Award Data

Advanced or additive manufacturing (AM) can enable materials with enhanced performance and facilitate rapid development cycles relative to conventional processes. Hence, AM process improvements can benefit nuclear energy materials which are subject to high thermal flux, intense irradiation fields, high stresses, and be exposed to reactive fluids and gases. This project will develop and demonstrate ...

This project aims to advance and commercially translate technology that uses concentrated solar radiation to convert natural gas directly into high-quality graphite and hydrogen. The solar-driven pyrolysis process involves no catalyst and releases zero CO2 as it captures carbon in the form of high-value graphite in a scalable, roll-to-roll (R2R) process. The pyrolysis process also produces a high- ...

C56-10b-272692It is a broad goal of our country to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by fifty percent by 2030 and achieve net zero by 2050. The built environment plays a critical role in addressing this goal as our building sector accounts for thirty-six percent of national carbon dioxide emissions. Buildings also act as a reservoir of carbon dioxide where it concentrates and results in increased en ...

Statement of the problem – The Fuel Cell Integrated Power Electronics Module (FCIPEM) project addresses urgent needs to promote standardization and manufacturing of power electronics for heavy-duty fuel cell applications. A key barrier to developing cost-effective fuel cell-based power systems is the complexity and cost of integrating DC-to-DC converters and DC-to-AC power inverters. Commercial ...

Statement of the problem – The proposed Advanced Multiport Solar Converter (AMSC) project directly addresses the problem the Department of Energy (DOE) presents in its Topic C56-15(a) – to incorporate wide-bandgap-based devices into a power conversion topology “designed to integrate and optimize distributed energy resources – in particular solar generation – with energy storage capabilit ...

The United States is committed to achieving net-zero emissions in the aviation sector by 2050 as a means of combatting climate change. The use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) which can offset 10% or more GHG emissions from petroleum-based jet fuel is essential to decarbonize this sector. In 2022, SAF accounted for 22 million gallons of the 23 billion gallons of jet fuel consumed at a cost that ...

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM High-quality beam transport through wakefield acceleration schemes, such as plasma or structure-based, requires careful characterization of the transverse beam centroid position. The centroid position is particularly important as drive-witness centroid mismatches yield emittance growth compromising beam quality. Further, beam characterization at high power and high intensi ...

A quad-active-bridge (QAB) multiport converter will be developed based on an innovative circuit topology, a high-frequency planar magnetic transformer, and the latest generation of wide bandgap (WBG) transistors. The WBG-based QAB converter will provide a high-efficiency and ultra-compact interface capable of connecting with an array of photovoltaic (PV) panels, battery packs, electric vehicles (E ...

Advanced high temperature nuclear reactors such as liquid salt cooled reactors (fixed fuel or dissolved fuel) and lead-bismuth cooled reactors, experience serious corrosion problems. Although the structural components are made out of corrosion resistant steels such as SS 316 or 800H alloys, (per ASME Section III Division 5 guidance), they do not provide enough protection. Hence, there is a need fo ...

For the past 40 years a technique called neutron spin echo (NSE) has been used to probe molecular motions in such non-crystalline materials over time scales from 10’s of picoseconds to 100’s of nanoseconds. The method has provided unique information about the dynamics of soft heterogeneous materials, including confirmation of the de Gennes model of polymer reptation and quantitative measuremen ...