The speciation of Tc(VII) in 12 M sulfuric acid was studied by NMR, UV-visible and XAFS spectroscopy, experimental results were supported by DFT calculation and were in agreement with the formation of TcO{sub 3}OH(H{sub 2}O){sub 2}. In summary, the speciation of heptvalent technetium has been investigated in sulfuric acid. In 12 M H{sub 2}SO{sub 4}, a yellow solution is observed, and its {sup 99}Tc NMR spectrum is consistent with a heptavalent complex. The yellow solution was further characterized by EXAFS spectroscopy, and results are consistent with the formation of TcO{sub 3}(OH)(H{sub 2}O){sub 2}. No technetium heptoxide or sulfato- complexes were detected in these conditions. The molecular structure of TcO{sub 3}(OH)(H{sub 2}O){sub 2} has been optimized by DFT techniques, and the structural parameters are well in accordance with those found by XAFS spectroscopy. The experimental electronic spectra exhibit ligand-to-metal charge transfer transitions that have been assigned using TDDFT methods. Calculations demonstrate the theoretical electronic spectrum of TcO{sub 3}(OH)(H{sub 2}O){sub 2} to be in very good agreement with the experimental one. Recent experiments in 12 M H{sub 2}SO{sub 4} show the yellow solution to be very reactive in presence of reducing agents presumably forming low valent Tc species. Current spectroscopic works focus …

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Identifying air pollutants that pose a potential hazard indoors can facilitate exposure mitigation. In this study, we compiled summary results from 77 published studies reporting measurements of chemical pollutants in residences in the United States and in countries with similar lifestyles. These data were used to calculate representative mid-range and upper bound concentrations relevant to chronic exposures for 267 pollutants and representative peak concentrations relevant to acute exposures for 5 activity-associated pollutants. Representative concentrations are compared to available chronic and acute health standards for 97 pollutants. Fifteen pollutants appear to exceed chronic health standards in a large fraction of homes. Nine other pollutants are identified as potential chronic health hazards in a substantial minority of homes and an additional nine are identified as potential hazards in a very small percentage of homes. Nine pollutants are identified as priority hazards based on the robustness of measured concentration data and the fraction of residences that appear to be impacted: acetaldehyde; acrolein; benzene; 1,3-butadiene; 1,4-dichlorobenzene; formaldehyde; naphthalene; nitrogen dioxide; and PM{sub 2.5}. Activity-based emissions are shown to pose potential acute health hazards for PM{sub 2.5}, formaldehyde, CO, chloroform, and NO{sub 2}.

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Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy project sheet summarizing general information about the Batteries for Electrical Energy Storage in Transportation (BEEST) program including critical needs, innovation and advantages, impacts, and contact information. This sheet discusses a new lithium-air battery for electric vehicles as part of the "High Performance Cathodes for Lithium-Air Batteries" project.

The modulation instability (MI) in optical fiber amplifiers and lasers with anomalous dispersion leads to CW radiation break-up and growth of multiple pulses. This can be both a detrimental effect limiting the performance of amplifiers, and also an underlying physical mechanism in the operation of MI-based devices. Here we revisit the analytical theory of MI in fiber optical amplifiers. The results of the exact theory are compared with the previously used adiabatic approximation model and the range of applicability of the later is determined.

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The development of metallic glasses in bulk form has led to a resurgence of interest into the utilization of these materials for a variety of applications. A potentially exciting application for these bulk metallic glass (BMG) materials is their use as composite membranes to replace high cost Pd/Pd-alloy membranes for enhanced gas separation processes. One of the major drawbacks to the industrial use of Pd/Pd-alloy membranes is that during cycling above and below a critical temperature an irreversible change takes place in the palladium lattice structure which can result in significant damage to the membrane. Furthermore, the cost associated with Pd-based membranes is a potential detractor for their continued use and BMG alloys offer a potentially attractive alternative. Several BMG alloys have been shown to possess high permeation rates, comparable to those measured for pure Pd metal. In addition, high strength and toughness when either in-situ or ex-situ second phase dispersoids are present. Both of these properties, high permeation and high strength/toughness, potentially make these materials attractive for gas separation membranes that could resist hydrogen 'embrittlement'. However, a fundamental understanding of the relationship between partially crystalline 'structure'/devitrification and permeation/embrittlement in these BMG materials is required in order to determine the …

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The Midlatitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment (MC3E) will take place in central Oklahoma during the April–May 2011 period. The experiment is a collaborative effort between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission Ground Validation (GV) program. The field campaign leverages the unprecedented observing infrastructure currently available in the central United States, combined with an extensive sounding array, remote sensing and in situ aircraft observations, NASA GPM ground validation remote sensors, and new ARM instrumentation purchased with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding. The overarching goal is to provide the most complete characterization of convective cloud systems, precipitation, and the environment that has ever been obtained, providing constraints for model cumulus parameterizations and space-based rainfall retrieval algorithms over land that have never before been available.

There is great interest in applying magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation techniques to the designs of electrical high explosive (HE) initiators, for the purpose of better understanding a design's sensitivities, optimizing its performance, and/or predicting its useful lifetime. Two MHD-capable LLNL codes, CALE and ALE3D, are being used to simulate the process of ohmic heating, vaporization, and plasma formation in exploding bridgewires (EBW). Initiation of the HE is simulated using Ignition & Growth reactive flow models. 1-D, 2-D and 3-D models have been constructed and studied. The models provide some intuitive explanation of the initiation process and are useful for evaluating the potential impact of identified aging mechanisms (such as the growth of intermetallic compounds or powder sintering). The end product of this work is a simulation capability for evaluating margin in proposed, modified or aged initiation system designs.

The project management task under the project was completed and related to the development of a plan for the implementation of the project and is thus not relevant to final report. For this reason it is not included.

If inflation occurred with a reheat temperature > T{sub PQ}, axions from the decay of global axion strings and domain walls would make an important contribution to the cosmological energy density, comparable to that from vacuum misalignment. Several groups have numerically studied the evolution of axion strings and walls in the past, however substantial uncertainties remain in their contribution to the present density {Omega}{sub a,string+wall} {approx} 1-100 (f{sub a}/10{sup 12} GeV){sup 7/6}, where f{sub a} is the axion decay constant. I will describe the numerical methods used in our simulations and show results for several string and wall configurations.

The effect of pressure on the crystal structure of white phosphorus has been studied up to 22.4 GPa. The ?alpha phase was found to transform into the alpha' phase at 0.87 +- 0.04 GPa with a volume change of 0.1 +- 0.3 cc/mol. A fit of a second order Birch- Murnaghan equation to the data gave Vo = 16.94 ? 0.08 cc/mol and Ko = 6.7 +- 0.5 GPa for the alpha phase and Vo = 16.4 +- 0.1 cc/mol and Ko = 9.1 +- 0.3 GPa for the alpha' phase. The alpha' phase was found to transform to the A17 phase of black phosphorus at 2.68 +- 0.34 GPa and then with increasing pressure to the A7 and then simple cubic phase of black phosphorus. A fit of a second order Birch-Murnaghan equation to our data combined with previous measurements gave Vo = 11.43 +- 0.05 cc/mol and Ko = 34.7 +- 0.5 GPa for the A17 phase, Vo = 9.62 +- 0.01 cc/mol and Ko = 65.0 +- 0.6 GPa for the A7 phase and , Vo = 9.23 +- 0.01 cc/mol and Ko = 72.5 +- 0.3 GPa for the simple cubic phase.

The exchange bias of epitaxially grown CoO/Fe/Ag(001) was investigated using x-ray magnetic circular dichroism and x-ray magnetic linear dichroism (XMLD) techniques. A direct XMLD measurement on the CoO layer during the Fe magnetization reversal shows that the CoO compensated spins are rotatable at thinner thickness and frozen at larger thickness. By a quantitative determination of the rotatable and frozen CoO spins as a function of the CoO film thickness, we find the remarkable result that the exchange bias is well established before frozen spins are detectable in the CoO film. We further show that the rotatable and frozen CoO spins are uniformly distributed in the CoO film.

The Earth System Grid (ESG) community faces the difficult challenge of managing the distribution of massive data sets to thousands of scientists around the world. To move data replicas efficiently, the ESG has developed a data transfer management tool called the Bulk Data Mover (BDM). We describe the performance results of the current system and plans towards extending the techniques developed so far for the up- coming project, in which the ESG will employ advanced networks to move multi-TB datasets with the ulti- mate goal of helping researchers understand climate change and its potential impacts on world ecology and society.

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We recently conducted damaged experiments on three explosives (mechanical damage on LX-04 and thermal experiments on HPP and PBXN-9) and characterized the effect of damage on some material properties. The MTS equipment was used to apply compressive cycling to LX-04 pressed parts and the results showed that older LX-04 parts became mechanically weaker than newer parts. After repeated compressive cycling for over 20,000 times, older LX-04 parts failed but newer LX-04 parts survived. Thermal insults were applied to PBXN-9 and HPP at 180 C and 200 C, respectively in unconfined conditions for several hours. The thermally-damaged HPP sample suffered 12.0% weight losses and a volume expansion of 20% was observed. Porosity of the damaged HPP increased to 25% after thermal exposure, which led to higher gas permeability. Burn rates of damaged PBXN-9 were 2 orders of magnitude higher than those of pristine samples but burn rates of damaged HPP were only slightly higher than those of pristine HPP. Small-scale safety tests (impact, friction, and spark) showed no significant sensitization when the damaged samples were tested at room temperature. Gas permeation measurements showed that gas permeability in damaged materials was several orders of magnitude higher than that in pristine materials. In-situ …

Dome A, the highest plateau in Antarctica, is being developed as a site for an astronomical observatory. The planned telescopes and instrumentation and the unique site characteristics are conducive toward Type Ia supernova surveys for cosmology. A self-contained search and survey over 5 years can yield a spectro-photometric time series of ~;; 1000 z< 0:08 supernovae. These can serve to anchor the Hubble diagram and quantify the relationship between luminosities and heterogeneities within the Type Ia supernova class, reducing systematics. Larger aperture (>=4-m) telescopes are capable of discovering supernovae shortly after explosion out to z ~;; 3. These can be fed to space telescopes, and can isolate systematics and extend the redshift range over which we measure the expansion history of the universe.

We carried out reactive flow simulations of liquid explosives such as nitromethane using the hydrodynamic code ALE3D coupled with equations of state and reaction kinetics modeled by the thermochemical code Cheetah. The simulation set-up was chosen to mimic cylinder experiments. For pure unconfined nitromethane we find that the failure diameter and detonation velocity dependence on charge diameter are in agreement with available experimental results. Such simulations are likely to be useful for determining detonability and failure behavior for a wide range of experimental conditions and explosive compounds.

Five actual Savannah River Site tank waste samples and three chemically-modified samples were tested to determine solubility limits for uranium and plutonium over a one year time period. Observed final uranium concentrations ranged from 7 mg U/L to 4.5 g U/L. Final plutonium concentrations ranged from 4 {micro}g Pu/L to 12 mg Pu/L. Actinide carbonate complexation is believed to result in the dramatic solubility increases observed for one sample over long time periods. Clarkeite, NaUO{sub 2}(O)OH {center_dot} H{sub 2}O, was found to be the dominant uranium solid phase in equilibrium with the waste supernate in most cases.