycans. However, underivatized glycans do not commonly demonstrate strong UV absorbance, resulting in low fragmentation yields for UVPD spectra. In contrast to UVPD experiments that leverage covalent modification of glycans, we detail the capacity of metal adduction to yield comparatively rich UVPD fragmentation patterns and enhance separation factors for an isomeric glycan set in a drift tube ion mobility system. Ion mobility and UVPD-MS spectra for two N-acetyl glycan isomers were examined, each adducted with sodium or cobalt cations, with the latter providing fragment yield gains of an order of magnitude versus sodium adducts. Furthermore, our glycan analysis incorporated front-end ion mobility separation such that the structural glycan isomers could still be identified even as a mixture and not simply composite spectra of isomeric standards. Cobalt adduction proved influential in the glycan separation by yielding an isomer resolution of 0.78 when analyzed simultaneously versus no discernable separation obtained with the sodium adducts. It is the combined enhancement of both isomeric drift time separation and isomer distinction with improved UVPD fragment ion yields that further bolster multivalent metal adduction for advancing glycan IM-MS experiments. .

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

In situ deformation of antigorite-olivine two-phase mixtures: Implications for dynamics and seismic anisotropy in the mantle wedge

Water released from hydrous minerals in subducting slabs reacts with the overlying plate, resulting in widespread serpentinization in the mantle wedge. Deformation of serpentinized peridotites has been invoked to explain forearc seismic anisotropy, yet studies of the mechanical properties and deformation behaviors of serpentine-bearing multiphase aggregates remain limited. Here we deformed olivine-antigorite mixtures containing 70, 50, and 20 vol.% of antigorite at 2.5 – 7.6 GPa, 673 K and strain rates of ∼10 –5 –10 –4 s –1 . Elasto-viscoplastic self-consistent simulations, constrained by synchrotron X-ray diffraction (XRD) data, were used to estimate lattice strain, stress–strain partitioning, crystallographic preferred orientations (CPO) development, and aggregate strength. Selected run products were also analyzed by electron backscatter diffraction for comparison with the CPO results obtained from XRD experiments. We found olivine transitions from A- or B-type to C-type when antigorite fraction drops to 20 vol.%, coinciding with a microstructural change from interconnected weak layers to a load-bearing framework (LBF). An additional run on a sample Atg50/Ol50 with preexisting microstructures suggested the formation of LBF was promoted by these microstructures, although the preexisting antigorite CPO has been overprinted at 20.8 % strain and could be erased completely by subsequent deformation in nature. Estimated viscosity of the two-phase mixtures suggests that low-degree serpentinization (≤20 %) in the mantle wedge may increase the strength of olivine-rich peridotite and hinder slab-mantle decoupling, whereas high-degree serpentinization (≥50–70 %) weakens the peridotite and favors decoupling if sufficient viscosity contrast (>10) develops. Seismic anisotropy shows a nonlinear dependence on antigorite fraction: antigorite CPO governs the anisotropy of the mixtures with ≥50 vol.% antigorite, whereas olivine CPO dominates at low fractions (∼20 vol.%). The presence of pre-existing microstructures reduces seismic anisotropy of the deformed mixtures, however the persistence of pre-existing CPO in actively subducting slabs remains uncertain, making their significance over geological timescales questionable.

Crystallographic preferred orientation↗
NASA NTRS1985

High temperature measurement of water vapor absorption

An investigation was undertaken to measure the absorption coefficient, at a wavelength of 10.6 microns, for mixtures of water vapor and a diluent gas at high temperature and pressure. The experimental concept was to create the desired conditions of temperature and pressure in a laser absorption wave, similar to that which would be created in a laser propulsion system. A simplified numerical model was developed to predict the characteristics of the absorption wave and to estimate the laser intensity threshold for initiation. A non-intrusive method for temperature measurement utilizing optical laser-beam deflection (OLD) and optical spark breakdown produced by an excimer laser, was thoroughly investigated and found suitable for the non-equilibrium conditions expected in the wave. Experiments were performed to verify the temperature measurement technique, to screen possible materials for surface initiation of the laser absorption wave and to attempt to initiate an absorption wave using the 1.5 kW carbon dioxide laser. The OLD technique was proven for air and for argon, but spark breakdown could not be produced in helium. It was not possible to initiate a laser absorption wave in mixtures of water and helium or water and argon using the 1.5 kW laser, a result which was consistent with the model prediction.

Keefer, Dennis↗
DOE OSTI2015

Low Mach number fluctuating hydrodynamics of multispecies liquid mixtures

We develop a low Mach number formulation of the hydrodynamic equations describing transport of mass and momentum in a multispecies mixture of incompressible miscible liquids at specified temperature and pressure, which generalizes our prior work on ideal mixtures of ideal gases [Balakrishnan et al., “Fluctuating hydrodynamics of multispecies nonreactive mixtures,” Phys. Rev. E 89 013017 (2014)] and binary liquid mixtures [Donev et al., “Low mach number fluctuating hydrodynamics of diffusively mixing fluids,” Commun. Appl. Math. Comput. Sci. 9(1), 47-105 (2014)]. In this formulation, we combine and extend a number of existing descriptions of multispecies transport available in the literature. The formulation applies to non-ideal mixtures of arbitrary number of species, without the need to single out a “solvent” species, and includes contributions to the diffusive mass flux due to gradients of composition, temperature, and pressure. Momentum transport and advective mass transport are handled using a low Mach number approach that eliminates fast sound waves (pressure fluctuations) from the full compressible system of equations and leads to a quasi-incompressible formulation. Thermal fluctuations are included in our fluctuating hydrodynamics description following the principles of nonequilibrium thermodynamics. We extend the semi-implicit staggered-grid finite-volume numerical method developed in our prior work on binary liquid mixtures [Nonaka et al., “Low mach number fluctuating hydrodynamics of binary liquid mixtures,” http://arxiv.org/abs/1410.2300 (2015)] and use it to study the development of giant nonequilibrium concentration fluctuations in a ternary mixture subjected to a steady concentration gradient. We also numerically study the development of diffusion-driven gravitational instabilities in a ternary mixture and compare our numerical results to recent experimental measurements [Carballido-Landeira et al., “Mixed-mode instability of a miscible interface due to coupling between Rayleigh–Taylor and double-diffusive convective modes,” Phys. Fluids 25, 024107 (2013)] in a Hele-Shaw cell. We find that giant nonequilibrium fluctuations can trigger the instability but are eventually dominated by the deterministic growth of the unstable mode, in both quasi-two-dimensional (Hele-Shaw) and fully three-dimensional geometries used in typical shadowgraph experiments.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2015

Behaviour of tritium in the vacuum vessel of JT-60U

The disassembly of the JT-60U torus started in 2010 after 18 years of deuterium plasma operations. The vessel is made of Inconel 625. Therefore, it was very important to study the hydrogen isotope (particularly tritium) behavior in Inconel 625 from the viewpoint of the clearance procedure. Inconel 625 specimen was exposed to the D{sub 2} (92.8 %) - T{sub 2} (7.2 %) gas mixture at 573 K for 5 hours. The tritium release from the specimen at 298 K was controlled for about 1 year. After that a part of tritium remaining in the specimen was released by heating up to 1073 K. Other part of tritium trapped in the specimen was measured by chemical etching method. Most of the chemical form of the released tritium was HTO. The contaminated specimen by tritium was released continuously the diffusible tritium under the ambient condition. In the tritium release experiment, the amount of desorbed tritium was about 99% during 1 year. It was considered that the tritium in Inconel 625 was released easily.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2016

Separation of Light Hydrocarbons through Selective Molecular Exclusion by a Microporous Metal–Organic Framework

Abstract [Zn 2 (sdc) 2 (bpe)] (compound 1 , sdc=4,4′‐stilbenedicarboxylate, bpe=1,2‐bis(4‐pyridyl)ethane)), a doubly interpenetrated, pillared‐layer microporous metal–organic framework has been solvothermally synthesized and structurally characterized by single‐crystal X‐ray diffraction. The structure features a common Zn 2 (COO) 4 paddle‐wheel building unit. Compound 1 undergoes structural change upon solvent removal. The activated phase (compound 2 ) displays permanent porosity, excellent thermal/moisture stability, and interesting hydrocarbon adsorption properties. Gas adsorption experiments show that compound 1 selectively adsorbs saturated/unsaturated C 2 hydrocarbons but excludes C 3 and C 4 hydrocarbons at room temperature. We have collected single‐component adsorption isotherms of six light hydrocarbons and calculated adsorption selectivities of various binary hydrocarbon mixtures by ideal adsorbed solution theory (IAST). The results show that compound 1 possesses remarkably high selectivity towards C 2 over C 3 /C 4 hydrocarbons and the separation is achieved by selective molecular exclusion.

Wang, Hao↗
DOE OSTI2024

Coal-derived conductive pavement for winter de-icing: prototype, modeling, and simulation

Existing pavement de-icing methods result in high installation and maintenance costs, traffic delays, excessive weariness and corrosion, and negative environmental and safety impacts. To overcome these challenges, this paper presents an innovative pathway to designing and constructing smart self-heating pavements using a low-cost coal-char bearing asphalt material. The conductive asphalt incorporates coal char, i.e., a key byproduct of the coal pyrolysis process, into the Stone Mastic Asphalt (SMA) mixture. This asphalt containing coal-derived solid carbon exhibits highly tailorable electrical conductivity, satisfactory mechanical and thermophysical properties, and superior cost-efficiency as compared to other conductive pavement materials. The de-icing performance was also demonstrated by laboratory experiments on a bench-scale prototype. Furthermore, an efficient thermal network model was developed and validated by experiments to investigate the transient thermal behavior and energy performance of the Ohmic heating pavement system. Furthermore, the whole-year energy simulation case studies were conducted on a bridge pavement with an annual energy use of 24.6–1444.8 kWh/m 2 , showcasing its potential in field applications across cool humid, cold humid, and subarctic/arctic climate zones.

42 ENGINEERING↗