This report provides complete bibliographic citations, abstracts, and keywords for 212 doctoral and master`s theses supported fully or partly by the U.S. Department of Energy`s Environmental Sciences Division (and its predecessors) in the following areas: Atmospheric Sciences; Marine Transport; Terrestrial Transport; Ecosystems Function and Response; Carbon, Climate, and Vegetation; Information; Computer Hardware, Advanced Mathematics, and Model Physics (CHAMMP); Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM); Oceans; National Institute for Global Environmental Change (NIGEC); Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV); Integrated Assessment; Graduate Fellowships for Global Change; and Quantitative Links. Information on the major professor, department, principal investigator, and program area is given for each abstract. Indexes are provided for major professor, university, principal investigator, program area, and keywords. This bibliography is also available in various machine-readable formats (ASCII text file, WordPerfect{reg_sign} files, and PAPYRUS{trademark} files).

To gain insight on the controlling mechanisms for VOC transport in porous media, the relations among sorbent properties, sorption equilibrium and intraparticle diffusion processes were studied at the level of individual sorbent particles and laboratory columns for soil and activated carbon systems. Transport and sorption of VOCs and water vapor were first elucidated within individual dry soil mineral grains. Soil properties, sorption capacity, and sorption rates were measured for 3 test soils; results suggest that the soil grains are porous, while the sorption isotherms are nonlinear and adsorption-desorption rates are slow and asymmetric. An intragranular pore diffusion model coupled with the nonlinear Freundlich isotherm was developed to describe the sorption kinetic curves. Transport of benzene and water vapor within peat was studied; partitioning and sorption kinetics were determined with an electrobalance. A dual diffusion model was developed. Transport of benzene in dry and moist soil columns was studied, followed by gaseous transport and sorption in activated carbon. The pore diffusion model provides good fits to sorption kinetics for VOCs to soil and VOC to granular activated carbon and activated carbon fibers. Results of this research indicate that: Intraparticle diffusion along with a nonlinea sorption isotherm are responsible for the slow, …

{sup 129}Xe NMR is potentially useful for the investigation of material surfaces, but has been limited to high surface area samples in which sufficient xenon can be loaded to achieve acceptable signal to noise ratios. In Chapter 2 conventional {sup 129}Xe NMR is used to study a high surface area polymer, a catalyst, and a confined liquid crystal to determine the topology of these systems. Further information about the spatial proximity of different sites of the catalyst and liquid crystal systems is determined through two dimensional exchange NMR in Chapter 3. Lower surface area systems may be investigated with spin-polarized xenon, which may be achieved through optical pumping and spin exchange. Optically polarized xenon can be up to 10{sup 5} times more sensitive than thermally polarized xenon. In Chapter 4 highly polarized xenon is used to examine the surface of poly(acrylonitrile) and the formation of xenon clathrate hydrates. An attractive use of polarized xenon is as a magnetization source in cross polarization experiments. Cross polarization from adsorbed polarized xenon may allow detection of surface nuclei with drastic enhancements. A non-selective low field thermal mixing technique is used to enhance the {sup 13}C signal of CO{sub 2} of xenon occluded in …

Pond 207C at Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site (RFETS) contains process wastewaters characterized by high levels of nitrates and other salts, heavy metal contamination, and low level alpha activity. The purpose of this research was to investigate the feasibility of treating a high-nitrate waste, contaminated with heavy metals, with a coupled dewateriug and S/S process, as well as to investigate the effects of biodenitrification pretreatment on the S/S process. Pond 207C residuals served as the target waste. A bench-scale treatability study was conducted to demonstrate an S/S process that would minimize final product volume without a significant decrease in contaminant stabilization or loss of desirable physical characteristics. The process formulation recommended as a result a previous S/S treatability study conducted on Pond 207C residuals was used as the baseline formulation for this research. Because the actual waste was unavailable due to difficulties associated with radioactive waste handling and storage, a surrogate waste, of known composition and representative of Pond 207C residuals, was used throughout this research. The contaminants of regulatory concern added to the surrogate were cadmium, chromium, nickel, and silver. Product volume reduction was achieved by dewatering the waste prior to S/S treatment. The surrogate was dewatered by evaporation …

A postulated severe loss of coolant accident in a nuclear reactor can lead to significant core damage due to residual heat generation. Subsequently, melted core materials (i.e.; corium) could migrate downward and impinge upon the lower head of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV). During this relocation, the complexity of the reactor structure could segregate the molten corium into various flow paths. A perforated flow plate could readily provide the mechanism to segregate the molten corium. The resulting small (a few cm) diameter melt streams, driven by gravity, could then penetrate the remaining coolant in the RPV and cause any of the following events: impingement of the high temperature melt streams on the lower head could breach the RPV; re-agglomeration of the corium melt on the lower head could influence the coolability of the debris bed; {open_quotes}pre-mixing{close_quotes} of the melt streams with the coolant could lead to a vapor explosion; or, sufficient quenching of the melt streams by the coolant could produce a stabilized debris bed. An overview of the thermo-science issues related to core-melt accidents is presented by Theofanous. Thus, insight into the melt stream breakup mechanisms (i.e.; interfacial conditions, fragmentation, and geometric spacing) during the melt-coolant interactions is necessary …

It has been known that significant advances in electrochemistry really depend on improvements in the sensitivity, selectivity, convenience, and/or economy of working electrodes, especially through the development of new working electrode materials. The advancement of solid state chemistry and materials science makes it possible to provide the materials which may be required as satisfactory electrode materials. The combination of solid state techniques with electrochemistry expands the applications of solid state materials and leads to the improvement of electrocatalysis. The study of Ru-Ti{sub 4}O{sub 7} and Pt-Ti{sub 4}O{sub 7} microelectrode arrays as introduced in paper 1 and paper 4, respectively, focuses on their synthesis and characterization. The synthesis is described by high temperature techniques for Ru or Pt microelectrode arrays within a conductive Ti{sub 4}O{sub 7} ceramic matrix. The characterization is based on the data obtained by x-ray diffractometry, scanning electron microscopy, voltammetry and amperometry. These microelectrode arrays show significant enhancement in current densities in comparison to solid Ru and Pt electrodes. Electrocatalysis at pyrochlore oxide Bi{sub 2}Ru{sub 2}O{sub 7.3} and Bi{sub 2}Ir{sub 2}O{sub 7} electrodes are described in paper 2 and paper 3, respectively. Details are reported for the synthesis and characterization of composite Bi{sub 2}Ru{sub 2}O{sub 7.3} electrodes. Voltammetric …

The inductively coupled plasma is an electrodeless discharge in a gas (usually Ar) at atmospheric pressure. Radio frequency energy generated by a RF power source is inductively coupled to the plasma gas through a water cooled load coil. In ICP-MS the {open_quotes}Fassel{close_quotes} TAX quartz torch commonly used in emission is mounted horizontally. The sample aerosol is introduced into the central flow, where the gas kinetic temperature is about 5000 K. The aerosol is vaporized, atomized, excited and ionized in the plasma, and the ions are subsequently extracted through two metal apertures (sampler and skimmer) into the mass spectrometer. In ICP-MS, the matrix effects, or non-spectroscopic interferences, can be defined as the type of interferences caused by dissolved concomitant salt ions in the solution. Matrix effects can be divided into two categories: (1) signal drift due to the deposition of solids on the sampling apertures; and/or (2) signal suppression or enhancement by the presence of the dissolved salts. The first category is now reasonably understood. The dissolved salts, especially refractory oxides, tend to deposit on the cool tip of the sampling cone. The clogging of the orifices reduces the ion flow into the ICP-MS, lowers the pressure in the first stage …

NMR spectroscopy is ideal for studying weak interactions (formation enthalpy {le}20 kcal/mol) in solution. The metallocene bis(pentamethylcyclopentadienyl)ytterbium, Cp*{sub 2}Yb, is ideal for this purpose. cis-P{sub 2}PtH{sub 2}complexes (P = phosphine) were used to produce slow-exchange Cp*{sub 2}YbL adducts for NMR study. Reversible formation of (P{sub 2}PtH){sub 2} complexes from cis-P{sub 2}PtH{sub 2} complexes were also studied, followed by interactions of Cp*{sub 2}Yb with phosphines, R{sub 3}PX complexes. A NMR study was done on the interactions of Cp*{sub 2}Yb with H{sub 2}, CH{sub 4}, Xe, CO, silanes, stannanes, C{sub 6}H{sub 6}, and toluene.

Smooth particle methods are relatively new methods for simulating solid and fluid flows through they have a 20-year history of solving complex hydrodynamic problems in astrophysics, such as colliding planets and stars, for which correct answers are unknown. The results presented in this thesis evaluate the adaptability or fitness of the method for typical hydrocode production problems. For finite hydrodynamic systems, boundary conditions are important. A reflective boundary condition with image particles is a good way to prevent a density anomaly at the boundary and to keep the fluxes continuous there. Boundary values of temperature and velocity can be separately controlled. The gradient algorithm, based on differentiating the smooth particle expression for (u{rho}) and (T{rho}), does not show numerical instabilities for the stress tensor and heat flux vector quantities which require second derivatives in space when Fourier`s heat-flow law and Newton`s viscous force law are used. Smooth particle methods show an interesting parallel linking to them to molecular dynamics. For the inviscid Euler equation, with an isentropic ideal gas equation of state, the smooth particle algorithm generates trajectories isomorphic to those generated by molecular dynamics. The shear moduli were evaluated based on molecular dynamics calculations for the three weighting functions, …