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At least 19 records

DOE Sustainability Award

I’m nominating Shannon Blair from the Sustainability Program and Michael Moss from Pollution Prevention Program for the DOE Outstanding Sustainability Program/Project Award for their efforts in reducing sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) emissions at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and creating a system of accounting for improved tracking of SF6 emissions in the future.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Thermal Removal Of Tritium From Concrete And Soil To Reduce Groundwater Impacts

Legacy heavy-water moderator operations at the Savannah River Site (SRS) have resulted in the contamination of equipment pads, building slabs, and surrounding soil with tritium. At the time of discovery the tritium had impacted the shallow (< 3-m) groundwater at the facility. While tritium was present in the groundwater, characterization efforts determined that a significant source remained in a concrete slab at the surface and within the associated vadose zone soils. To prevent continued long-term impacts to the shallow groundwater a CERCLA non-time critical removal action for these source materials was conducted to reduce the leaching of tritium from the vadose zone soils and concrete slabs. In order to minimize transportation and disposal costs, an on-site thermal treatment process was designed, tested, and implemented. The on-site treatment consisted of thermal detritiation of the concrete rubble and soil. During this process concrete rubble was heated to a temperature of 815 deg C (1,500 deg F) resulting in the dehydration and removal of water bound tritium. During heating, tritium contaminated soil was used to provide thermal insulation during which it&#x27;s temperature exceeded 100 deg C (212 deg F), causing drying and removal of tritium. The thermal treatment process volatiles the water bound tritium and releases it to the atmosphere. The released tritium was considered insignificant based upon Clean Air Act Compliance Package (CAP88) analysis and did not exceed exposure thresholds. A treatability study evaluated the effectiveness of this thermal configuration and viability as a decontamination method for tritium in concrete and soil materials. Post treatment sampling confirmed the effectiveness at reducing tritium to acceptable waste site specific levels. With American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding three additional treatment cells were assembled utilizing commercial heating equipment and common construction materials. This provided a total of four units to batch treat concrete rubble and soil. Post treatment sampling verified that the activity in the treated soil and concrete met the treatment standards for each medium which allowed the treated concrete rubble and soil to be disposed of on site as backfill. During testing and operations a total of 1,261-m{sup 3} (1,650-yd{sup 3}) of contaminated concrete and soils were treated with an actual incurred cost of $3,980,000. This represents a unit treatment cost of $3,156/m{sup 3} ($2,412/yd{sup 3}). In 2011 the project was recognized with an e-Star Sustainability Award by DOE&#x27;s Office of Environmental Management.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Thermal Removal of Tritium from Concrete and Soil to Reduce Groundwater Impacts - 13197

Legacy heavy-water moderator operations at the Savannah River Site (SRS) have resulted in the contamination of equipment pads, building slabs, and surrounding soil with tritium. At the time of discovery the tritium had impacted the shallow (< 3-m) groundwater at the facility. While tritium was present in the groundwater, characterization efforts determined that a significant source remained in a concrete slab at the surface and within the associated vadose zone soils. To prevent continued long-term impacts to the shallow groundwater a CERCLA non-time critical removal action for these source materials was conducted to reduce the leaching of tritium from the vadose zone soils and concrete slabs. In order to minimize transportation and disposal costs, an on-site thermal treatment process was designed, tested, and implemented. The on-site treatment consisted of thermal detritiation of the concrete rubble and soil. During this process concrete rubble was heated to a temperature of 815 deg. C (1,500 deg. F) resulting in the dehydration and removal of water bound tritium. During heating, tritium contaminated soil was used to provide thermal insulation during which it's temperature exceeded 100 deg. C (212 deg. F), causing drying and removal of tritium. The thermal treatment process volatiles the water bound tritium and releases it to the atmosphere. The released tritium was considered insignificant based upon Clean Air Act Compliance Package (CAP88) analysis and did not exceed exposure thresholds. A treatability study evaluated the effectiveness of this thermal configuration and viability as a decontamination method for tritium in concrete and soil materials. Post treatment sampling confirmed the effectiveness at reducing tritium to acceptable waste site specific levels. With American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding three additional treatment cells were assembled utilizing commercial heating equipment and common construction materials. This provided a total of four units to batch treat concrete rubble and soil. Post treatment sampling verified that the activity in the treated soil and concrete met the treatment standards for each medium which allowed the treated concrete rubble and soil to be disposed of on-site as backfill. During testing and operations a total of 1,261-m{sup 3} (1,650-yd{sup 3}) of contaminated concrete and soils were treated with an actual incurred cost of $3,980,000. This represents a unit treatment cost of $3,156/m{sup 3} ($2,412/yd{sup 3}). In 2011 the project was recognized with an e-Star Sustainability Award by DOE's Office of Environmental Management. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

NREL's Building-Integrated Supercomputer Provides Heating and Efficient Computing (Fact Sheet)

NREL's Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF) is meant to investigate new ways to integrate energy sources so they work together efficiently, and one of the key tools to that investigation, a new supercomputer, is itself a prime example of energy systems integration. NREL teamed with Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Intel to develop the innovative warm-water, liquid-cooled Peregrine supercomputer, which not only operates efficiently but also serves as the primary source of building heat for ESIF offices and laboratories. This innovative high-performance computer (HPC) can perform more than a quadrillion calculations per second as part of the world's most energy-efficient HPC data center.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Material Profile Influences in Bulk-Heterojunctions

he morphology in mixed bulk-heterojunction films are compared using three different quantitative measurement techniques. We compare the vertical composition changes using high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy with electron tomography and neutron and x-ray reflectometry. The three measurement techniques yield qualita-tively comparable vertical concentration measurements. The presence of a metal cathode during thermal annealing is observed to alter the fullerene concentration throughout the thickness of the film for all measurements. However, the abso-lute vertical concentration of fullerene is quantitatively different for the three measurements. The origin of the quantitative measurement differences is discussed. The authors thank Luna Innovations, Inc. for donating the endohedral fullerenes used in this study and Plextronics for the P3HT. They are gratefully thank the National Science Foundation Energy for Sustainability Program, Award No. 0933435. This work benefited from the use of the Lujan Neutron Scattering Center at Los Alamos Neutron Science Center funded by the DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences and Los Alamos National Laboratory under DOE Contract DE-AC52-06NA25396. This research was also supported in part by Laboratory Directed Research & Development program at PNNL. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is operated by Battelle for the US Department of Energy under contract DE-AC05-76RL01830.

blends↗

City of Indianapolis Better Buildings Program

In June 2010, the City of Indianapolis’ Office of Sustainability was awarded $10 million in grant funds through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Neighborhood Program (CFDA 81.128) funded by the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The purpose of the grant funds was to achieve energy savings in residential and commercial buildings through energy efficiency upgrades such as air sealing and insulation.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Chicago Clean Air, Clean Water Project: Environmental Monitoring for a Healthy, Sustainable Urban Future

The U.S. Department of Energy awarded Loyola University Chicago and the Institute of Environmental Sustainability (IES) $486,000.00 for the proposal entitled “Chicago clean air, clean water project: Environmental monitoring for a healthy, sustainable urban future.” The project supported the purchase of analytical instruments for the development of an environmental analytical laboratory. The analytical laboratory is designed to support the testing of field water and soil samples for nutrients, industrial pollutants, heavy metals, and agricultural toxins, with special emphasis on testing Chicago regional soils and water affected by coal-based industry. Since the award was made in 2010, the IES has been launched (fall 2013), and the IES acquired a new state-of-the-art research and education facility on Loyola University Chicago’s Lakeshore campus. Two labs were included in the research and education facility. The second floor lab is the Ecology Laboratory where lab experiments and analyses are conducted on soil, plant, and water samples. The third floor lab is the Environmental Toxicology Lab where lab experiments on environmental toxins are conducted, as well as analytical tests conducted on water, soil, and plants. On the south end of the Environmental Toxicology Lab is the analytical instrumentation collection purchased from the present DOE grant, which is overseen by a full time Analytical Chemist (hired January 2016), who maintains the instruments, conducts analyses on samples, and helps to train faculty and undergraduate and graduate student researchers.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

SB6.0: The 6th International meeting on Synthetic Biology, July 9-11, 2013

The Synthetic Biology conference series (SBx.0) is the preeminent academic meeting in synthetic biology. Organized by the BioBricks Foundation, the SBx.0 conference series brings together leading researchers, students, industry executives, and policy makers from around the world to share, consider, debate, and plan efforts to make biology easier to engineer. Historically held every two years, the SBx.0 conferences are held in alternating locations in the United States, Europe, and Asia to encourage global participation and collaboration so that the ramifications of synthetic biology research and development are most likely to be safe ethical, and beneficial. On 9-11 July 2013, the 6th installment of the synthetic biology conference series (SB6.0) was held on the campus of Imperial College London (http://sb6.biobricks.org). The SB6.0 conference was attended by over 700 people, and many more were able to participate via video digital conference (http://sb6.biobricks.org/digital-conference/). Over the course of three days, the SB6.0 conference agenda included plenary sessions, workshops, and poster presentations covering topics ranging from the infrastructure needs arising when “Systematic Engineering Meets Biological Complexity” and design-led considerations for “Connecting People and Technologies” to discussions on “Engineering Biology for New Materials,” “Assessing Risk and Managing Biocontainment,” and “New Directions for Energy and Sustainability.” The $10,150 grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DE-SC0010233) to the BioBricks Foundation was used to provide partial reimbursement for the travel expenses of leading researchers from the United States to speak at the SB6.0 conference. A total of $9,450 was used to reimburse U.S. speakers for actual expenses related to the SB6.0 conference, including airfare (economy or coach only), ground transportation, hotel, and registration fees. In addition, $700 of the grant was used to offset direct administrative costs associated with selecting speakers (preparing announcements, evaluating abstract submissions) and handling travel arrangements. Leading U.S. researchers selected to speak at the SB6.0 conference included: Adam Arkin, Ph.D. Division Director of the Physical Biosciences Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at UC Berkeley Jay Keasling, Ph.D. Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at Berkeley, Senior Faculty Scientist and Associate Laboratory Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Chief Executive Officer of the Joint BioEnergy Institute. Debra Mathews, Ph.D. Assistant Director for Science Programs for the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, and Affiliate Faculty in the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Richard Murray, Ph.D. Thomas E. and Doris Everhart Professor of Control & Dynamical Systems and Bioengineering at Caltech. Sarah Richardson, Ph.D. Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow in Genomics at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute. and others (for a complete listing of speakers presenting at the SB6.0 conference see http://sb6.biobricks.org/speakers/) The SB6.0 conference was the largest synthetic biology conference to date, and highlights of the SB6.0 conference have been published in a special issue of ACS Synthetic Biology (http://pubs.acs.org/toc/asbcd6/3/3). The BioBricks Foundation appreciates the support of the U.S. Department of Energy in helping to make this most influential and important conference in the field of synthetic biology a success.

42 ENGINEERING↗

I2SL Phil Wirdzek Leadership Award

I’m nominating Shannon Blair from Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL) Sustainability Program and Michael Moss from LANL’s Pollution Prevention Program for the Phil Wirdzek Leadership Award for their efforts in reducing sulfur hexafluoride (SF 6 ) emissions at LANL and creating a system of accounting for improved tracking of SF 6 emissions in the future.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

George M. Low Trophy: NASA's quality and excellence award

NASA's major goal is the preservation of America's position as a leader in the aerospace industry. To maintain that status, it is crucial that the products and services we depend upon from NASA contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers meet the highest quality standards to ensure the space program's success. The George M. Low Trophy: NASA's Quality and Excellence Award is the result of NASA's desire to encourage continuous improvement and Total Quality Management (TQM) in the aerospace industry and is awarded to members of NASA's contractor community that have demonstrated sustained excellence, customer orientation, and outstanding achievements in a Total Quality Management (TQM) environment. The purpose in presenting this award is to increase public awareness of the importance of quality and productivity to the nation's aerospace industry and the nation's leadership position overall; encourage domestic business to continuously pursue efforts that enhance quality and increase productivity which will strengthen the nation's competitiveness in the international arena; and provide a forum for sharing the successful techniques and strategies used by applicants with other American organizations. Awards to Rockwell International and Marotta Scientific Controls, Inc. are announced and discussed.

Source record↗

Deploying a New AI Software Tool for Rapid Characterization & Quantification of Unconventional Sources of Critical Minerals

Poster for the 2024 NETL Resource Sustainability Meeting. The poster presents a new project award by the Office of Technology Transitions to accelerate application and commercial utilization of an NETL-developed technology to rapidly characterize critical mineral occurrences within secondary and/or unconventional feedstocks, such as coal refuse or waste impoundments.

Creason, Christopher↗

George M. Low trophy NASA's quality and excellence award, 1992. Application guidelines: Large business

The George M. Low Trophy is awarded to current NASA contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers in the aerospace industry who have demonstrated sustained excellence and outstanding achievements in quality and productivity for three or more years. The objectives of the award are to increase public awareness of the importance of quality and productivity to the Nation's aerospace program and industry in general; encourage domestic business to continue efforts to enhance quality, increase productivity, and thereby strengthen competitiveness; and provide the means for sharing the successful methods and techniques used by the applicants with other American enterprises. Information is given on candidate eligibility for large businesses, the selection process, the nomination letter, and the application report.

Source record↗

George M. Low Trophy: NASA's quality and excellence award. 1992 recipients: Honeywell Clearwater, IBM Houston

The George M. Low Trophy is awarded to current NASA contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers in the aerospace industry who have demonstrated sustained excellence and outstanding achievements in quality and productivity for three or more years. The objectives of the award are to increase public awareness of the importance of quality and productivity to the Nation's aerospace program and industry in general; encourage domestic business to continue efforts to enhance quality, increase productivity, and thereby strengthen competitiveness; and provide the means for sharing the successful methods and techniques used by the applicants with other American enterprises. Information is given on candidate eligibility for large businesses, the selection process, the nomination letter, and the application report. The 1992 highlights and recipients are included.

Source record↗

Quantum Theory, Quantum Materials, Quantum Computing

The Sanibel Symposium series is renowned amongst materials theorists, quantum chemists, and condensed matter physicists as meetings driving progress on theory, mod eling, and simulation of materials and their molecular and nano-scale constituents. The Symposia are highly unusual (perhaps unique) in their priority emphasis on theory and computation, in having no parallel sessions, in cultivating well-attended Hot-Topic contributed oral sessions, and accessible poster sessions. These provide highly visible, influential platforms for cross-fertilization among specialist investigators, hence are strong contributors to the advance of quantum information sciences (QIS) research of strategic importance to the Office of Basic Energy Sciences (BES). As part of a five-year plan to highlight QIS challenges and opportunities and foster progress on them, each of the pre ceding three Sanibel Symposia had a thematic focus, Quantum Theory, Quantum Materi als, Quantum Computing, as a major program component. Emphasis was on quantum materials and their molecular constituents. The award for 2024 was for year four of that sustained thematic focus.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗