A thorough of macroalgae analysis as a biofuels feedstock is warranted due to the size of this biomass resource and the need to consider all potential sources of feedstock to meet current biomass production goals. Understanding how to harness this untapped biomass resource will require additional research and development. A detailed assessment of environmental resources, cultivation and harvesting technology, conversion to fuels, connectivity with existing energy supply chains, and the associated economic and life cycle analyses will facilitate evaluation of this potentially important biomass resource.

The Southern Research/Southern Company 1 MWth Pilot-Scale Coal-Fired Test Facility was successfully retrofit to fire in either the traditional air-fired mode or with 100% oxygen and recycled flue gas, with a fully integrated feedback and control system, including oxygen and recycled flue gas modulation during startup, transfer, and shutdown, safety and operational interlocks, and data acquisition. A MAXON Staged Oxygen Burner for Oxy-Coal Applications produced a stable flame over a significant range of firing turn-down, staging, and while firing five different U.S. coal types. The MAXON burner design produces lower flame temperatures than for air firing, which will enable (A) Safe operation, (B) Reduction of recycle flow without concern about furnace flame temperatures, and (C) May likely be affective at reducing slagging and fouling in the boiler and super heater at full-scale Power Plants. A CFD model of the Oxy-fired Combustion Research Facility (OCRF) was used to predict the flame geometry and temperatures in the OCRF and make a comparison with the air-fired case. The model predictions were consistent with the experimental data in showing that the MAXON burner fired with oxygen produced lower flame temperatures than the air-fired burner while firing with air.

Photoemission electron microscopy (PEEM) with linearly polarized x-rays is used to determine the orientation of antiferromagnetic domains by monitoring the relative peak intensities at the 3d transition metal L{sub 2} absorption edge. In such an analysis the orientations of the x-ray polarization E and magnetization H with respect to the crystalline axes has to be taken into account. We address this problem by presenting a general expression of the angular dependence for both x-ray absorption spectroscopy and x-ray magnetic linear dichroism (XMLD) for arbitrary direction of E and H in the (001) cubic plane. In cubic symmetry the angular dependent XMLD is a linear combination of two spectra with different photon energy dependence, which reduces to one spectrum when E or H is along a high-symmetry axis. The angular dependent XMLD can be separated into an isotropic term, which is symmetric along H, and an anisotropic term, which depends on the orientation of the crystal axes. The anisotropic term has maximal intensity when E and H have equal but opposite angles with respect to the [100] direction. The Ni{sup 2+} L{sub 2} edge has the peculiarity that the isotropic term vanishes, which means that the maximum in the XMLD intensity …