Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) have attracted great interest for last two decades due to their unique and advantageous structural properties, such as high surface area, pore volume, stable mesostructure, tunable pore size and controllable particle morphology. The robust silica framework provides sites for organic modifications, making MSNs ideal platforms for adsorbents and supported organocatalysts. In addition, the pores of MSNs provide cavities/ channels for incorporation of metal and metal oxide nanoparticle catalysts. These supported metal nanoparticle catalysts benefit from confined local environments to enhance their activity and selectivity for various reactions. Biomass is considered as a sustainable feedstock with potential to replace diminishing fossil fuels for the production of biofuels. Among several strategies, one of the promising methods of biofuel production from biomass is to reduce the oxygen content of the feedstock in order to improve the energy density. This can be achieved by creating C-C bonds between biomass derived intermediates to increase the molecular weight of the final hydrocarbon molecules. In this context, pore size and organic functionality of MSNs are varied to obtain the ideal catalyst for a C-C bond forming reaction: the aldol condensation. The mechanistic aspects of this reaction in supported heterogeneous catalysts are explored. The …

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This document is the Building America FY2012 Annual Report, which includes an overview of the Building America Program activities and the work completed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Building America industry consortia (the Building America teams). The annual report summarizes major technical accomplishments and progress towards U.S. Department of Energy Building Technologies Program's multi-year goal of developing the systems innovations that enable risk-free, cost effective, reliable and durable efficiency solutions that reduce energy use by 30%-50% in both new and existing homes.

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In this program, we developed new theoretical and experimental insights into understanding the relationships among fundamental universality and scaling phenomena, the solid-state physical and mechanical properties of materials, and the volume plasmon energy as measured by electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS). Particular achievements in these areas are summarized as follows: (i) Using a previously proposed physical model based on the universal binding-energy relation (UBER), we established close phenomenological connections regarding the influence of the valence electrons in materials on the longitudinal plasma oscillations (plasmons) and various solid-state properties such as the optical constants (including absorption and dispersion), elastic constants, cohesive energy, etc. (ii) We found that carbon materials, e.g., diamond, graphite, diamond-like carbons, hydrogenated and amorphous carbon films, exhibit strong correlations in density vs. Ep (or maximum of the volume plasmon peak) and density vs. hardness, both from available experimental data and ab initio DFT calculations. This allowed us to derive a three-dimensional relationship between hardness and the plasmon energy, that can be used to determine experimentally both hardness and density of carbon materials based on measurements of the plasmon peak position. (iii) As major experimental accomplishments, we demonstrated the possibility of in-situ monitoring of changes in the physical properties of …

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This white paper surveys DOD installations that could have an increased potential interest in the purchase of energy from renewable energy projects on tribal lands. Identification of likely purchasers of renewable energy is a first step in the energy project development process, and this paper aims to identify likely electricity customers that tribal commercial-scale projects could serve. This white paper builds on a geospatial analysis completed in November 2012 identifying 53 reservations within 10 miles of military bases (DOE 2012). This analysis builds on those findings by further refining the list of potential opportunity sites to 15 reservations (Table ES-1), based on five additional factors: 1) The potential renewable resources required to meet the installation energy loads; 2) Proximity to transmission lines; 3) Military installation energy demand; 4) State electricity prices; 5) Local policy and regulatory environment.

The purpose of this compliance study was to estimate dam passage survival of subyearling Chinook salmon at The Dalles Dam during summer 2012. Under the 2008 Federal Columbia River Power System Biological Opinion, dam passage survival is required to be greater than or equal to 0.93 and estimated with a standard error (SE) less than or equal to 0.015. The study also estimated survival from the forebay 2 km upstream of the dam and through the tailrace to 2 km downstream of the dam, forebay residence time, tailrace egress time, spill passage efficiency (SPE), and fish passage efficiency (FPE), as required by the 2008 Columbia Basin Fish Accords.

The presentation provides an overview of how increasing penetrations of variable renewable energy on the electricity grid are impacting ancillary services markets in the United States.

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Clemson University with Chevron as an industry partner developed and applied treatment technology using constructed wetland systems to decrease targeted constituents in simulated and actual produced waters to achieve reuse criteria and discharge limits. Pilot-scale and demonstration constructed wetland treatment system (CWTS) experiments led to design strategies for treating a variety of constituents of concern (COCs) in produced waters including divalent metals, metalloids, oil and grease, and ammonia. Targeted biogeochemical pathways for treatment of COCs in pilot-scale CWTS experiments included divalent metal sulfide precipitation through dissimilatory sulfate reduction, metal precipitation through oxidation, reduction of selenite to insoluble elemental selenium, aerobic biodegradation of oil, nitrification of ammonia to nitrate, denitrification of nitrate to nitrogen gas, separation of oil using an oilwater separator, and sorption of ammonia to zeolite. Treatment performance results indicated that CWTSs can be designed and built to promote specific environmental and geochemical conditions in order for targeted biogeochemical pathways to operate. The demonstration system successfully achieved consistent removal extents even while inflow concentrations of COCs in the produced water differed by orders of magnitude. Design strategies used in the pilot-scale and demonstration CWTSs to promote specific conditions that can be applied to designing full-scale CWTSs include plant and …

This report provides the results of the comprehensive annulus visual inspection for tanks 241- AZ-101 and 241-AZ-102 performed in fiscal year 2013. The inspection established a baseline covering about 95 percent of the annulus floor for comparison with future inspections. Any changes in the condition are also included in this document.

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This quarterly report summarizes the status for the project planning to complete all the legal and contract documents required for establishing the subcontracts needed and a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with Autodesk, Inc., Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing North America (Toyota), and Magna Exterior and Interiors Corporation (Magna). During the second quarter (1/1/2013 to 3/31/2013), all the technical and legal documents for the subcontracts to Purdue University, University of Illinois, and PlastiComp, Inc. were completed. The revised CRADA documents were sent to DOE, Autodesk, Toyota, and Magna for technical and legal reviews. PNNL Legal Services contacted project partners’ Legal counterparts for completing legal documents for the project. A non-disclosure agreement was revised and sent to all the parties for reviews.

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This presentation discusses the effects of temperature on large format lithium-ion batteries in electric drive vehicles.

In this project generic anticline structures have been used for numerical modeling analyses to study the influence of geometrical parameters, fluid flow boundary conditions, in situ stress regime and inter-bedding friction coefficient on geomechanical risks such as fracture reactivation and fracture generation. The resulting stress states for these structures are also used to determine safe drilling directions and a methodology for wellbore trajection optimization is developed that is applicable for non-Andersonian stress states. The results of the fluid flow simulation show that the type of fluid flow boundary condition is of utmost importance and has significant impact on all injection related parameters. It is recommended that further research is conducted to establish a method to quantify the fluid flow boundary conditions for injection applications. The results of the geomechanical simulation show that in situ stress regime is a crucial, if not the most important, factor determining geomechanical risks. For extension and strike slip stress regimes anticline structures should be favored over horizontally layered basin as they feature higher ΔP{sub c} magnitudes. If sedimentary basins are tectonically relaxed and their state of stress is characterized by the uni-axial strain model the basin is in exact frictional equilibrium and fluids should not …

Detailed understanding between microstructure evolution and mechanical properties is important for designing new high burnup nuclear fuels. In this presentation we discuss the use of picosecond ultrasonics to measure localize changes in mechanical properties of fuel surrogates. We develop measurement techniques that can be applied to investigate heterogeneous elastic properties caused by localize changes in chemistry, grain microstructure caused by recrystallization, and mechanical properties of small samples prepared using focused ion beam sample preparation. Emphasis is placed on understanding the relationship between microstructure and mechanical properties

Nonlinear diffusion acceleration (NDA) can improve

We are developing a novel approach for cleaning an

This project is researching FAST, a methodology to build very fast, cycleaccurate full system computer simulators and building the first set of such simulators and the first set of tools to help construct those simulators. The methodology relies on a functional model that is a fast, full-system but not cycle-accurate simulator coupled with a timing model that is models the micro-architectural structure and arbitration of a computer system, but not its functionality. The way FAST simulators differ from other simulators partitioned in the same way is that the interface between the functional and timing model is optimized to minimize the need for round-trip communication. The optimized communication enables FAST timing models to be implemented in an FPGA and the functional model in software while still achieving extremely high performance. Our general strategy is to design a methodology and then prototype an example using that methodology to ensure the methodology is sound before committing to it. This strategy ensures that the selected methodology has been tested and provides an early example of the output of that methodology.