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Valve for extracting samples from process stream includes cylindrical body bolted to pipe that contains stream. Opening in valve body matched and sealed against opening in pipe. Used to sample process streams in variety of facilities, including cement plants, plants that manufacture and reprocess plastics, oil refineries, and pipelines.
Critical metals are currently extracted by mining followed by their purification. These processes are costly and not environmentally very desirable. In this perspective paper we discuss the potential of extracting these critical metals from a range waste-streams available in abundance globally. These waste streams include brine from desalination plants, effluents from oil drilling and hydraulic fracturing, as well as discharges from various industrial processes such as metal finishing, electroplating, mining, and chemical manufacturing. We show that with a range of new separation processes being developed their separation is showing potential of being both technologically and economically feasible. We also show how high performance computing can be combined with computational models to screen and accelerate the development of new technologies for extracting critical metals from waste streams.
Proposed isotope-enrichment scheme enables determination of contributions of dual sources of oxygen for combustion. Liquid oxygen or other artificial stream enriched with O(18) to about 1 percent by weight. Combustion products analyzed by mass spectrometer to measure relative abundances of H2O(18) and H2O(16). From relative abundances of water products measured, one computes relative contribution of oxygen extracted from stream compared to other source of oxygen in combustion process. Used to determine contributions of natural oxygen in air and liquid oxygen supplied in separate stream mixed with air or sent directly into combustion chamber.
An axial flow separator turbine is described which includes a number of nozzles for delivering streams of a two-phase fluid along linear paths. A phase separator which responsively separates the vapor and liquid is characterized by concentrically related annuli supported for rotation within the paths. The separator has endless channels for confining the liquid under the influence of centrifugal forces. A vapor turbine fan extracts kinetic energy from the liquid. Angular momentum of both the liquid phase and the vapor phase of the fluid is converted to torque.
This work demonstrates the first experimental evidence of the acid–base concentration swing (ABCS) for direct air capture of CO 2 . This process is based on the effect that concentrating particular acid–base chemical reactants will strongly acidify solution, through Le Chatelier's principle, and result in outgassing absorbed CO 2 . After collecting the outgassed CO 2 , diluting the solution will result in a reversal of the acid–base reaction, basifying the solution and allowing for atmospheric CO 2 absorption. The experimental study examines a system that includes sodium cation as the alkalinity carrier, boric acid, and a polyol complexing agent that reversibly reacts with boric acid to strongly acidify solution upon concentration. Though the tested experimental system faces absorption rate and water capacity limitations, the ABCS process described here provides a basis for further process optimization. A generalized theoretical ABCS reaction framework is developed and different reaction orders and conditions are studied mathematically. Higher order reactions yield favorable cycle output results, reaching volumetric cycle capacity above 50 mM for third-order and 80 mM for fourth-order reactions. Optimal equilibrium constants are determined in order to guide alternative chemical searches and synthetic chemistry design targets. There is a substantial energetic benefit for reaction orders above the first, with second- and third-order ABCS cycles exhibiting a thermodynamic minimum work for the concentrating and outgassing steps around 150 kJ per mole of CO 2 . A significant advantage of the ABCS is that it can be driven through well-developed and widely-deployed desalination technologies, such as reverse osmosis, with opportunities for energy recovery when recombining the concentrated and diluted streams, and extraction can occur directly from the liquid phase upon vacuum application.
The Cache Contents Estimator (CCE) is a computer program that provides information on the contents of level-1 cache of a PowerPC computer. The CCE is configurable to enable simulation of any processor in the PowerPC family. The need for CCE arises because the contents of level-1 caches are not available to either hardware or software readout mechanisms, yet information on the contents is crucial in the development of fault-tolerant or highly available computing systems and for realistic modeling and prediction of computing- system performance. The CCE comprises two independent subprograms: (1) the Dynamic Application Address eXtractor (DAAX), which extracts the stream of address references from an application program undergoing execution and (2) the Cache Simulator (CacheSim), which models the level-1 cache of the processor to be analyzed, by mimicking what the cache controller would do, in response to the address stream from DAAX. CacheSim generates a running estimate of the contents of the data and the instruction subcaches of the level-1 cache, hit/miss ratios, the percentage of cache that contains valid or active data, and time-stamped histograms of the cache content.
Unsteady Flow Analysis Toolkit (UFAT) is a computer program that synthesizes motions of time-dependent flows represented by very large sets of data generated in computational fluid dynamics simulations. Prior to the development of UFAT, it was necessary to rely on static, single-snapshot depictions of time-dependent flows generated by flow-visualization software designed for steady flows. Whereas it typically takes weeks to analyze the results of a largescale unsteady-flow simulation by use of steady-flow visualization software, the analysis time is reduced to hours when UFAT is used. UFAT can be used to generate graphical objects of flow visualization results using multi-block curvilinear grids in the format of a previously developed NASA data-visualization program, PLOT3D. These graphical objects can be rendered using FAST, another popular flow visualization software developed at NASA. Flow-visualization techniques that can be exploited by use of UFAT include time-dependent tracking of particles, detection of vortex cores, extractions of stream ribbons and surfaces, and tetrahedral decomposition for optimal particle tracking. Unique computational features of UFAT include capabilities for automatic (batch) processing, restart, memory mapping, and parallel processing. These capabilities significantly reduce analysis time and storage requirements, relative to those of prior flow-visualization software. UFAT can be executed on a variety of supercomputers.
The development of an economically competitive domestic supply of rare earth elements and yttrium (REY) is necessary for our nation’s economic growth and national security. The achievement of a secure domestic supply of REY requires not only the development of effective processes for recovery of REY from naturally occurring materials and/or recycled products, but also the development of downstream processes for the ultimate production of high-REY content solids. An impediment to the development of such processes is the scarcity of analytical methods that provide rapid determination of the process stream compositions. In this work, a membrane-based extraction process was used to selectively recover REYs from a dilute solution in the presence of much higher concentrations of Ca and Al. In tandem, the use of a portable spectrometer equipped with an immobilized zinc adeninate benzene tricarboxylate metal-organic framework sensing material makes possible the rapid detection of the presence of ppm concentrations of Tb and Eu in both weakly acidic and strongly acidic process streams within minutes. A solvent extraction processing time of 15-60 min maximized REY selectivity over gangue ions while achieving up to 80% REY and minimal gangue ion recovery. Taken together, these experiments highlight not only an innovative method for REY purification but also the importance of inexpensive, portable characterization methods for near real-time analysis of REY content.
Citizen science (or crowdsourcing) has drawn much high-level recent and ongoing interest and support. It is poised to be applied, beyond the by-now fairly familiar use of, e.g., Twitter for natural hazards monitoring, to science research, such as augmenting the validation of NASA earth science mission data. This interest and support is seen in the 2014 National Plan for Civil Earth Observations, the 2015 White House forum on citizen science and crowdsourcing, the ongoing Senate Bill 2013 (Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Act of 2015), the recent (August 2016) Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) call for public participation in its newly-established Citizen Science Domain Working Group, and NASA's initiation of a new Citizen Science for Earth Systems Program (along with its first citizen science-focused solicitation for proposals). Over the past several years, we have been exploring the feasibility of extracting from the Twitter data stream useful information for application to NASA precipitation research, with both "passive" and "active" participation by the twitterers. The Twitter database, which recently passed its tenth anniversary, is potentially a rich source of real-time and historical global information for science applications. The time-varying set of "precipitation" tweets can be thought of as an organic network of rain gauges, potentially providing a widespread view of precipitation occurrence. The validation of satellite precipitation estimates is challenging, because many regions lack data or access to data, especially outside of the U.S. and in remote and developing areas. Mining the Twitter stream could augment these validation programs and, potentially, help tune existing algorithms. Our ongoing work, though exploratory, has resulted in key components for processing and managing tweets, including the capabilities to filter the Twitter stream in real time, to extract location information, to filter for exact phrases, and to plot tweet distributions. The key step is to process the "precipitation" tweets to be compatible with satellite-retrieved precipitation data. These key components for processing and managing "precipitation" tweets (and additional ones to be developed) are not limited to precipitation, nor are they limited to the Twitter social medium. Indeed, to maximize the value of our work for NASA earth science programs, these components should be generalized and be part of an overall framework for processing citizen science data for science research. In this paper, we outline such a framework.
In this presentation, the speaker discusses the research that has been carried out at NETL regarding direct lithium extraction. The three main discussing points are as follows: developing high-capacity lithium-ion sieve sorbent using mineral streams associated with critical minerals; demonstrating the sorbent ability to recover lithium from oil/gas produced waters and geothermal brines; and assessing the feasibility of large-scale implementation through technoeconomic analysis.
Accurately predicting stream temperature in ungauged basins remains a critical challenge for water resource management, thermoelectric power plant cooling, and ecosystem conservation. Large-sample machine learning models trained on hundreds of well-monitored river basins have shown remarkable performance; however, such models have yet to be developed solely using forcing data that can be readily extracted to simulate stream temperatures anywhere in the contiguous United States (CONUS). In this study, we present a scalable, large-sample deep learning framework using Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks to simulate daily stream temperatures in ungauged basins across the CONUS. The framework leverages both modeled reanalysis of meteorological and streamflow inputs as well as static attributes available for all 2.7 million CONUS river reaches in the National Hydrography Dataset Plus (NHDPlusV2). By generating dynamical inputs from predefined thermally relevant upstream contributing areas, rather than the entire upstream basin, the model also offers improvements in very large basins where full-basin averaging can dilute the most important influences on stream temperature. Evaluated across 300 basins, the model achieves a median Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 1.1 °C and a Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE) of 0.95 on temporally and spatially distinct test folds—comparable to models trained exclusively using meteorological and streamflow observational data. The flexible, high-performing framework generalizes to any unmonitored river reach without significant regulation or unnatural thermal input immediately upstream, substantially expanding predictive capabilities in data-scarce regions.
This study reports on the capture of rare earth elements (REEs) from phosphate industry process streams, including phosphoric acid (PA) sludge and phosphogypsum (PG), using a membrane solvent extraction (MSX) process. While MSX has been proven effective for a relatively concentrated feed, its effectiveness for dilute REEs solutions remains unexplored. Investigated PA-sludge and PG particles contain total REEs concentrations of ∼1100 and ∼320 ppm, respectively. Acid leaching, implemented to dissolve the REEs, significantly dilutes the REEs concentration to ∼210 ppm for PA-sludge leachate and ∼60 ppm for PG leachate. These low concentrations, compounded by the higher levels of non-REE ions and radioactive species, uranium (U) and thorium (Th), poses challenges to the MSX process. Here, we demonstrated that N,N,N′,N′-tetraoctyl-diglycolamide (TODGA) selectively binds REEs from a >3 M nitric-acid leachate while effectively rejecting U and Th. Concentrations of light REEs in strip solution were doubled compared to the feed, while heavy REEs were preferentially extracted. Furthermore, >99% purity gypsum, free of U and Th, was precipitated during the acid leaching process, aiding separation by removing significant amounts of non-REEs species (e.g., calcium) prior to the MSX process. Molecular simulations support the experimental data, suggesting preferential separation of heavy over light REEs. Based on these results, a cost-effective integrated process including pretreatment, acid leaching, MSX, and wastewater treatment is proposed for the co-recovery of REEs, phosphoric acid, gypsum, and U. This study shows MSX as a technically and economically feasible process for the recovery of REEs from low-concentration process streams, offering advantages over conventional solvent extraction.
The assessment of forest productivity and associated nitrogen flux in a number of conifer ecosystems is described. As a base line study of acid precipitation in the Sierra Nevada, involved is the extraction and integration of a number of data planes describing the terrain, soils, lithology, vegetation cover and structure, and microclimate of the region. The development of automated techniques to extract topographic networks (stream canyons and ridge lines) for use as a landscrape skeleton to organize and integrate data sets into an efficient geographical information system is examined. The software is written in both FORTRAN and C, and is portable to a number of different computer environments with minimal modification.
Conventional size segregation or screening in batch mode, using stacked vibrated screens, is often a time-consuming process. Utilization of centrifugal force instead of gravity as the primary body force can significantly shorten the time to segregate feedstock into a set of different-sized fractions. Likewise, under reduced gravity or microgravity, a centrifugal sieve system would function as well as it does terrestrially. When vibratory and mechanical blade sieving screens designed for terrestrial conditions were tested under lunar gravity conditions, they did not function well. The centrifugal sieving design of this technology overcomes the issues that prevented sieves designed for terrestrial conditions from functioning under reduced gravity. These sieves feature a rotating outer (cylindrical or conical) screen wall, rotating fast enough for the centrifugal forces near the wall to hold granular material against the rotating screen. Conventional centrifugal sieves have a stationary screen and rapidly rotating blades that shear the granular solid near the stationary screen, and effect the sieving process assisted by the airflow inside the unit. The centrifugal sieves of this new design may (or may not) have an inner blade or blades, moving relative to the rotating wall screen. Some continuous flow embodiments would have no inner auger or blades, but achieve axial motion through vibration. In all cases, the shearing action is gentler than conventional centrifugal sieves, which have very high velocity differences between the stationary outer screen and the rapidly rotating blades. The new design does not depend on airflow in the sieving unit, so it will function just as well in vacuum as in air. One advantage of the innovation for batch sieving is that a batch-mode centrifugal sieve may accomplish the same sieving operation in much less time than a conventional stacked set of vibrated screens (which utilize gravity as the primary driving force for size separation). In continuous mode, the centrifugal sieves can provide steady streams of fine and coarse material separated from a mixed feedstock flow stream. The centrifugal sieves can be scaled to any desired size and/or mass flow rate. Thus, they could be made in sizes suitable for small robotic exploratory missions, or for semi-permanent processing of regolith for extraction of volatiles of minerals. An advantage of the continuous-mode system is that it can be made with absolutely no gravity flow components for feeding material into, or for extracting the separated size streams from, the centrifugal sieve. Thus, the system is capable of functioning in a true microgravity environment. Another advantage of the continuous-mode system is that some embodiments of the innovation have no internal blades or vanes, and thus, can be designed to handle a very wide range of feedstock sizes, including occasional very large oversized pieces, without jamming or seizing up.
Quasi-Lagrangian budgets of mass, vorticity and heat are calculated following disturbances that form within polar air streams. Observed cases are extracted from the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts analyses during the First GARP Global Experiment. Model-generated cases are extracted from the simulations of extratropical cyclogenesis by Sandgathe. These polar lows grow primarily through basic baroclinic instability processes and exhibit many features of larger maritime extratropical cyclones. Polar lows that originate on the poleward (or Cyclonic - Type C) side of the jet and have considerable midtropospheric positive vorticity advection at formation time are contrasted with lows that form on the equatorward (or Anticyclonic - Type A) side of a nearly straight upper-level jet. The midtropospheric positive vorticity advection must be present to enhance the vertical circulation when the large surface fluxes that are associated with strong outbreaks act to damp the thermal wave amplification. Although latent heat release is an important factor in both types, it is an essential energy source for the Type A low developments on the equatorward side. Although the vorticity balance is initially different for the two types of polar lows, the vorticity budgets during later stages are similar. The heat budget and the thickness tendency equation demonstrated that the self-development process that is present in larger maritime cyclones is also important for polar low intensification. The absence of favorable coupling to a jet stream is the missing factor in a model-generated Type A polar low that failed to develop. Consequently, the mid- and upper-tropospheric wind fields determine which polar lows will intensify to significant amplitudes.
Marine renewable energy (MRE) is increasingly of interest to coastal nations as a source of renewable energy that can support climate change mitigation goals as well as provide secure locally-produced energy for coastal and island communities. MRE extracts power from tidal streams, waves, ocean currents, run of rivers, and gradients in the ocean, with specialized devices developed and tested for each energy resource. Alongside development of MRE technologies and systems, first in Europe and then in North America, Australia, Asia, and other regions, it has been universally recognized that there is also a need to examine potential effects on marine animals, habitats, ecosystem processes, local communities and other sea users, to ensure that the MRE industry can be developed in a responsible and sustainable manner. This paper looks at the status of assessment and monitoring for potential environmental effects associated with MRE projects around the world. Over 80 projects were identified worldwide as having been tested, demonstrated, or commercially deployed with associated environmental monitoring. Five of the projects that represent tidal stream, wave, and run of river projects are examined in more detail to determine the types of data and information collected for those projects, the outputs of the monitoring campaigns, and the actions taken as a result of the data collection and analysis. Recommendations are provided for standardization of the monitoring approaches, instruments, and analysis methods at MRE project sites worldwide.
The analysis of spectral signals for features that represent physical phenomenon is ubiquitous in the science and engineering communities. There are two main approaches that can be taken to extract relevant features from these high-dimensional data streams. The first set of approaches relies on extracting features using a physics-based paradigm where the underlying physical mechanism that generates the spectra is used to infer the most important features in the data stream. We focus on a complementary methodology that uses a data-driven technique that is informed by the underlying physics but also has the ability to adapt to unmodeled system attributes and dynamics. We discuss the following four algorithms: Spectral Decomposition Algorithm (SDA), Non-Negative Matrix Factorization (NMF), Independent Component Analysis (ICA) and Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and compare their performance on a spectral emulator which we use to generate artificial data with known statistical properties. This spectral emulator mimics the real-world phenomena arising from the plume of the space shuttle main engine and can be used to validate the results that arise from various spectral decomposition algorithms and is very useful for situations where real-world systems have very low probabilities of fault or failure. Our results indicate that methods like SDA and NMF provide a straightforward way of incorporating prior physical knowledge while NMF with a tuning mechanism can give superior performance on some tests. We demonstrate these algorithms to detect potential system-health issues on data from a spectral emulator with tunable health parameters.
DENIS (Deep Near-Infrared Survey of the Southern Sky) will be the first complete census of astronomical sources in the near-infrared spectral range. The challenges of this novel survey are both scientific and technical. Phenomena radiating in the near-infrared range from brown dwarfs to galaxies in the early stages of cosmological evolution, the scientific exploitation of data relevant over such a wide range requires pooling expertise from several of the leading European astronomical centers. The technical challenges of a project which will provide an order of magnitude more sources than given by the IRAS space mission, and which will involve advanced data-handling and image-processing techniques, likewise require pooling of hardware and software resources, as well as of human expertise. The DENIS project team is composed of some 40 scientists, computer specialists, and engineers located in 5 European Community countries (France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, and Spain), with important contributions from specialists in Australia, Brazil, Chile, and Hungary. DENIS will survey the entire southern sky in 3 colors, namely in the I band at a wavelength of 0.8 micron, in the 1.25 micron J band, and in the 2.15 micron K' band. The sensitivity limits will be 18th magnitude in the I band, 16th in the J band, and 14.5th in the K' band. The angular resolution achieved will be 1 arcsecond in the I band, and 3.0 arcseconds in the J and K' bands. The European Southern Observatory 1 m telescope on La Silla will be dedicated to survey use during operations expected to last four years, commencing in late 1993. DENIS aims to provide the astronomical community with complete digitized infrared images of the full southern sky and a catalogue of extracted objects, both of the best quality and in readily accessible form. This will be achieved through dedicated software packages and specialized catalogues, and with assistance from the Leiden and Paris Data Analysis Centers. The data will be mailed on DAT tapes from La Silla to the two Data Analysis Centers for further processing. Two centers are necessary because of the shear quantity of data and because of the complementary roles the Centers will develop, each exploiting its own particular expertise. The Leiden Data Analysis Center (LDAC) will extract objects, establish their parameters, and archive them into a source catalogue. The LDAC will collaborate with the Groningen Space Research group that has gained experience in infrared image handling from the IRAS satellite. The Paris Data Analysis Center (PDAC) will be responsible for archiving and preprocessing the raw data to provide a homogeneous set of data suitable for further reduction in both the Leiden and Paris data analysis streams. The PDAC will also extract and archive images for the sources flagged by the LDAC as extended, and create a catalogue of galaxies. In exploiting the DENIS data we foresee the collaboration with other data analysis centers, such as the Observatoire de Lyon where the relevant DENIS catalogue of galaxies can be incorporated into their extragalactic database. The Point Sources and the Small Extended Sources catalogues could be incorporated in the Late Type Star database at Montpellier, and in the SIMBAD database as CDS. At Groningen the IRAS Point Source catalogue and/or image data can be merged with the DENIS catalogues. At Meudon algorithms and software will be developed with main goal assessing the limits reachable for the homogeneity and intrinsic consistency between the ensemble of the images in the data base (flat-fielding, relative positioning of the fields, bootstrapped flux calibration) but also for the data analysis.