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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 163 records · Page 9
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2026

Operational stability of mixed Sn–Pb perovskite solar cells: Mechanisms, mitigation strategies, and perspectives

Mixed Sn–Pb perovskites provide the 1.2–1.3 eV narrow-bandgap absorber needed for high efficiency of all perovskite tandems, but their deployment is limited by operational instability under light. This review synthesizes mechanistic origins and recent mitigation strategies for mixed Sn–Pb perovskite solar cells. The oxidation of Sn 2+ to Sn 4+ , often driven by iodine formation under light and bias, is the primary failure pathway; it creates Sn vacancies, self-doping, and nonradiative loss. Surface/grain-boundary defects, halide migration, reactive oxygen species, and interfacial redox at charge-transport layers, along with hole accumulation from poor band alignment, further accelerate Sn–Pb perovskite degradation. Here we survey recent stability advances across additive chemistry, surface and grain-boundary passivation, buried-interface redesign with modified or alternative hole transport layers, and solvent systems that preserve Sn 2+ and correct Sn–Pb speciation for scalable coating. Together, these recent advances have enabled devices to retain 80%–90% output for hundreds to over a thousand hours. Lastly, we provide our perspectives on further improving the operational stability of Sn–Pb perovskite and solar cells.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Conducting Polymers Meet Lithium–Sulfur Batteries: Progress, Challenges, and Perspectives

Lithium–sulfur (Li–S) batteries have attracted increased interest because of the high theoretical energy density, low cost, and environmental friendliness. Conducting polymers (CPs), as one of the most promising materials used in Li–S batteries, can not only facilitate electron transfer and buffer the large volumetric change of sulfur benefiting from their porous structure and excellent flexibility, but also enable stronger physical/chemical adsorption capacity toward polysulfides (LiPSs) when doped with abundant heteroatoms to promote the sulfur redox kinetics and achieve the high sulfur loading. This review firstly introduces the properties of various CPs including structural CPs (polypyrrole (PPy), polyaniline (PANi), polyethylene dioxothiophene [PEDOT]) and compound CPs (polyethylene oxide (PEO), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and poly(acrylic acid) [PAA]), and their application potential in Li–S batteries. Furthermore, the research progress of various CPs in different components (cathode, separator, and interlayer) of Li–S batteries is systematically summarized. Finally, the application perspective of the CPs in Li–S batteries as a potential guidance is comprehensively discussed.

Chen, Xin↗
DOE OSTI2023

Gender gap in perspectives of the impacts of degradation and restoration on ecosystem services in Ethiopia

Abstract The importance of land restoration has garnered increasing attention on the global stage through large‐scale initiatives such as the Bonn Challenge. However, policies and strategies are often gender‐blind and designed in compliance with entrenched social hierarchies, exacerbating pre‐existing social inequalities that affect restoration initiatives. The challenge of developing gender‐responsive policies and initiatives is accentuated by a persistent lack of sex‐disaggregated data concerning men's and women's differing perceptions and experiences. This study aims to help fill this gap by capturing the differences in men and women's perceptions of ecosystem services before and after restoration interventions in Ethiopia. Towards that end, in October 2021, we collected data from fifty‐nine (59) paired husband‐wife households and six gender‐segregated focus group discussions in two regions of Ethiopia: Amhara and Southern Nations, and Nationalities and Peoples (SNNP). Kendall's concordance analysis established a strong degree of disagreement between men's and women's ratings of restoration outcomes for most indicators. Men attributed degradation to landscape conditions and natural forces, while women considered the lack of appropriate restoration strategies as a precursor for accelerated degradation. The study also reveals that men tended to benefit more than women from enhanced ecosystem services post‐restoration, with increased labour and land management burdens often falling on the shoulders of women. Based on these findings, we argue that including men's and women's perspectives from the earliest planning phases of restoration initiatives is essential to ensure greater equity in benefit‐sharing, mitigate trade‐offs for women, and build more nuanced, just and successful approaches to restoration.

Mponela, Powell↗
DOE OSTI2022

Expert perspectives on the wind plant of the future

Abstract Wind power technology has changed rapidly in recent years. Technology innovation, evolving power markets, and competing land and ocean uses continue to influence the design and operation of wind turbines and plants. Anticipating these trends and their impact on future facilities can inform commercial strategies and research priorities. Drawing from a recent survey of 140 of the world's foremost wind experts, we identify expectations of future wind plant design in 2035, both for onshore and offshore wind. Experts anticipate continued growth in turbine size, to 5.5 (onshore) and 17 MW (offshore), with plants located in increasingly less favorable wind and siting regimes. They expect plant sizes of 1,100 MW for fixed‐bottom and 600 MW for floating offshore wind. Experts forecast enhanced grid‐system value from wind through significant to widespread use of larger rotors, hybrid projects with batteries and hydrogen production, and more. To explain experts' perspectives on future plant design and operation, we identify five mechanisms: economies of unit, plant, and resource scale; grid‐system value economies; and production efficiencies. We characterize learning effects as a moderating influence on the strength of these mechanisms. In combination, experts predict that these design choices support levelized cost of energy reductions of 27% (onshore) and 17%–35% (floating and fixed‐bottom offshore) by 2035 compared to today, while enhancing wind energy's grid service offerings. Our findings provide a much‐needed benchmark for representing future wind technologies in power sector models and address a critical research gap by explaining the economics behind wind energy design choices.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Perspectives on Few-Body Cluster Structures in Exotic Nuclei

It is a fascinating phenomenon in nuclear physics that states with a pronounced few-body structure can emerge from the complex dynamics of many nucleons. Such halo or cluster states often appear near the boundaries of nuclear stability. As such, they are an important part of the experimental program beginning at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB). A concerted effort of theory and experiment is necessary both to analyze experiments involving effective few-body states, as well as to constrain and refine theories of the nuclear force in light of new data from these experiments. Here, as a contribution to exactly this effort, this paper compiles a collection of “perspectives” that emerged out of the Topical Program “Few-body cluster structures in exotic nuclei and their role in FRIB experiments” that was held at FRIB in August 2022 and brought together theorists and experimentalists working on this topic.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Neutron scattering in photosynthesis research: recent advances and perspectives for testing crop plants

The photosynthetic performance of crop plants under a variety of environmental factors and stress conditions, at the fundamental level, depends largely on the organization and structural flexibility of thylakoid membranes. These highly organized membranes accommodate virtually all protein complexes and additional compounds carrying out the light reactions of photosynthesis. Most regulatory mechanisms fine-tuning the photosynthetic functions affect the organization of thylakoid membranes at different levels of the structural complexity. In order to monitor these reorganizations, non-invasive techniques are of special value. On the mesoscopic scale, small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) has been shown to deliver statistically and spatially averaged information on the periodic organization of the thylakoid membranes in vivo and/or, in isolated thylakoids, under physiologically relevant conditions, without fixation or staining. More importantly, SANS investigations have revealed rapid reversible reorganizations on the timescale of several seconds and minutes. In this paper, we give a short introduction into the basics of SANS technique, advantages and limitations, and briefly overview recent advances and potential applications of this technique in the physiology and biotechnology of crop plants. We also discuss future perspectives of neutron crystallography and different neutron scattering techniques, which are anticipated to become more accessible and of more use in photosynthesis research at new facilities with higher fluxes and innovative instrumentation.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Mixed-precision numerics in scientific applications: survey and perspectives

The explosive demand for artificial intelligence (AI) workloads has led to a significant increase in silicon area dedicated to lower-precision computations on recent high-performance computing hardware designs. However, mixed-precision capabilities, which can achieve performance improvements of up to 8x compared to double-precision in extreme compute-intensive workloads, remain largely untapped in most scientific applications. A growing number of efforts have shown that mixed-precision algorithmic innovations can deliver superior performance without sacrificing accuracy. These developments should prompt computational scientists to seriously consider whether their scientific modeling and simulation applications could benefit from the acceleration offered by new hardware and mixed-precision algorithms. In this survey, we (1) review progress across diverse scientific domains—fluid dynamics, weather and climate, quantum chemistry, and computational genomics—that have begun adopting mixed-precision strategies; (2) examine state-of-the-art algorithmic techniques such as iterative refinement, splitting and emulation schemes, and adaptive precision solvers; (3) assess their implications for accuracy, performance, and resource utilization; and (4) survey the emerging software ecosystem that enables mixed-precision methods at scale. We conclude with perspectives and recommendations on cross-cutting opportunities, domain-specific challenges, and the role of co-design between application scientists, numerical analysts, and computer scientists. Collectively, this survey underscores that mixed-precision numerics can reshape computational science by aligning algorithms with the evolving landscape of hardware capabilities.

Graphics processing units↗
DOE OSTI2021

Adoption of image-driven machine learning for microstructure characterization and materials design: A Perspective

Microstructure characterization enables the development of structure-processing-property relationships critical to several research areas within the broad field of materials science, from alloy design to the assessment of corrosion resistance, and failure analysis. Conventional approaches to material characterization have relied on either qualitative inference by the human ex-pert or software applications that can extract high-level features from images, such as boundary segmentation, average grain diameter, etc. Such approaches rely heavily on subject matter expert user intervention and knowledge of what phases or more generally, what microstructural features, are of interest. The recent surge in the adoption of machine learning techniques to address problems in materials engineering has brought with it an increased interest and application of Image Driven Machine Learning (IDML) approaches. In this work, we review the applications of IDML to the field of materials characterization. A canonical hierarchy of stages is defined, which when put sequentially together completes an IDML study: problem definition, dataset building, model selection and training, model evaluation, and integration with existing instrumentation or simulation workflow. The studies reviewed in this work are analyzed from the perspective of each of these stages. Such a review permits agranular assessment of the field, for example the impact of IDML on materials characterization at the nanoscale, the size of a typical dataset required to train a semantic segmentation model on electron microscopy images, ubiquitousness of transfer learning in the domain, etc. Finally, we discuss the importance of interpretability and explainability in the field of IDML for materials characterization, and provide an overview of two emerging techniques in the field: semantic segmentation and generative adversarial networks.

Baskaran, Arun↗
DOE OSTI2024

A thermodynamic perspective on electrode poisoning in solid oxide fuel cells

A critical challenge to the commercialization of clean and high-efficiency solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology is the insufficient stack lifespan caused by a variety of degradation mechanisms, which are associated with cell components and chemical feedstocks. Cell components related degradation refers to thermal/chemical/electrochemical deterioration of cell materials under operating conditions, whereas the latter regards impurities in feedstocks of oxidant (air) and reductant (fuel). This article provides a thermodynamic perspective on the understanding of the impurities-induced degradation mechanisms in SOFCs. The discussion focuses on using thermodynamic analysis to elucidate poisoning mechanisms in cathodes by impurity species such as Cr, CO 2 , H 2 O, and SO 2 and in the anode by species such as S (or H 2 S), SiO 2 , and P 2 (or PH 3 ). The author hopes the presented fundamental insights can provide a theoretical foundation for searching for better technical solutions to address the critical degradation challenges.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2021

NREL’s Wind Turbine Drivetrain Condition Monitoring and Wind Plant Operation and Maintenance Research During the 2010s: A US Land-Based Perspective

The wind industry has seen tremendous growth during the past two decades, with the global cumulative installation capacity reaching more than 650 gigawatts by the end of 2019. Despite performance and reliability improvements of utility-scale wind turbines over the years, the industry still experiences premature component failures, leading to increased operation and maintenance (O&M) costs. Among various turbine components, gearboxes—and, more broadly, drivetrains—have shown to be costly to maintain throughout the design life of a wind turbine. The problem of premature component failure is industry wide. As early as 2007, the US Department of Energy (DOE) started to address this challenge through the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL’s) reliability initiative that first focused on gearboxes and more recently expanded to entire drivetrains. The wind turbine drivetrain condition monitoring and wind plant O&M research that is the subject of this paper is part of the NREL initiative and includes a few research and development (R&D) activities conducted during the 2010s. These activities included technology evaluation during the first few years; novel monitoring technique investigation (specifically, compact filter analysis) during the middle years; and data and physics domain modeling for fault detection and prediction in recent years. A high-level summary of these activities is provided in this paper along with some key observations from each activity. Most of the work discussed has been published and can be referred to for more information. They reflect the expected evolution of wind turbine condition monitoring and O&M in the US market—primarily, a land-based perspective. In addition, we have identified several R&D opportunities that can be picked up by the research community to help industry advance in related areas, making wind power more cost competitive in the future.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Minimizing energy demand and environmental impact for sustainable NH 3 and H 2 O 2 production—A perspective on contributions from thermal, electro-, and photo-catalysis

There is an urgent need to provide adequate and sustainable supplies of water and food to satisfy the demand of an increasing population. Catalysis plays important roles in meeting these needs by facilitating the synthesis of hydrogen peroxide that is used in water decontamination and chemicals production, and ammonia that is used as fertilizer. However, these chemicals are currently produced with processes that are either very energy-intensive or environmentally unfriendly. This article offers the perspectives of the challenges and opportunities in the production of these chemicals, focusing on the roles of catalysis in more sustainable, alternative production methods that minimize energy consumption and environmental impact. While not intended to be a comprehensive review, the article provides a critical review of selected literature relevant to its objectives, discusses areas needed for further research, and potential new directions inspired by new developments in related fields. For each chemical, production by thermal, electro-, and photo-excited processes are discussed. Problems that are common to these approaches and their differences are identified and possible solutions suggested.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2020

Mitigating energy demand sector emissions: The integrated modelling perspective

Mitigating carbon emissions in the current energy system will require fundamental changes of both the energy supply and the energy demand sectors. Previous global model-based analyses, however, have focused mostly on energy supply transformations, while the energy demand sector changes are less well understood. In this study, this knowledge gap is addressed by analysing in detail the projected future energy demand projections, and the required demand-side changes to reach stringent mitigation targets using a suite of integrated assessment models. We examine industry, transport and buildings sector pathways across four models and three different reference scenarios from the Shared-Socioeconomic Pathway framework which is used as a set of common future perspectives by the climate research community. The demand side mitigation efforts are compared to a more detailed, sector-specific, technology-oriented assessments of abatement potential based on a literature review for the year 2030. The results indicate that strong emission growth in the industry and transport sector can be attributed to increasing final energy per capita and population growth. In the stringent mitigation scenarios energy efficiency, electrification and switching to low carbon fuel are all required in the short term. In the green growth SSP1 scenario the required emission reduction is significantly less than other scenarios showing that the demand growth and the technology development largely affects the sectors’ mitigation challenge. The technology assessment estimates that in particular in the transport and buildings sector there is a higher potential to reduce demand-side emissions through energy efficiency improvements than currently envisioned in the integrated assessment models.

Edelenbosch, Oreane Y.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Perspectives on novel refractory amorphous high-entropy alloys in extreme environments

Two new refractory amorphous high-entropy alloys (RAHEAs) within the W–Ta–Cr–V and W–Ta–Cr–V–Hf systems were herein synthesized using magnetron-sputtering and tested under high-temperature annealing and displacing irradiation using in situ Transmission Electron Microscopy. While the 14W-41Ta-26Cr-19V in at.% RAHEA (defined as WTaCrV RAHEA) was found to be unstable under such tests, additions of Hf in this system composing a new quinary 24W-40Ta-18Cr-5V-13Hf in at.% RAHEA (defined as WTaCrVHf RAHEA) was found to be a route to achieve stability both under annealing and irradiation. A new effect of nanoprecipitate reassembling observed to take place within the WTaCrVHf RAHEA under irradiation indicates that a duplex microstructure composed of an amorphous matrix with crystalline nanometer-sized precipitates enhances the radiation response of the system. Further, it is demonstrated that tunable chemical complexity arises as a new alloy design strategy to foster the use of novel RAHEAs within extreme environments. New perspectives for the alloy design and application of chemically-complex amorphous metallic alloys in extreme environments are presented with focus on their thermodynamic phase stability when subjected to high-temperature annealing and displacing irradiation.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Nano-FET-enabled biosensors: Materials perspective and recent advances in North America

Field-effect transistor (FET) is a very promising platform for biosensor applications due to its magnificent properties, including label-free detection, high sensitivity, fast response, real-time measurement capability, low running power, and the feasibility to miniaturize to a portable device. 1D (e.g. carbon nanotubes, Si nanowires, conductive polymer nanowires, 1D metal oxides, and others) and 2D (e.g. graphene materials, transition metal dichalcogenides, black phosphorus, and 2D metal oxides) materials, with their unique structural and electronic properties that are unavailable in bulk materials, have helped improve the sensitivity of FET biosensors and enabled detection down to single molecule. In this article, we give insights into the rapidly evolving field of 1D and 2D materials-based FET biosensors, with an emphasis on structure and electronic properties, synthesis, and biofunctionalization approaches of these nanomaterials. In addition, the progress in the 1D/2D-FET biosensors in North America, in the last decade, is summarized in tables. Moreover, challenges and future perspectives of 1D/2D-FET biosensors are covered.

1D materials↗
DOE OSTI2022

Advances and perspectives on mass transfer and enzymatic hydrolysis in the enzyme-mediated lignocellulosic biorefinery: A review

We report enzymatic hydrolysis is a critical process for the cellulase-mediated lignocellulosic biorefinery to produce sugar syrups that can be converted into a whole range of biofuels and biochemicals. Such a process operating at high-solid loadings (i.e., scarcely any free water or roughly ≥ 15% solids, w/w) is considered more economically feasible, as it can generate a high sugar concentration at low operation and capital costs. However, this approach remains restricted and incurs “high-solid effects”, ultimately causing the lower hydrolysis yields with increasing solid loadings. The lack of available water leads to a highly viscous system with impaired mixing that exhibits strong transfer resistance and reaction limitation imposed on enzyme action. Evidently, high-solid enzymatic hydrolysis involves multi-scale mass transfer and multi-phase enzyme reaction, and thus requires a synergistic perspective of transfer and biotransformation to assess the interactions among water, biomass components, and cellulase enzymes. Porous particle characteristics of biomass and its interface properties determine the water form and distribution state surrounding the particles, which are summarized in this review aiming to identify the water-driven multi-scale/multi-phase bioprocesses. Further aided by the cognition of rheological behavior of biomass slurry, solute transfer theories, and enzyme kinetics, the coupling effects of flow-transfer-reaction are revealed under high-solid conditions. Based on the above basic features, this review lucidly explains the causes of high-solid hydrolysis hindrances, highlights the mismatched issues between transfer and reaction, and more importantly, presents the advanced strategies for transfer and reaction enhancements from the viewpoint of process optimization, reactor design, as well as enzyme/auxiliary additive customization.

45 multi-scale, multi-phase, enzymatic reaction↗
DOE OSTI2020

A perspective on challenges and opportunities in developing high entropy-ultra high temperature ceramics

The emergence of a new class of high entropy ultra-high temperature ceramics (HE-UHTCs) is expected to possess exceptionally superior mechanical, oxidation, and erosion resistance as compared to conventional UHTCs. The improvement in the properties of HE-UHTCs is attributed to the high configurational entropy of the multi-component system stabilized into a single-phase, but with little discussion on entropy contributions. This perspective article presents a viewpoint on the critical scientific question regarding the actual role entropy plays in stabilizing and enhancing the thermo-mechanical properties of a multi-component system. The high throughput first-principle calculations, which can provide the entropy formation ability (EFA) of thermodynamically stable HE-UHTCs, can prove to be valuable toolset to this puzzle. HE-UHTCs show enhancement in the mechanical properties much higher than the predicted rule of the mixture, which cannot traditionally be explained by a mere solid solution formation effect. Additionally, isothermal oxidation studies of HE-UHTCs limited to furnace testing state remarkable oxidation resistance which is attributed to the passivity of complex, layered structure, and composition of the oxide scale. However, whether all the constituents in the HE-UHTC system react simultaneously or preferential oxidation takes place needs to be addressed. To address all these issues, an integrated computational and experimental approach has been postulated towards designing a thermal protection system (TPS) for re-entry applications. Succeeding the approach will provide new opportunities in the compositional space of HE-UHTCs with tailored properties.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2026

Flame Chemistry Workshop: a perspective on challenges and strategic actions in combustion experiments and chemical kinetics modeling

Continued progress in the development of predictive models for combustion chemistry—including ignition and flame behavior, species evolution, and combustion system performance—relies on overcoming enduring and emerging challenges in experimental measurements, theoretical formulations, and chemical kinetics mechanism construction. As combustion science continues to coincide with advances in sustainable fuels development, plasma technologies, and automated modeling capabilities, the need for coordinated, community-driven strategies is essential. The Flame Chemistry Workshop (FCWS), held biennially before the International Symposium on Combustion, serves as a dedicated platform to identify, consolidate, and address these challenges in a structured and collaborative manner. This perspective arises from discussions at the 7th FCWS in Milan, Italy (2024), and presents a collective view of the critical barriers currently limiting progress. Across the five technical domains discussed during the 7th FCWS – sustainable fuels combustion, advanced diagnostics for combustion measurements, experiments and modeling in plasma combustion, artificial intelligence and automated methods for theory and mechanisms generation, and chemical kinetic models—a series of persistent and emerging scientific challenges were identified, highlighting the need for deeper integration between three areas: theory, experiments, and modeling. In conclusion, the present article concisely describes present challenges that were identified in each of the technical domains in an effort to streamline and coordinate solutions to accelerate progress in combustion science.

Chemical kinetics↗
DOE OSTI2022

Perspectives on the integration between first-principles and data-driven modeling

Efficiently embedding and/or integrating mechanistic information with data-driven models is essential if it is desired to simultaneously take advantage of both engineering principles and data-science. Further the opportunity for hybridization occurs in many scenarios, such as the development of a faster model of an accurate high-fidelity computer model; the correction of a mechanistic model that does not fully-capture the physical phenomena of the system; or the integration of a data-driven component approximating an unknown correlation within a mechanistic model. At the same time, different techniques have been proposed and applied in different literatures to achieve this hybridization, such as hybrid modeling, physics-informed Machine Learning (ML) and model calibration. In this paper we review the methods, challenges, applications and algorithms of these three research areas and discuss them in the context of the different hybridization scenarios. Moreover, we provide a comprehensive comparison of the hybridization techniques with respect to their differences and similarities, as well as advantages and limitations and future perspectives. Finally, we apply and illustrate hybrid modeling, physics-informed ML and model calibration via a chemical reactor case study.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗