Several new types of silicon-containing preceramic polymers, i.e., poly(diorganosilacetylene) and poly(diorganosilvinylene) have been synthesized with molecular weights from 10,000 to 120,000. These polymers could be thermally converted to SiC with a moderate to high char yields. Ready solubility and good processability made these types of polymers attractive in their applications to ceramics. The thermal polymerization of diethynyldiphenyl-silane, which was reported in 1968 to afford poly(diphenylsilyldiacetylene) via dehydrogenation, was reinvestigated. Spectroscopic studies showed that the polymer had a structure of polyacetylene type not diacetylene. Diphenyldiethynylgermane and a series of diorganodiethynylsilances were synthesized. These could be polymerized in the presence of MoCl{sub 5} or WCl{sub 6} to afford a soluble, violet material with Mw as high as 108,000. 100 refs., 56 figs., 16 tabs.

An exhaustive study was conducted to determine the feasibility of Nernst-type oxygen sensors based on ceramics containing Bi{sub 2}O{sub 3}. The basic sensor design consisted of a ceramic sensing module sealed into a metal tube. The module accommodated an internal heater and thermocouple. Thermal-expansion-matched metals, adhesives, and seals were researched and developed, consistent with sequential firings during sensor assembly. Significant effort was devoted to heater design/testing and to materials' compatibility with Pt electrodes. A systematic approach was taken to develop all sensor components which led to several design modifications. Prototype sensors were constructed and exhaustively tested. It is concluded that development of Nerst-type oxygen sensors based on Bi{sub 2}O{sub 3} will require much further effort and application of specialized technologies. However, during the course of this 3-year program much progress was reported in the literature on amperometric-type oxygen sensors, and a minor effort was devoted here to this type of sensor based on Bi{sub 2}O{sub 3}. These studies were made on Bi{sub 2}O{sub 3}-based ceramic samples in a multilayer-capacitor-type geometry and amperometric-type oxygen sensing was demonstrated at very low temperatures ({approximately} 160{degree}C). A central advantage here is that these types of sensors can be mass-produced very inexpensively ({approximately} 20--50 cents …

This report considers the use of a dielectric slab undergoing total internal reflection as an accelerating structure for charged particle beams. We examine the functional dependence of the electromagnetic fields above the surface of the dielectric for polarized incident waves. We present an experimental arrangement for testing the performance of the method, using apparatus under construction for the Grating Acceleration experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory. 13 refs., 4 figs., 2 tabs.

Tasks reported on this term include optimization of chlorided Pt- alumina catalysts, testing of the optimum Pt/Cl alumina catalysts, preparation and testing of zirconia superacid catalyst. (VC)

We present a first principles method for calculating positron lifetimes in solids, based on self-consistent calculations using the Linear Muffin-Tin Orbital method. Local density approximations are used for both electron-electron and electron-positron interactions. Results are presented for a variety of elemental metals and vacancies to demonstrate the reliability of this approach. Theoretical calculations of positron lifetimes can be used to interpret experimental data. As an examples of this, we interpret our experimental lifetime data for the oxide superconductor Ba{sub 1-x}K{sub x}BiO{sub 3} using calculations based on this method. 12 refs., 3 figs.

In this report, we present an improved, feasible and potentially cost effective method of cleaning and beneficiating ultrafine coal. Increased mechanization of mining methods and the need towards depyritization, and demineralization have led to an increase in the quantity of coal fines generated in recent times. For example, the amount of {minus}100 mesh coal occurring in coal preparation plant feeds now typically varies from 5 to 25% of the total feed. Environmental constraints coupled with the greatly increased cost of coal have made it increasingly important to recover more of these fines. Our method chemically modifies the surface of such coals by a series of gaseous phase treatments employing Friedel-Crafts reactions. By using olefins (ethene, propene and butene) and hydrogen chloride catalyst at elevated temperature, the surface hydrophobicity of coal is enhanced. This increased hydrophobicity is manifest in surface phenomena which reflect conditions at the solid/liquid interphase (zeta potential) and those which reflect conditions at the solid/liquid/gas interphases (contact angle, wettability and floatability).

This article summarizes our current understanding of hydrodynamic instabilities as relevant to ICF. First we discuss classical, single mode Rayleigh-Taylor instability, and nonlinear effects in the evolution of a single mode. Then we discuss multimode systems, considering: (1) the onset of nonlinearity; (2) a second order mode coupling theory for weakly nonlinear effects, and (3) the fully nonlinear regime. Two stabilization mechanisms relevant to ICF are described next: gradient scale length and convective stabilization. Then we describe a model which is meant to estimate the weakly nonlinear evolution of multi-mode systems as relevant to ICF, given the short-wavelength stabilization. Finally, we discuss the relevant code simulation capability, and experiments. At this time we are quite optimistic about our ability to estimate instability growth on ICF capsules, but further experiments and simulations are needed to verify the modeling. 52 refs.

The main objectives of this proposed research work are to refine further the inverse liquid chromatography technique for the study of surface properties of raw coals, treated coals and coal minerals in water, to evaluate relatively surface properties of raw coals, treated coals and coal minerals by inverse liquid chromatography, and to evaluate flotability of various treated coals in conjunction with surface properties of coals. Coals such as Pittsburgh seam coal, Illinois No. 6 coal, Wyodak coal are chosen as representatives of high-rank bituminous coal, high volatile bituminous coal and subbituminous coal, respectively. Coal minerals such as pyrite and dolomite are chosen as representative coal minerals.

The role of effective theories in probing a more fundamental underlying theory and in indicating new physics thresholds is discussed, with examples from the standard model and more speculative applications to superstring theory. 38 refs.

The Gas Suspension Absorber (GSA) system brings coal combustion gases into contact with a suspended mixture of solids, including sulfur-absorbing lime. After the lime absorbs the sulfur pollutants, the solids are separated from the gases in a cyclone device and recirculated back into the system where they capture additional sulfur pollutant. The cleaned flue gases are sent through a dust collector before being released into the atmosphere. The key to the system's superior economic performance with high sulfur coals is the recirculation of solids. Typically, a solid particle will pass through the system about one hundred times before leaving the system. Another advantage of the GSA system is that a single spray nozzle is used to inject fresh lime slurry. The GSA system is expected to be the answer to the need of the US industry for an effective, economic and space efficient solution to the SO{sub 2} pollution problem.

Clean Coal Technology implies the use of coal in an environmentally acceptable manner. Coal combustion results in the emission of two types of acid rain precursors: oxides of sulfur (SO{sub x}) and oxides of nitrogen (NO{sub x}). This Clean Coal Technology project will demonstrate a combination of two developed technologies to reduce both NO{sub x} and SO{sub x} emissions: gas reburning and calcium based dry sorbent injection. The demonstrations will be conducted on two pre-NSPS utility boilers representative of the US boilers which contribute significantly to the inventory of acid rain precursor emissions: tangentially and cyclone fired units. Because of cost growth and lack of available funding, no further work has been done after Phase 1 at site B; the wall fired unit.

The original conception of the work was that genetic determinants of the sulfoxide/sulfone/sulfonate/sulfate ( 4S'') pathway in Pseudomonas spp. would be cloned in vivo and then transferred to Thiobacillus spp. This ambition remains an appealing prospect; however, fulfilling that ambition has been confounded by an instability observed in the DbtS{sup +} phenotype in Pseudomonas spp. But the persisting interest in the phenotype has lead to isolation of fresh strains which have a DbtS{sup +} phenotype. One strain in particular, N1-36, has been the focus of extensive characterizations in long-term cultures. During the present quarter, seven cultures maintained in a fermentor'' for a week or longer have been run to determine rate and extent of growth, extent of conversion of dibenzothiophene (DBT) or dibenzosulfone (DBTO{sub 2}) to monohydroxybiphenyl (OH-BP), effect of pH maintained at 6.0, and the effect of adding glucose to cultures in which the amount of glucose had been diminished by bacterial consumption. In addition, a study of the effectiveness of using R68.445 as a vehicle for in vivo cloning of genes was completed this semester, and introduction of DbtS{sup +} determinants into Thiobacillus spp. continues to be an important goal.

The Environmental Protection Department/Environmental Monitoring Section (EPD/EMS) administers the Savannah River Site's (SRS) Groundwater Monitoring Program. During second quarter 1990 (April through June) EPD/EMS conducted routine sampling of monitoring wells and drinking water locations. EPD/EMS established two sets of flagging criteria in 1986 to assist in the management of sample results. The flagging criteria aid personnel in sample scheduling, interpretation of data, and trend identification. The flagging criteria are based on detection limits, background levels in SRS groundwater, and drinking water standards. An explanation of flagging criteria for the second quarter is presented in the Flagging Criteria section of this document. All analytical results from second quarter 1990 are listed in this report.

Numerical simulations of groundwater flow at Yucca Mountain, Nevada are used to investigate how faults influence groundwater flow pathways and regional-scale macrodispersion. The 3-D model has a unique grid block discretization that facilitates the accurate representation of the complex geologic structure present in faulted formations. Each hydrogeologic layer is discretized into a single layer of irregular and dipping grid blocks, and faults are discretized such that they are laterally continuous and varied in displacement varies along strike. In addition, the presence of altered fault zones is explicitly modeled, as appropriate. Simulations show that upward head gradients can be readily explained by the geometry of hydrogeologic layers, the variability of layer permeabilities, and the presence of permeable fault zones or faults with displacement only, not necessarily by upwelling from a deep aquifer. Large-scale macrodispersion results from the vertical and lateral diversion of flow near the contact of high- and low-permeability layers at faults, and from upward flow within high-permeability fault zones. Conversely, large-scale channeling can occur as a result of groundwater flow into areas with minimal fault displacement. Contaminants originating at the water table can flow in a direction significantly different from that of the water table gradient, and isolated zones …

Material modifications by ion implantation, dry etching, and micro-fabrication are widely used technologies, all of which are performed in vacuum, since ion beams at energies used in these applications are completely attenuated by foils or by long differentially pumped sections, which ate currently used to interface between vacuum and atmosphere. A novel plasma window, which utilizes a short arc for vacuum-atmosphere interface has been developed. This window provides for sufficient vacuum atmosphere separation, as well as for ion beam propagation through it, thus facilitating non-vacuum ion material modification.

The shock termination of a relativistic magnetohydrodynamic wind from a pulsar is the most interesting and viable model for the excitation of the synchrotron sources observed in plerionic supernova remnants. We have studied the structure of relativistic magnetosonic shock waves in plasmas composed purely of electrons and positrons, as well as those whose composition includes heavy ions as a minority constituent by number. We find that relativistic shocks in symmetric pair plasmas create fully thermalized distributions of particles and fields downstream. Therefore, such shocks are not good candidates for the mechanism which converts rotational energy lost from a pulsar into the nonthermal synchrotron emission observed in plerions. However, when the upstream wind contains heavy ions which are minority constituent by number density, but carry the bulk of the energy density, much of the energy of the shock goes into a downstream, nonthermal power law distribution of positrons with energy distribution N(E)dE {proportional to}E{sup {minus}s}. In a specific model presented in some detail, s = 3. These characteristics are close to those assumed for the pairs in macroscopic MHD wind models of plerion excitation. The essential mechanism is collective synchrotron emission of left-handed extraordinary modes by the ions in the shock …

Continuing studies of plutonium recovery from direct oxide reduction (DOR) and electrorefining (ER) pyrochemical process residues show that chloride anion exchange coprocessing is useful and effective. Coprocessing utilizes DOR residue salt as a reagent to supply the bulk of chloride ion needed for the chloride anion exchange process and to improve ER residue salt solubility. ER residue salt and ER scrapeout can be successfully treated, either alone or together, using coprocessing. In addition, chloride anion exchange at 2.0M acidity results in improved process performance by greatly reducing disproportionation of plutonium(IV), eliminating restrictions on oxidation time compared to operation at 1.0M acidity. Laboratory-scale experiments show that below-discard effluent plutonium losses are obtained. Resin capacity was 30 g Pu/{ell} or greater. Furthermore, it is feasible to perform chloride anion exchange recovery of plutonium from filtrate resulting from precipitation of dicesium hexachloroplutonate (Cs{sub 2}PuCl{sub 6}, an oxidant salt to be used in the molten salt extraction process) and integration of its preparation with recovery of DOR salts. 10 refs., 9 figs., 10 tabs.

The purpose of this document is to describe some recent changes made to the PRAISE Code to provide some additional capabilities. The major changes are associated with the new capability to analyze cases where there is a mid-life change in residual stresses and/or water chemistry. Such changes have been proposed as a means of improving the reliability of BWR piping by reducing the oxygen content of the coolant (or other favorable chemistry changes) or altering the residual stresses near welds to provide a stress distribution less favorable to crack initiation and growth. Induction heating stress improvement (IHSI) and mechanical stress improvement process (MSIP) are considered, with the time at which the process is implemented defined by the user. As-welded residual stresses are considered to be present prior to the stress imrovement treatment. Improved pre- and post-processors were also developed and are described, which should be particularly useful to users of the PC version of PRAISE. In addition, improved J-integral solutions are incorporated that allow a treatment of general Ramberg-Osgood strain hardening, rather than the specific values of the strain hardening exponent included in earlier versions of the PRAISE Code. This document discusses only the new additions to the code and …

The project objectives are (1) to measure the effect of devolatilization temperature and time on properties of the char and (2) characterize and quantify the effect of thermal annealing on char reactivity during char burnout under conditions of pulverized combustion. Coal devolatilization runs continued during the reporting period. Elemental analysis and N{sub 2} BET surface areas measurements were carried out on the three chars produced in the devolatilization runs. The results are presented. Experiments in the electrodynamic balance during the reporting period were focused on developing ways to measure the particle mass loss and, therefore, the reaction rate directly. This work is summarized in the attached Appendix. 4 refs., 1 fig., 1 tab.

Hydrogen-like recombination X-ray lasers are currently under investigation as an alternative candidate to collisional pumped soft X-ray amplifiers. Efforts are being concentrated on the n = 3 to n = 2 transitions in H-like Mg and NaF. 5 refs., 1 fig.

We have used synchrotron radiation photoemission to probe the valence and core level electronic structure of compound-semiconductor monodisperse clusters (nanocrystals). These clusters exhibited a 10% or less variation relative to the mean diameter and were attached to the metal substrates via alkane chains. Direct evidence of gap broadening due to size variation in CdS clusters was observed. The novel utilization of alkane chain attachment is the key to eliminating the otherwise debilitating problem of sample charging, as occurs with powders. The quality of sample preparation was confirmed by other methods such as transmission electron microscopy, Raman scattering and x-ray diffraction. This work provides a direct link between photoemission studies of expitaxial ultra-thin films of compound semiconductors, the photon-spectroscopy measurements of cluster powders and the existing theories of quantum confinement in reduced dimensionality structures. 5 refs., 2 figs.

The goal of the Fall Removal Experiment 1987 was to determine the processes affecting the dependent and fate of low salinity coastal water and of biological material therein during fall when winds are mainly south-to westward. Five zooplankton taxa, Acartia tonsa, (A. tonsa) Paracalanus species (sp), Temora turbinata (T. turbinata), Oncaea sp, and Sagitta enflata were examined. Data on the distribution of all five taxa were presented, and distribution over time was also studied. The abundance of A. tonsa decreased tenfold over the 13 day sampling period, Paracalanus varied twofold and T. Turbinata showed little variability. The A. tonsa decrease was postulated to result from food abundance or predation, although the possible role of size distribution, water displacement and chlorophyll distribution will be examined in the future. A possible role of turbulence in zooplankton abundance is being examined. 8 refs., 5 figs.

Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) with chromosome-specific probes enables several new areas of cytogenetic investigation by allowing visual determination of the presence and normality of specific genetic sequences in single metaphase or interphase cells. in this approach, termed molecular cytogenetics, the genetic loci to be analyzed are made microscopically visible in single cells using in situ hybridization with nucleic acid probes specific to these loci. To accomplish this, the DNA in the target cells is made single stranded by thermal denaturation and incubated with single-stranded, chemically modified probe under conditions where the probe will anneal only with DNA sequences to which it has high DNA sequence homology. The bound probe is then made visible by treatment with a fluorescent reagent such as fluorescein that binds to the chemical modification carried by the probe. The DNA to which the probe does not bind is made visible by staining with a dye such as propidium iodide that fluoresces at a wavelength different from that of the reagent used for probe visualization. We show in this report that probes are now available that make this technique useful for biological dosimetry, prenatal diagnosis and cancer biology. 31 refs., 3 figs.

Ni-like x-ray lasers have been produced at wavelengths near to, and below the carbon K edge (43.76-{Angstrom}). Recent work has concentrated on the development of the Ni-like Ta amplifier at 44.83-{Angstrom}. Amplification occurs in a laser produced plasma created by irradiating a thin foil of Ta with two beams of the Nova laser. Up to 8 gainlengths have been demonstrated so far, with a gain coefficient of 3.2 cm{sup {minus}1} and a gain duration of 250 psec. The wavelength of 44.83-{Angstrom} is close to optimal for holographic imaging of live cells. It remains to optimize the coherent output power of the amplifier to use it as a source for future x-ray holography experiments. 19 refs., 10 figs., 2 tabs.