Directed Technologies, Inc. has previously submitted a detailed technical assessment and concept design for a mid-size, five-passenger fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV), under contract to Argonne National Laboratory. As a supplement to that contract, DTI has reviewed the literature and conducted a preliminary evaluation of two energy carriers for the FCEV: hydrogen and methanol. This report compares the estimated fuel efficiency, cost of producing and delivering the fuel, and the resultant life cycle costs of the FCEV when fueled directly by hydrogen and when fueled by methanol with on-board reforming to produce the required hydrogen-rich gas for the fuel cell. This work will be supplemented and expanded under the Ford contract with the Department of Energy to develop the FCEV and its fuel infrastructure.

This report uses the computer software LEVSEEP to describe analysis methodology for levee underseepage analyses and rehabilitation. Information required for data input, calculation procedures, output, and graphics is presented. In addition, comprehensive results of case studies and parameter analyses utilizing LEVSEEP are included.

Improving Pollution Prevention and Waste Minimization Program (PP/WMIN) technologies, actions, and culture could be an important cost-cutting step for the US Department of Energy (DOE). Communicating ideas, concepts, process changes, and achievements is essential for the success of this program. The need to openly communicate ideas and concepts in a cost-effective manner is essential in an organization that has such diverse components as research and development, weapons production, and power generation. This approach is in contrast to the historic DOE culture developed within the cold war period in which compartmentalization, independence, and secrecy were stressed. DOE has now recognized that for any pollution prevention program to be successful, the many diverse elements of the organization must share information. Avenues for such information exchange are examined in this report.

In this study, we developed a coupled model of wind-induced vibration of a stack, based on an unsteady-flow theory and nonlinear dynamics of the stack's heavy elastic suspended cables. Numerical analysis was performed to identify excitation mechanisms. The stack was found to be excited by vortex shedding. Once lock-in resonance occurred, the cables were excited by the transverse motion of the stack. Large-amplitude oscillations of the cables were due to parametric resonance. Appropriate techniques have been proposed to alleviate the vibration problem.

The aqueous biphasic extraction (ABE) process for soil decontamination involves the selective partitioning of solutes and fine particulates between two immiscible aqueous phases. The biphase system is generated by the appropriate combination of a water-soluble polymer (e.g., polyethylene glycol) with an inorganic salt (e.g., sodium carbonate). Selective partitioning results in 99 to 99.5% of the soil being recovered in the cleaned-soil fraction, while only 0.5 to 1% is recovered in the contaminant concentrate. The ABE process is best suited to the recovery of ultrafine, refractory material from the silt and clay fractions of soils. During continuous countercurrent extraction tests with soil samples from the Fernald Environmental Management Project site (Fernald, OH), particulate thorium was extracted and concentrated between 6- and 16-fold, while the uranium concentration was reduced from about 500 mg/kg to about 77 mg/kg. Carbonate leaching alone was able to reduce the uranium concentration only to 146 mg/kg. Preliminary estimates for treatment costs are approximately $160 per ton of dry soil. A detailed flowsheet of the ABE process is provided.

A series of polymer-based extraction systems, based on the use of polyethylene glycols (PEGs) or polypropylene glycols (PPGs), was demonstrated to be capable of selective extraction and recovery of long-lived radionuclides, such as Tc-99 and I-129, from Hanford SY-101 tank waste, neutralized current acid waste, and single-shell tank waste simulants. During the extraction process, anionic species like TcO₄⁻ and I⁻ are selectively transferred to the less dense PEG-rich aqueous phase. The partition coefficients for a wide range of inorganic cations and anions, such as sodium, potassium, aluminum, nitrate, nitrite, and carbonate, are all less than one. The partition coefficients for pertechnetate ranged from 12 to 50, depending on the choice of waste simulant and temperature. The partition coefficient for iodide was about 5, while that of iodate was about 0.25. Irradiation of the PEG phase with gamma-ray doses up to 20 Mrad had no detectable effect on the partition coefficients. The most selective extraction systems examined were those based on PPGs, which exhibited separation factors in excess of 3000 between TcO₄⁻ and NO₃⁻/NO₂⁻. An advantage of the PPG-based system is minimization of secondary waste production. These studies also highlighted the need for exercising great care in extrapolating the partitioning behavior …