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Hydrogen produced today from coal, natural gas, or biomass must be separated and purified outside the reactors using pressure swing absorption (PSA), a process that requires significant additional space and energy. Placing hydrogen-permeable membranes inside the reactors themselves would allow hydrogen to diffuse out, thereby reducing the cost of hydrogen production. In this Phase I effort, Mainst ...

High selectivity in chemical reactions is the key to reducing costs, energy consumption and emissions in chemical processing. More selective and active catalysts will reduce the need for recovering unreacted chemicals for recycle and removing byproducts. Reducing the burden on separation processes will greatly reduce the energy required for chemical production. We propose to design macromolecular ...

Separations often account for a majority of process costs. This is because all traditional separation processes have inherent weaknesses that prevent the system from achieving perfect (or even near perfect in many instances) selectivity. These weaknesses result in large recycle streams and require multiple separation units in concert in order to produce a product clean enough for use or sale. An a ...

High selectivity in chemical reactions is the key to reducing costs, energy consumption and emissions in chemical processing. More selective and active catalysts will reduce the need for recovering unreacted chemicals for recycle and removing byproducts. Reducing the burden on separation processes will greatly reduce the energy required for chemical production. We will design macromolecular cataly ...

Development of a solid with high conductivity of Mg2+ cations will allow application of that substance as membrane in magnesium-air batteries. These batteries will be much cheaper, safer, and at the same time store much more energy than lead-, lithium- or sodium batteries with the same weight. Such batteries would be ideal for electric vehicles and for the off-peak storage of renewable elect ...

As computational density for high-performance computing and big-data services continues to scale, performance scalability of next generation computing systems is becoming increasingly constrained by limitations in memory access, power dissipation and chip packaging. The processor-memory communication bottleneck, a major challenge in current multicore processors due to limited pin-out and power bud ...

Redox flow batteries are a promising technology for electrical energy storage for renewable energy sources; however traditional redox flow batteries are limited in their use due to non-uniform pressure drops and mass transfer limitations, as well as high manufacturing costs related to the felt material costs for the electrode and component alignment challenges during manufacturing.General Statemen ...

Statement of the problem or situation that is being addressed in your application. Coal-generated power represents a major source of electrical generation in the Nation, and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future. However, recently proposed limits on CO2 emissions from new electrical generation capacity will necessitate carbon capture functions to be installed on any new coal-fired power ...

In the near term, in order to mitigate carbon emissions to the extent possible while carbon-neutral, renewable energy resources are developed sufficiently to address the total demand of the Nation, there is a significant need for technologies capable of up-converting captured carbon dioxide either to value-added products or to forms able to be safely sequestered. In particular, access must be open ...

There is widespread concern regarding carbon emissions from fossil fuels, resulting in a drive towards improved efficiency in reactor (boiler) performance while reducing carbon emissions. Coal will continue to be a primary source of energy for economic growth for the foreseeable future, thus there is a push to reduce net carbon emissions of coal operated plants by replacing part of the coal with b ...