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Soil vapor extraction (SVE) is a prevalent remediation approach for volatile contaminants in the vadose zone. A diminishing rate of contaminant extraction over time is typically observed due to 1) diminishing contaminant mass, and/or 2) slow rates of removal for contamination in low-permeability zones. After a SVE system begins to show indications of diminishing contaminant removal rate, SVE performance needs to be evaluated to determine whether the system should be optimized, terminated, or transitioned to another technology to replace or augment SVE. This guidance specifically addresses the elements of this type of performance assessment. While not specifically presented, the approach and analyses in this guidance could also be applied at the onset of remediation selection for a site as a way to evaluate current or future impacts to groundwater from vadose zone contamination. The guidance presented here builds from existing guidance for SVE design, operation, optimization, and closure from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment. The purpose of the material herein is to clarify and focus on the specific actions and decisions related to SVE optimization, transition, and/or closure.

This research project focused on sustainability issues in the southwest U.S. with an emphasis on water and energy. The efforts were directed through the UNLV Urban Sustainability Office with the funding used to develop a sustainability strategic plan; conduct extensive community outreach in the greater metropolitan area; provide seed money for multidisciplinary research teams to conduct studies in the areas of ecological, socio-cultural, and economic sustainability leading to community-based solutions; and to provide service-learning opportunities for UNLV graduate and undergraduate students. The research advanced understanding of urban and regional water issues with a particular focus on climate change and climate variability in the southwest. In addition, various events were held to promote discussion on energy, water, and sustainability discussions in the community. The impact of this research was broad dissemination of research through 13 peer-reviewed publications, learning opportunities for countless students as a result of class room equipment upgrades (see report for upgrade details), and new research funding for further advancement of these research efforts.

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General Motors, LLC and energy partner Shell Hydrogen, LLC, deployed a system of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles integrated with a hydrogen fueling station infrastructure to operate under real world conditions as part of the U.S. Department of Energy's Controlled Hydrogen Fleet and Infrastructure Validation and Demonstration Project. This technical report documents the performance and describes the learnings from progressive generations of vehicle fuel cell system technology and multiple approaches to hydrogen generation and delivery for vehicle fueling.

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A study has been conducted on the material demand and life-cycle energy and emissions performance of power-generating technologies in addition to those reported in Part I of this series. The additional technologies included concentrated solar power, integrated gasification combined cycle, and a fossil/renewable (termed hybrid) geothermal technology, more specifically, co-produced gas and electric power plants from geo-pressured gas and electric (GPGE) sites. For the latter, two cases were considered: gas and electricity export and electricity-only export. Also modeled were cement, steel and diesel fuel requirements for drilling geothermal wells as a function of well depth. The impact of the construction activities in the building of plants was also estimated. The results of this study are consistent with previously reported trends found in Part I of this series. Among all the technologies considered, fossil combustion-based power plants have the lowest material demand for their construction and composition. On the other hand, conventional fossil-based power technologies have the highest greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, followed by the hybrid and then two of the renewable power systems, namely hydrothermal flash power and biomass-based combustion power. GHG emissions from U.S. geothermal flash plants were also discussed, estimates provided, and data needs identified. Of the GPGE …

The overall project goal is to reduce the cost of home and neighborhood photovoltaic storage systems by reducing the single largest cost component – the energy storage cells. Solar power is accepted as an environmentally advantaged renewable power source. Its deployment in small communities and integrated into the grid, requires a safe, reliable and low cost energy storage system. The incumbent technology of lead acid cells is large, toxic to produce and dispose of, and offer limited life even with significant maintenance. The ideal PV storage battery would have the safety and low cost of lead acid but the performance of lithium ion chemistry. Present lithium ion batteries have the desired performance but cost and safety remain the two key implementation barriers. The purpose of this project is to develop new lithium ion cells that can meet PVES cost and safety requirements using A123Systems phosphate-based cathode chemistries in commercial PHEV cell formats. The cost target is a cell design for a home or neighborhood scale at <$25/kWh. This DOE program is the continuation and expansion of an initial MPSC (Michigan Public Service Commission) program towards this goal. This program further pushes the initial limits of some aspects of the original …

Undetected microcracks in solar cells are a principal cause of failure in service due to subsequent weather exposure, mechanical flexing or diurnal temperature cycles. Existing methods have not been able to detect cracks early enough in the production cycle to prevent inadvertent shipment to customers. This program, sponsored under the DOE Photovoltaic Supply Chain and Cross-Cutting Technologies program, studied the feasibility of quantifying surface micro-discontinuities by use of a novel technique, thermoreflectance imaging, to detect surface temperature gradients with very high spatial resolution, in combination with a suite of conventional imaging methods such as electroluminescence. The project carried out laboratory tests together with computational image analyses using sample solar cells with known defects supplied by industry sources or DOE National Labs. Quantitative comparisons between the effectiveness of the new technique and conventional methods were determined in terms of the smallest detectable crack. Also the robustness of the new technique for reliable microcrack detection was determined at various stages of processing such as before and after antireflectance treatments. An overall assessment is that the new technique compares favorably with existing methods such as lock-in thermography or ultrasonics. The project was 100% completed in Sept, 2010. A detailed report of key findings …

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The balloon-borne sounding system (SONDE) provides in situ measurements (vertical profiles) of both the thermodynamic state of the atmosphere and the wind speed and direction.

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When a finite pulse of plasma expands into a magnetized background plasma, MHD predicts the pulse expel background plasma and its B-field - i.e. cause a magnetic 'bubble'. The expanding plasma is confined within the bubble, later to escape down the B-field lines. MHD suggests that the debris energy goes to expelling the B-field from the bubble volume and kinetic energy of the displaced background. For HANEs, this is far from the complete story. For many realistic HANE regimes, the long mean-free-path for collisions necessitates a Kinetic Ion Simulation Model (KISM). The most obvious effect is that the debris plasma can decouple and slip through the background plasma. The implications are: (1) the magnetic bubble is not as large as expected and (2) the debris is no longer confined within the magnetic bubble.

Argonne and Vertec Biosolvents investigated the stability and perfonnance for a number of membrane systems to drive the 'direct process' for pervaporation-assisted esterification to produce lactate esters. As outlined in Figure 1, the target is to produce ammonium lactate by fennentation. After purification and concentration, ammonium lactate is reacted with ethanol to produce the ester. Esterification is a reversible reaction so to drive the reaction forward, the produced ammonia and water must be rapidly separated from the product. The project focused on selecting pervaporation membranes with (1) acid functionality to facilitate ammonia separation and (2) temperature stability to be able to perform that reaction at as high a temperature as possible (Figure 2). Several classes of commercial membrane materials and functionalized membrane materials were surveyed. The most promising materials were evaluated for scale-up to a pre-commercial application. Over 4 million metric tons per year of solvents are consumed in the U.S. for a wide variety of applications. Worldwide the usage exceeds 10 million metric tons per year. Many of these, such as the chlorinated solvents, are environmentally unfriendly; others, such as the ethylene glycol ethers and N Methyl Pyrrolidone (NMP), are toxic or teratogenic, and many other petroleum-derived solvents are …

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The cell surface receptor {alpha}{sub 4}{beta}{sub 1} integrin is an attractive yet poorly understood target for selective diagnosis and treatment of T- and B-cell lymphomas. This report focuses on the rapid microwave preparation of medicinally pertinent benzimidazole heterocycles, structure-activity relationships (SAR) of novel halobenzimidazole carboxamide antagonists 3-6, and preliminary biological evaluation of radioiodinated agents 7, 8, and 18. The I-125 derivative 18 had good tumor uptake (12 {+-} 1% ID/g at 24 h; 4.5 {+-} 1% ID/g at 48 h) and tumor:kidney ratio ({approx}4:1 at 24 h; 2.5:1 at 48 h) in xenograft murine models of B-cell lymphoma. Molecular homology models of {alpha}{sub 4}{beta}{sub 1} integrin have predicted that docked halobenzimidazole carboxamides have the halogen atom in a suitable orientation for halogen-hydrogen bonding. These high affinity ({approx} pM binding) halogenated ligands are attractive tools for medicinal and biological use; the fluoro and iodo derivatives are potential radiodiagnostic ({sup 18}F) or radiotherapeutic ({sup 131}I) agents, whereas the chloro and bromo analogues could provide structural insight into integrin-ligand interactions through photoaffinity cross-linking/mass spectroscopy experiments, as well as co-crystallization X-ray studies.

We have performed a detailed study of molecular dissociation in liquid hydrogen using both Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics with Density Functional Theory and Coupled Electron-Ion Monte Carlo simulations. We observe a range of densities where (dP/d{rho}){sub T} = 0 that coincides with sharp discontinuities in the electronic conductivity, which is clear evidence of the plasma phase transition for temperatures 600K {le} T {le} 1500K. Both levels of theory exhibit the transition, although Quantum Monte Carlo predicts higher transition pressures. Based on the temperature dependence of the discontinuity in the electronic conductivity, we estimate the critical point of the transition at temperatures slightly below 2000 K. We examine the influence of proton zero point motion by using Path Integral Molecular Dynamics with Density Functional Theory; the main effect is to shift the transition to lower pressures. Furthermore, we calculate the melting curve of molecular hydrogen up to pressures of 200 GPa, finding a reentrant melting line in good agreement with previous calculations. The melting line crosses the metalization line at 700 K and 220 GPa using density functional energetics and at 550 K and 290 GPa using Quantum Monte Carlo energetics.

During erythroblast enucleation, membrane proteins distribute between extruded nuclei and reticulocytes. In hereditary spherocytosis (HS) and hereditary elliptocytosis (HE), deficiencies of membrane proteins, in addition to those encoded by the mutant gene, occur. Elliptocytes, resulting from protein 4.1R gene mutations, lack not only 4.1R but also glycophorin C, which links the cytoskeleton and bilayer. In HS resulting from ankyrin-1 mutations, band 3, Rh-associated antigen, and glycophorin A are deficient. The current study was undertaken to explore whether aberrant protein sorting, during enucleation, creates these membrane-spanning protein deficiencies. We found that although glycophorin C sorts to reticulocytes normally, it distributes to nuclei in 4.1R-deficient HE cells. Further, glycophorin A and Rh-associated antigen, which normally partition predominantly to reticulocytes, distribute to both nuclei and reticulocytes in an ankyrin-1-deficient murine model of HS. We conclude that aberrant protein sorting is one mechanistic basis for protein deficiencies in HE and HS.

The conceptual design of a heavy ion fusion driver system is described, including all major components. Particular issues emerging from this exercise are identified and discussed. The most important conclusion of our study is that due to stringent requirements on ion pulse phase space, we are unable to find a credible accelerator design that meets the requirements of the example target. Either the target design must be modified to accept larger ion ranges and larger focal spot sizes, or we must consider other target options.

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A workshop entitled, “Methods of Investigating Microbial-Mineral Interactions,” was held at the Clay Minerals Society meeting at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, WA on June 19, 2004. The workshop was organized by Patricia A. Maurice (University of Notre Dame) and Lesley A. Warren (McMaster University, CA). Speakers included: Dr. P. Bennett, Dr. J. Fredrickson (PNNL), Dr. S. Lower (Ohio State University), Dr. P. Maurice, Dr. S. Myneni (Princeton University), Dr. E. Shock (Arizona State), Dr. M. Tien (Penn State), Dr. L. Warren, and Dr. J. Zachara (PNNL). There were approximately 75 attendees at the workshop, including more than 20 students. A workshop volume was published by the Clay Minerals Society [Methods for Study of Microbe-Mineral Interactions (2006), CMS Workshop Lectures, vol. 14 (Patricia A. Maurice and Leslie A. Warren, eds.) ISBN 978-1-881208-15-0, 166 pp.]

The Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) will complete Sludge Batch 5 (SB5) processing in fiscal year 2010. DWPF has experienced multiple feed stoppages for the SB5 Melter Feed Tank (MFT) due to clogs. Melter throughput is decreased not only due to the feed stoppage, but also because dilution of the feed by addition of prime water (about 60 gallons), which is required to restart the MFT pump. SB5 conditions are different from previous batches in one respect: pH of the Slurry Mix Evaporator (SME) product (9 for SB5 vs. 7 for SB4). Since a higher pH could cause gel formation, due in part to greater leaching from the glass frit into the supernate, SRNL studies were undertaken to check this hypothesis. The clogging issue is addressed by this simulant work, requested via a technical task request from DWPF. The experiments were conducted at Aiken County Technology Laboratory (ACTL) wherein a non-radioactive simulant consisting of SB5 Sludge Receipt and Adjustment Tank (SRAT) product simulant and frit was subjected to a 30 hour SME cycle at two different pH levels, 7.5 and 10; the boiling was completed over a period of six days. Rheology and supernate elemental composition measurements were conducted. The …

Due to its chemical stability, uniform pore size, and high pore density, nanoporous alumina is being investigated for use in biosensing, drug delivery, hemodialysis, and other medical applications. In recent work, we have examined the use of atomic layer deposition for coating the surfaces of nanoporous alumina membranes. Zinc oxide coatings were deposited on nanoporous alumina membranes using atomic layer deposition. The zinc oxide-coated nanoporous alumina membranes demonstrated antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. These results suggest that atomic layer deposition is an attractive technique for modifying the surfaces of nanoporous alumina membranes and other nanostructured biomaterials.