An MIT comprehensive study of high-temperature superconducting magnets confirms they meet requirements for an economic, compact fusion power plant.

A detailed report by researchers at PSFC and MIT spinout company Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), published in a collection of six peer-reviewed papers in a special edition of the March issue of IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity. Together, the papers describe the design and fabrication of the magnet and the diagnostic equipment needed to evaluate its performance, as well as the lessons learned from the process. Overall, the team found, the predictions and computer modeling were spot-on, verifying that the magnet’s unique design elements could serve as the foundation for a fusion power plant.

The test setup inside MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center. Image Credit: Gretchen Ertl, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Click the press release link for a larger view and more images. Use the Press Inquires link, top right of the page, to open the image list.

Back during the predawn hours of Sept. 5, 2021, engineers achieved a major milestone in the labs of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), when a new type of magnet, made from high-temperature superconducting material, achieved a world-record magnetic field strength of 20 tesla for a large-scale magnet. That’s the intensity needed to build a fusion power plant that is expected to produce a net output of power and potentially usher in an era of virtually limitless power production.

The test was immediately declared a success, having met all the criteria established for the design of the new fusion device, dubbed SPARC, for which the magnets are the key enabling technology. Champagne corks popped as the weary team of experimenters, who had labored long and hard to make the achievement possible, celebrated their accomplishment.

But that was far from the end of the process. Over the ensuing months, the team tore apart and inspected the components of the magnet, pored over and analyzed the data from hundreds of instruments that recorded details of the tests, and performed two additional test runs on the same magnet, ultimately pushing it to its breaking point in order to learn the details of any possible failure modes.

Enabling practical fusion power

The successful test of the magnet, said Hitachi America Professor of Engineering Dennis Whyte, who recently stepped down as director of the PSFC, was “the most important thing, in my opinion, in the last 30 years of fusion research.”

Before the Sept. 2021 demonstration, the best-available superconducting magnets were powerful enough to potentially achieve fusion energy – but only at sizes and costs that could never be practical or economically viable. Then, when the tests showed the practicality of such a strong magnet at a greatly reduced size, “overnight, it basically changed the cost per watt of a fusion reactor by a factor of almost 40 in one day,” Whyte said.

“Now fusion has a chance,” Whyte added. Tokamaks, the most widely used design for experimental fusion devices, “have a chance, in my opinion, of being economical because you’ve got a quantum change in your ability, with the known confinement physics rules, about being able to greatly reduce the size and the cost of objects that would make fusion possible.”

The comprehensive data and analysis from the PSFC’s magnet test, as detailed in the six new papers, has demonstrated that plans for a new generation of fusion devices – the one designed by MIT and CFS, as well as similar designs by other commercial fusion companies – are built on a solid foundation in science.

The superconducting breakthrough

Fusion, the process of combining light atoms to form heavier ones, powers the sun and stars, but harnessing that process on Earth has proved to be a daunting challenge, with decades of hard work and many billions of dollars spent on experimental devices. The long-sought, but never yet achieved, goal is to build a fusion power plant that produces more energy than it consumes. Such a power plant could produce electricity without emitting greenhouse gases during operation, and generating very little radioactive waste. Fusion’s fuel, a form of hydrogen that can be derived from seawater, is virtually limitless.

But to make it work requires compressing the fuel at extraordinarily high temperatures and pressures, and since no known material could withstand such temperatures, the fuel must be held in place by extremely powerful magnetic fields. Producing such strong fields requires superconducting magnets, but all previous fusion magnets have been made with a superconducting material that requires frigid temperatures of about 4º above absolute zero (4 kelvins, or -270º Celsius).

In the last few years, a newer material nicknamed REBCO, for rare-earth barium copper oxide, was added to fusion magnets, and allows them to operate at 20 kelvins, a temperature that despite being only 16 kelvins warmer, brings significant advantages in terms of material properties and practical engineering.

Taking advantage of this new higher-temperature superconducting material was not just a matter of substituting it in existing magnet designs. Instead, “it was a rework from the ground up of almost all the principles that you use to build superconducting magnets,” Whyte said. The new REBCO material is “extraordinarily different than the previous generation of superconductors. You’re not just going to adapt and replace, you’re actually going to innovate from the ground up.” The new papers in Transactions on Applied Superconductivity describe the details of that redesign process, now that patent protection is in place.

A key innovation: no insulation

One of the dramatic innovations, which had many others in the field skeptical of its chances of success, was the elimination of insulation around the thin, flat ribbons of superconducting tape that formed the magnet. Like virtually all electrical wires, conventional superconducting magnets are fully protected by insulating material to prevent short-circuits between the wires. But in the new magnet, the tape was left completely bare; the engineers relied on REBCO’s much greater conductivity to keep the current flowing through the material.

Zach Hartwig, the Robert N. Noyce Career Development Professor in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering. Hartwig has a co-appointment at the PSFC and is the head of its engineering group, which led the magnet development project explained, “When we started this project, in let’s say 2018, the technology of using high-temperature superconductors to build large-scale high-field magnets was in its infancy. The state of the art was small benchtop experiments, not really representative of what it takes to build a full-size thing. Our magnet development project started at benchtop scale and ended up at full scale in a short amount of time,” he added, noting that the team built a 20,000-pound magnet that produced a steady, even magnetic field of just over 20 tesla – far beyond any such field ever produced at large scale.

“The standard way to build these magnets is you would wind the conductor and you have insulation between the windings, and you need insulation to deal with the high voltages that are generated during off-normal events such as a shutdown.” Eliminating the layers of insulation, he says, “has the advantage of being a low-voltage system. It greatly simplifies the fabrication processes and schedule.” It also leaves more room for other elements, such as more cooling or more structure for strength.

The magnet assembly is a slightly smaller-scale version of the ones that will form the donut-shaped chamber of the SPARC fusion device now being built by CFS in Devens, Massachusetts. It consists of 16 plates, called pancakes, each bearing a spiral winding of the superconducting tape on one side and cooling channels for helium gas on the other.

But the no-insulation design was considered risky, and a lot was riding on the test program. “This was the first magnet at any sufficient scale that really probed what is involved in designing and building and testing a magnet with this so-called no-insulation no-twist technology,” Hartwig said. “It was very much a surprise to the community when we announced that it was a no-insulation coil.”

Pushing to the limit … and beyond

The initial test, described in previous papers, proved that the design and manufacturing process not only worked but was highly stable – something that some researchers had doubted. The next two test runs, also performed in late 2021, then pushed the device to the limit by deliberately creating unstable conditions, including a complete shutoff of incoming power that can lead to a catastrophic overheating. Known as quenching, this is considered a worst-case scenario for the operation of such magnets, with the potential to destroy the equipment.

Part of the mission of the test program, Hartwig said, was “to actually go off and intentionally quench a full-scale magnet, so that we can get the critical data at the right scale and the right conditions to advance the science, to validate the design codes, and then to take the magnet apart and see what went wrong, why did it go wrong, and how do we take the next iteration toward fixing that . . . it was a very successful test.”

That final test, which ended with the melting of one corner of one of the 16 pancakes, produced a wealth of new information, Hartwig noted. For one thing, they had been using several different computational models to design and predict the performance of various aspects of the magnet’s performance, and for the most part, the models agreed in their overall predictions and were well-validated by the series of tests and real-world measurements. But in predicting the effect of the quench, the model predictions diverged, so it was necessary to get the experimental data to evaluate the models’ validity.

“The highest-fidelity models that we had predicted almost exactly how the magnet would warm up, to what degree it would warm up as it started to quench, and where would the resulting damage to the magnet would be,” he noted. As described in detail in one of the new reports, “That test actually told us exactly the physics that was going on, and it told us which models were useful going forward and which to leave by the wayside because they’re not right.”

Whyte commented, “Basically we did the worst thing possible to a coil, on purpose, after we had tested all other aspects of the coil performance. And we found that most of the coil survived with no damage,” while one isolated area sustained some melting. “It’s like a few percent of the volume of the coil that got damaged.” And that led to revisions in the design that are expected to prevent such damage in the actual fusion device magnets, even under the most extreme conditions.

Hartwig emphasizes that a major reason the team was able to accomplish such a radical new record-setting magnet design, and get it right the very first time and on a breakneck schedule, was thanks to the deep level of knowledge, expertise, and equipment accumulated over decades of operation of the Alcator C-Mod tokamak, the Francis Bitter Magnet Laboratory, and other work carried out at PSFC. “This goes to the heart of the institutional capabilities of a place like this,” he said. “We had the capability, the infrastructure, and the space and the people to do these things under one roof.”

The collaboration with CFS was also key, he said, with MIT and CFS combining the most powerful aspects of an academic institution and private company to do things together that neither could have done on their own. “For example, one of the major contributions from CFS was leveraging the power of a private company to establish and scale up a supply chain at an unprecedented level and timeline for the most critical material in the project: 300 kilometers (186 miles) of high-temperature superconductor, which was procured with rigorous quality control in under a year, and integrated on schedule into the magnet.”

The integration of the two teams, those from MIT and those from CFS, also was crucial to the success, he said. “We thought of ourselves as one team, and that made it possible to do what we did.”

**

It sounds like the past 2 ½ years have proven the immense value of the rare-earth barium copper oxide development. Even more impressive is that the team and its funders tried the no insulation technique and succeeded.

They have just put much better confinement power into the fusion effort.

And it won’t be just the tokomak devices getting the upgrade. Many of us still have a lot of confidence in the potential of the Robert Bussard based device and others.

Then there is the likelihood that superconducting magnet development will make more strides to higher temperatures.

Meanwhile Eric Lerner is working the plasma confinement idea and is improving steadily.

There just might be power plant choices sooner that the cynics could imagine.

A new University of California – Riverside (UCR) study found that introducing a simple, renewable chemical to the pretreatment step can finally make next-generation biofuel production both cost-effective and carbon neutral. The first step, breaking down the plant matter has always been the hardest when it comes to making fuel from plants.

For biofuels to compete with petroleum, biorefinery operations must be designed to better utilize lignin. Lignin is one of the main components of plant cell walls. It provides plants with greater structural integrity and resiliency from microbial attacks. However, these natural properties of lignin also make it difficult to extract and utilize from the plant matter, also known as biomass.

UC Riverside Associate Research Professor Charles Cai started the explanation with, “Lignin utilization is the gateway to making what you want out of biomass in the most economical and environmentally friendly way possible. Designing a process that can better utilize both the lignin and sugars found in biomass is one of the most exciting technical challenges in this field.”

Simplified diagram for the proposed CELF-based biorefineries outlining the mass integration strategy. CELF: co-solvent enhanced lignocellulosic fractionation. Image Credit: University of California – Riverside. Click the study paper link for the open access research paper.

To overcome the lignin hurdle, Cai invented CELF, which stands for Co-solvent Enhanced Lignocellulosic Fractionation. It is an innovative biomass pretreatment technology.

“CELF uses tetrahydrofuran or THF to supplement water and dilute acid during biomass pretreatment. It improves overall efficiency and adds lignin extraction capabilities,” Cai said. “Best of all, THF itself can be made from biomass sugars.”

A landmark Energy & Environmental Science paper details the degree to which a CELF biorefinery offers economic and environmental benefits over both petroleum-based fuels and earlier biofuel production methods.

The paper is a collaboration between Cai’s research team at UCR, the Center for Bioenergy Innovation managed by Oak Ridge National Laboratories, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, with funding provided by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. In it, the researchers consider two main variables: what kind of biomass is most ideal and what to do with the lignin once it’s been extracted.

First-generation biofuel operations use food crops like corn, soy, and sugarcane as raw materials, or feedstocks. Because these feedstocks divert land and water away from food production, using them for biofuels is not ideal.

Second-generation operations use non-edible plant biomass as feedstocks. An example of biomass feedstocks includes wood residues from milling operations, sugarcane bagasse, or corn stover, all of which are abundant low-cost byproducts of forestry and agricultural operations.

According to the Department of Energy, up to a billion tons per year of biomass could be made available for the manufacture of biofuels and bioproducts in the US alone, capable of displacing 30% of our petroleum consumption while also creating new domestic jobs.

Because a CELF biorefinery can more fully utilize plant matter than earlier second-generation methods, the researchers found that a heavier, denser feedstock like hardwood poplar is preferable over less carbon-dense corn stover for yielding greater economic and environmental benefits.

Using poplar in a CELF biorefinery, the researchers demonstrate that sustainable aviation fuel could be made at a break-even price as low as $3.15 per gallon of gasoline equivalent. The current average cost for a gallon of jet fuel in the U.S. is $5.96.

The U.S. government issues credits for biofuel production in the form of renewable identification number credits, a subsidy meant to bolster domestic biofuel production. The tier of these credits issued for second-generation biofuels, the D3 tier, is typically traded at $1 per gallon or higher. At this price per credit, the paper demonstrates that one can expect a rate of return of over 20% from the operation.

“Spending a little more for a more carbon-rich feedstock like poplar still yields more economic benefits than a cheaper feedstock like corn stover, because you can make more fuel and chemicals from it,” Cai said.

The paper also illustrates how lignin utilization can positively contribute to overall biorefinery economics while keeping the carbon footprint as low as possible. In older biorefinery models, where biomass is cooked in water and acid, the lignin is mostly unusable for more than its heating value.

“The older models would elect to burn the lignin to supplement heat and energy for these biorefineries because they could mostly only leverage the sugars in the biomass – a costly proposition that leaves a lot of value off the table,” said Cai.

In addition to better lignin utilization, the CELF biorefinery model also proposes to produce renewable chemicals. These chemicals could be used as building blocks for bioplastics and food and drink flavoring compounds. These chemicals take up some of the carbon in the plant biomass that would not get released back into the atmosphere as CO2.

“Adding THF helps reduce the energy cost of pretreatment and helps isolate lignin, so you wouldn’t have to burn it anymore. On top of that, we can make renewable chemicals that help us achieve a near-zero global warming potential,” Cai said. “I think this moves the needle from Gen 2 biofuels to Gen 2+.”

Because of the team’s recent successes, the Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technology Office has awarded the researchers a $2 million grant to build a small-scale CELF pilot plant at UCR. Cai hopes that demonstrating the pilot plant will lead to larger-scale investment in the technology, as harnessing energy from fossil fuels adds to global warming and hurts the planet.

“I began this work more than a decade ago because I wanted to make an impact. I wanted to find a viable alternative to fossil fuels and my colleagues and I have done that,” Cai said. “Using CELF, we have shown it is possible to create cost-effective fuels from biomass and lignin and help curb our contribution of carbon emissions into the atmosphere.”

**

This is pretty encouraging work. Biomass will have an ever-increasing role in providing fuels in the future. The baseline fossil fuel cost is simply going to have to increase for biomass to become practical. It’s happening – at a pace so slow it drives the green enthusiasts a bit crazy.

What’s left out or perhaps misleading, is that the land and water resources are going to get used once per growing season. Whether for food or fuel the competition is going to be there. The choices are going to be economic based from producers through to the consumers.

Not to fret, corn and sugarcane ethanol were going to drive food prices into unaffordability for many. Yet today, as in some crop years since the market took off, the price paid to producers isn’t looking to cover the cost of production – and today there are mountains of corn to use up.

One more consideration that’s been left out – that will need funded during fuel production. The food crop folks have decades of experience in soil fertility, with professional plant science, agronomy, biology and other advanced degrees to keep the soil in good working order although in some locales the nutrient content of the foods is suffering.

The biofuel folks are missing some expertise and practical experience. We’re seeing fuel crops harvested to bare dirt taking the entirety of the soil nutrients used by the plants being hauled away. Replacing them is not a low-cost proposition. Nor do we understand them to the level the food producers have achieved.

Progress is being made, but the distance to go is much further than most people realize.

Incheon National University scientists have developed a method to improve the stability and properties of lithium ion battery separators with a layer of silicon dioxide and other functional molecules.

The study published in Energy Storage Materials demonstrates successful graft polymerization on a polypropylene (PP) separator, incorporating a uniform layer of silicon dioxide (SiO2).

Lithium-ion batteries face safety concerns as a result of internal separator issues which often lead to short circuits. Batteries employing the Incheon National separators demonstrated improved performance and reduced growth of disruptive root-like structures (dendrites), paving the way for high-safety batteries that can aid the adoption of electric vehicles and advanced energy storage systems.

Scientists have developed stable “separators,” a component that significantly affects the performance and safety of lithium-ion batteries. Image credit: knowablemag https://openverse.org/image/2314314c-541f-426c-929d-9442771b0aa0. License type: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. For the largest and complete view click the press release link.

Lithium-ion batteries are a widely used class of rechargeable batteries in today’s world. One of the processes that can hamper the functioning of these batteries is an internal short circuit caused by direct contact between the cathode and anode (the conductors that complete the circuit within a battery).

To avoid this, separators composed of polyolefins – a type of polymer – can be employed to maintain separation. However, these separators can melt at higher temperatures, and the inadequate absorption of electrolytes (essential for conveying charges between electrodes) can result in short circuits and diminished efficiency. To tackle these issues, several different methods have been proposed.

One such method is to apply ceramic coatings on the separators to improve the way they handle pressure and heat. However, this can increase the thickness of the separators, reduce their adhesion, and harm battery performance.

Another technique is to use polymer coatings, in a process known as graft polymerization. This involves the attachment of individual units (monomers) to the separators to give them the desired qualities.

Now advancing research, the study published in Energy Storage Materials demonstrates successful graft polymerization on a polypropylene (PP) separator, incorporating a uniform layer of silicon dioxide (SiO2). The research results of the joint study conducted by a team of researchers, including Assistant Professor Jeongsik Yun from the Department of Energy and Chemical Engineering at Incheon National University, were featured in Volume 65 of Energy Storage Materials in February 2024.

Dr. Yun was motivated by the need for high-performance battery materials in electric vehicles to achieve longer driving ranges, an area he has been actively working on. Beyond improving battery performance, his goal is to ease consumer concerns about battery explosions, potentially influencing their decisions to embrace electric vehicles.

Dr. Yun explained, “Battery explosions are frequently initiated from the melting of a separator. The commercial battery separator is made of polyolefins, a class of polymers which are vulnerable to heat. We therefore aimed to improve the thermal stability of the commercial separators by coating them with thermally robust materials such as SiO2 particles.”

In this study, a PP separator was modified in several ways. Initially, it was coated with a layer of polyvinylidene fluoride, a chemical chosen to enhance electrolyte affinity and thermal stability, while also introducing grafting reaction sites. Then, the separator underwent grafting with methacrylate molecules, followed by a final coating with SiO2 particles.

These modifications made the separator stronger and more resistant to heat, suppressed the growth of lithium dendrites, and helped improve the cycling performance.

Additionally, the modifications not only preserved the energy storage of Li-ion batteries per unit volume, but also outperformed other coating methods in cell performance.

This technique thus shows promise for creating robust separators and advancing the use of lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles and energy storage systems.

Dr. Yun noted how he envisions the results effects, “We hope that the results of this study can enable the development of high-safety lithium batteries. We believe that the thermal stability of these batteries will greatly benefit the current fire-sensitive electric vehicle field. In the long term, this can motivate people to choose electric vehicles and in urban areas, reduce the suffering of people from breathing in the polluted air generated by the internal combustion engines.”

**

This has to cheer up a lot of consumers concerned with battery fires. Its not just EVs, its electric assisted bicycles and other devices with larger battery sets. For many the idea of a large type of lithium-ion battery set is a non-starter. For some, the insurance providers are catching on to the risks. With the battery charger in the garage and an insurer declining to insure the EV and the home from an EV battery fire in the garage – it becomes a major item of concern that is coming soon.

This technology can’t come soon enough. One day the headline will be about how many folks died incinerated by their EV lighting off in the garage.

Simulation of neutron star collision. Detections of gravitational waves from merging neutron stars tipped off researchers here on Earth that it should be possible to predict how neutrons interact with atomic nuclei. ©2024 NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Click the press release link for the largest view.

The reporting paper ‘Neutron capture reaction cross-section of 79Se through the 79Se(d,p) reaction in inverse kinematics.’ has been published in the journal Physics Letters B.

Nuclear power is considered one of the ways to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, but how to deal with nuclear waste products is a concern. Radioactive waste products can be turned into more stable elements, but this process is not yet viable at scale.

The very word “nuclear” can be a bit of a trigger for some people, understandably so in Japan, where the atomic bomb and Fukushima disaster are some of the pivotal moments in its modern history. Yet, given the relative scarcity of suitable space in Japan for renewable forms of energy like solar or wind, nuclear power is considered to be a critical part of the effort to decarbonize the energy sector. Because of this, researchers are hard at work trying to improve safety, efficiency and other matters relating to nuclear power.

Associate Professor Nobuaki Imai from the Center for Nuclear Study at the University of Tokyo and his colleagues think they can contribute to improving a key aspect of nuclear power, the processing of waste.

“Broadly speaking, nuclear power works by boiling water using self-sustaining nuclear decay reactions. Unstable elements break apart and decay, releasing heat, which boils water, driving turbines. But this process eventually leaves behind unusable waste that is still radioactive,” said Imai. “This waste can remain radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years, so it is usually buried deep underground. But there is a growing desire to explore another way, a way in which unstable radioactive waste can be made more stable, avoiding its radioactive decay and rendering it far safer to deal with. It’s called transmutation.”

Transmutation is like the opposite of nuclear decay; instead of an element breaking apart and releasing radiation, a neutron can be added to an unstable element changing it into a slightly heavier version of itself.

Depending on the initial substance, this new form can be stable enough to be considered safe.

The problem is, though this process has been generally known for some time, it has been impossible to quantify sufficiently accurately to carry the idea on to the next stage and ideally produce prototype new-generation waste management facilities.

“The idea actually came from a surprising source: colliding stars, specifically neutron stars,” said Imai. “Following recent observations of gravitational waves emanating from neutron star mergers, researchers have been able to better understand the ways neutrons interact and their ability to modify other elements. Based on this, we used a range of instruments to narrow our focus on how the element selenium, a common nuclear waste product, behaves when bombarded by neutrons. Our technique allows us to predict how materials absorb neutrons and undergo transmutation. This knowledge can contribute to designs for nuclear waste transmutation facilities.”

It’s difficult for researchers to make these kinds of observations; in fact, they are not able to directly observe acts of transmutation.

Rather, the team can observe how much of a sample does not transmute, and by taking readings to know that transmutation did in fact take place, they can estimate, albeit very accurately, how much of the sample did transmute.

“We are confident that our measurements accurately reflect the real rate of transmutation of unstable selenium into a more stable form,” said Imai. “We are now planning to measure this for other nuclear waste products. Hopefully, this knowledge will combine with other areas required to realize nuclear waste treatment facilities, and we might see these in the coming decades. Though our aims are to improve nuclear safety, I find it interesting that there is a bidirectional relationship between this research and astrophysics. We were inspired by colliding neutron stars, and our research can impact how astrophysicists look for signs of nuclear synthesis, the creation of elements in stars, to better understand how elements heavier than iron were made, including those essential for life.”

**

This is the most welcome kind of news. While the press release notices the source and interesting fact that this research has taken place in Japan, your humble writer would like to notice that again. It’s because the folks of Japan have the most concerns about the effects of radioactivity and are as certain as anyone, anywhere on the planet to need to produce the nation’s own energy.

It’s a very difficult situation. but the prime advantage is – facing the circumstances head on. That has a commanding train of thought.  The nation has little time or gives much attention to wasteful ideas, intermittent sources or emotional or political or rent seeking driven concepts. For Japan energy sources have to work 100% of the time at low cost and in great quantity.

They have nailed the obvious. Nuclear power. In spite of the history and experiences. It’s a certainty, if anyone can, the nation of Japan can make nuclear power the best choice possible.

Go Nippon!

Engineers at the University of Cincinnati created a more efficient way of converting carbon dioxide into valuable products while simultaneously addressing climate change.

The study paper has been published in the journal Nature Chemical Engineering.

In his chemical engineering lab in UC’s College of Engineering and Applied Science, Associate Professor Jingjie Wu and his team found that a modified copper catalyst improves the electrochemical conversion of carbon dioxide into ethylene, the key ingredient in plastic and a myriad of other uses.

Ethylene has been called “the world’s most important chemical.” It is certainly among the most commonly produced chemicals, used in everything from textiles to antifreeze to vinyl.

The chemical industry generated 225 million metric tons of ethylene in 2022.

Wu explained that the process holds promise for one day producing ethylene through green energy instead of fossil fuels. It has the added benefit of removing carbon from the atmosphere.

Wu said, “Ethylene is a pivotal platform chemical globally, but the conventional steam-cracking process for its production emits substantial carbon dioxide. By utilizing carbon dioxide as a feedstock rather than depending on fossil fuels, we can effectively recycle carbon dioxide.”

Wu’s students, including lead author and UC graduate Zhengyuan Li, collaborated with Rice University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Stony Brook University and Arizona State University. Li received a prestigious graduate student award last year from the College of Engineering and Applied Science.

RhCu catalyst images. d, TEM image of the RhCu catalyst. e, HAADF-STEM image of the RhCu catalyst. The blue circles highlight Rh atoms. f, STEM-EDS mapping of the RhCu catalyst, showing atomic dispersion of Rh sites on the Cu matrix. Image Credit: University of Cincinnati. For more images click the study paper link to the open access (At time of posting.) paper.

The electrocatalytic conversion of carbon dioxide produces two primary carbon products, ethylene and ethanol. The researchers found that using a modified copper catalyst produced more ethylene.

“Our research offers essential insights into the divergence between ethylene and ethanol during electrochemical CO2 reduction and proposes a viable approach to directing selectivity toward ethylene,” lead author Li noted.

“This leads to an impressive 50% increase in ethylene selectivity,” Wu added. “Ideally, the goal is to produce a single product rather than multiple ones.”

Li said the next step is refining the process to make it more commercially viable.

The conversion system loses efficiency as byproducts of the reaction such as potassium hydroxide begin forming on the copper catalyst.

“The electrode stability must be improved for commercial deployment. Our next focus is to enhance stability and extend its operation from 1,000 to 100,000 hours,” Li said.

Wu explained these new technologies will help make the chemical industry greener and more energy efficient. “The overarching objective is to decarbonize chemical production by utilizing renewable electricity and sustainable feedstock,” Wu said. “Electrifying the conversion of carbon dioxide to ethylene marks a significant stride in decarbonizing the chemical sector.”

The study was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy where its Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office is leading efforts to reduce fossil fuels and carbon emissions in industry wherever possible.

**

This research group has its wits working. Knowing and understanding process technology well enough to get to a 100,000-hour working life is a great idea. Another bonus in research management is striving to a single product process. That would simplify the process greatly and cut the invested capital dramatically.

So far, the research is depending on renewable electrical power, at a low cost, collecting and getting the CO2 to the processor at low cost and making production sales into a market of really inexpensive ethylene.

Its going to take a lot of brain power to get this tech to economic market success.

Osaka University researchers succeeded in biomanufacturing a sugar product using chemically synthesized sugar for the first time.

With refinement of this technology, one can envision a future society in which the sugar required for biomanufacturing can be obtained ‘anytime, anywhere, and at high rate’. In the future, biomanufacturing using chemically synthesized sugar is expected to be a game changer in the biotechnology field – including the production of biochemicals, biofuels, and food, where sugar is an essential raw material – ultimately leading to the creation of a new bio-industry.

In a study recently published in ChemBioChem, researchers from Osaka University and collaborating partners developed an innovative biomanufacturing technology using chemically synthesized non-natural sugars as a raw material to solve the above-mentioned problem.

Biomanufacturing using biomass sugars such as corn obtained from agriculture is attracting attention as an environmentally friendly technology. However, the supply of such conventional biomass sugars is limited in relation to the huge demand for the production of fuels and chemical products, leading to concerns about competition with food due to the expansion of industrial use.

Comparing high rate synthetic vs slow natural sugar production for biomanufacturing. Image Credit: Osaka University. Click the press release for the original graphic image.

The process

Using bacteria (Corynebacterium glutamicum, C. glutamicum), they succeeded in fermentation production of lactate using chemically synthesized sugar solutions as the sole substrate.

This is the world’s first case in which biomanufacturing was conducted using synthesized sugar as a raw material. This achievement will enable the procurement of sustainable raw sugar that does not compete with food and is expected to further expand biomanufacturing.

Since the Industrial Revolution, climate change caused by the excessive use of fossil fuels and the resulting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is a global challenge of the 21st century.

Biomanufacturing is seen as one effective means of solving these issues, and its implementation is being actively promoted.

The production of the main raw material (1st generation biomass) in current biomanufacturing relies on agricultural processes such as corn cultivation.

However, there is concern that the supply of 1st generation biomass may compete with food, as it cannot satisfy the enormous demand for the production of fuels and chemical products. Furthermore, the production of sugar through large-scale agriculture has negative aspects such as land use, massive consumption of depletable resources such as fresh water, nitrogen, and phosphorus, water pollution due to eutrophication, and loss of biodiversity.

The research group has been conducting research on chemically synthesized sugar that does not depend on agriculture and the application of the obtained sugar to bioprocesses.

Chemical sugar synthesis has many advantages such as (1) an extremely high rate of synthesis (at least several hundred times faster than agricultural processes), (2) less use of water (about 1/1300 of agricultural processes), (3) less use of land (about 1/600 of agricultural processes), and (4) no need for nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen.

However, chemically synthesized sugars are mixtures that contain many compounds with structures that do not exist in nature.

Therefore, there have been challenges in using synthesized non-natural sugar solutions for bioprocesses, such as the presence of factors that inhibit the growth of bacteria.

In this study, the research group established a stable cultivation method using chemically synthesized sugar as a substrate, using C. glutamicum as a model bacterium.

They also identified growth inhibitory factors in the synthesized sugar solution and showed that they can be removed by secondary catalytic treatment.

Furthermore, by conducting fermentation under oxygen-limited conditions, they succeeded in the fermentation production of lactate using a synthesized sugar solution as the sole substrate despite their absence in nature.

This is the first case in history where bioproduction was conducted using agriculturally-independent synthesized sugar as a substrate.

Lactate is produced via pyruvate, which is located at the end of a metabolic pathway called glycolysis. That means that this method can be widely and generally applied to biomanufacturing via glycolysis.

The results of this research have demonstrated that chemically synthesized sugar can be used as a new raw material for biomanufacturing. The use of chemically synthesized sugar, which can be produced at high rate and on-site, is expected to solve the problems of raw material supply in biomanufacturing, such as competition with food, regional dependence, and large-scale use of depletable resources, and is expected to be a game changer in this area.

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This leads to a couple real basic questions. Just how is chemically synthesized sugar made and just what raw materials are required? Has anyone asked or thought how to come up with those chemicals and what amount of energy is required to get to a useful end product? Building sugar molecules isn’t going to be free.

This effort has to compete with biology. With the synthesized paranoia of climate change as a driver many folks can be mislead. Biosugar is mighty clean – it soaks up a lot of carbon dioxide. Chemically synthesized sugar is going to need a bunch of carbon in some form or other too. Its hardly a carbon free or reduced carbon idea. Plus there’s a hydrogen matter to be solved.

Chemically synthesizing sugar might not be so hard. But feeding the factory might be.

We’ll have to keep and eye on this.

The report about the successful production has been published in Advanced Materials.

Researchers found that when carbon and nitrogen precursors were subjected to extreme heat and pressure, the resulting materials – known as carbon nitrides – were tougher than cubic boron nitride, the second hardest material after diamond.

Bright field transmission electron microscopy image of a grain of tI14-C3N4 displaying stacking faults and {112} twins. Image Credit: University of Edinburgh. For more images and information click the open access link to the study paper at Advanced Materials.

Materials researchers have attempted to unlock the potential of carbon nitrides since the 1980s, when scientists first noticed their exceptional properties, including high resistance to heat. Yet after more than three decades of research and multiple attempts to synthesize them, no credible results were reported.

Scientific breakthrough

Now, an international team of scientists – led by researchers from the Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions at the University of Edinburgh and experts from the University of Bayreuth, Germany and the University of Linköping, Sweden – have finally achieved a breakthrough.

The team subjected various forms of carbon nitrogen precursors to pressures of between 70 and 135 gigapascals – around one million times our atmospheric pressure – while heating it to temperatures of more than one and a half thousand degrees Celsius.

To identify the atomic arrangement of the compounds under these conditions, the samples were illuminated by an intense X-ray beam at three particle accelerators – the European Synchrotron Research Facility in France, the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron in Germany and the Advanced Photon Source based in the United States.

Exciting discovery

Researchers discovered that three carbon nitride compounds were found to have the necessary building blocks for super-hardness. Remarkably, all three compounds retained their diamond-like qualities when they returned to ambient pressure and temperature conditions.

Further calculations and experiments suggest the new materials contain additional properties including photoluminescence and high energy density, where a large amount of energy can be stored in a small amount of mass.

The researchers said the potential applications of these ultra-incompressible carbon nitrides is vast, potentially positioning them as ultimate engineering materials to rival diamonds.

The research was funded by the UKRI FLF scheme and European research grants.

Dr. Dominique Laniel, Future Leaders Fellow, Institute for Condensed Matter Physics and Complex Systems, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, said, “Upon the discovery of the first of these new carbon nitride materials, we were incredulous to have produced materials researchers have been dreaming of for the last three decades. These materials provide strong incentive to bridge the gap between high pressure materials synthesis and industrial applications.”

Dr. Florian Trybel, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, University of Linköping, said, “These materials are not only outstanding in their multi-functionality, but show that technologically relevant phases can be recovered from a synthesis pressure equivalent to the conditions found thousands of kilometers in the Earth’s interior. We strongly believe this collaborative research will open up new possibilities for the field.”

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This material may well become the new high standard for a wide range of processes. Hardness and heat resistance are important qualities across a wide range of applications.

For now the material is going to be tested and much interest will be given to how the production might be done at as low of a cost as possible. As testing becomes more widespread the value will become more understood. Synthetic diamond and cubic boron already have a lot of respect in their markets. Carbon nitride is going to have to perform in extreme circumstances.

It will be interesting to see how and where this material will be used.

In a paper published in Cell Reports Physical Science, the NYU Tandon team led by Dr. André Taylor, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and director of DC-MUSE (Decarbonizing Chemical Manufacturing Using Sustainable Electrification), increased the RFD system’s salt removal rate by approximately 20 percent while lowering its energy demand by optimizing fluid flow rates.

RFD offers multiple benefits. These systems provide a scalable and flexible approach to energy storage, enabling the efficient utilization of intermittent renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.

RFD also proposes an entirely new solution to the global fresh water crisis.

Dr. Taylor explained, “By seamlessly integrating energy storage and desalination, our vision is to create a sustainable and efficient solution that not only meets the growing demand for freshwater but also champions environmental conservation and renewable energy integration.”

RFD can both reduce reliance on conventional power grids and also foster the transition towards a carbon-neutral and eco-friendly water desalination process. Furthermore, the integration of redox flow batteries with desalination technologies enhances system efficiency and reliability.

The inherent ability of redox flow batteries to store excess energy during periods of abundance and discharge it during peak demand aligns seamlessly with the fluctuating energy requirements of desalination processes.

“The success of this project is attributed to the ingenuity and perseverance of Stephen Akwei Maclean, the paper’s first author and a NYU Tandon Ph.D. candidate in chemical and biomolecular engineering,” said Taylor. “He demonstrated exceptional skill by designing the system architecture using advanced 3D printing technology available at the NYU Maker Space.”

Schematic for a four-channel RFD in single-pass mode with an A/A*, representing electrochemical reactions of redox species dissolved in conducting salts solutions, and channels separated by cation-exchange membrane (CEM) and anion-exchange membrane (AEM). Image Credit: NYU Tandon. For more information and more images including a batch and single pass mode schematics click the study paper link for the open access paper.

The intricacies of the system involve the division of incoming seawater into two streams: the salinating stream (Image above, CH 2) and the desalinating stream (Image above, CH 3). Two additional channels house the electrolyte and redox molecule (Image above, A). These channels are effectively separated by either a cation exchange membrane (CEM) or an anion exchange membrane (AEM).

In CH 4, electrons are supplied from the cathode to the redox molecule, extracting Na+ that diffuses from CH 3. The redox molecule and Na+ are then transported to CH 4, where electrons are supplied to the anode from the redox molecules, and Na+ is allowed to diffuse into CH 2. Under this overall potential, Cl- ions move from CH 3 through the AEM to CH 2, forming the concentrated brine stream.

Consequently, CH 3 generates the freshwater stream.

“We can control the incoming seawater residence time to produce drinkable water by operating the system in a single pass or batch mode,” said Maclean.

In the reverse operation, where the brine and freshwater are mixed, the stored chemical energy can be converted into renewable electricity. In essence, RFD systems can serve as a unique form of “battery,” capturing excess energy stored from solar and wind sources. This stored energy can be released on demand, providing a versatile and sustainable supplement to other electricity sources when needed.

The dual functionality of the RFD system showcases its potential not only in desalination but also as an innovative contributor to renewable energy solutions.

While further research is warranted, the findings from the NYU Tandon team signal a promising avenue towards a more cost-effective RFD process – a critical advancement in the global quest for increased potable water.

As climate change and population growth intensify, more regions grapple with water shortages, underscoring the significance of innovative and efficient desalination methods.

This research aligns seamlessly with the mission of DC-MUSE (Decarbonizing Chemical Manufacturing Using Sustainable Electrification), a collaborative initiative established at NYU Tandon.

DC-MUSE is committed to advancing research activities that diminish the environmental impact of chemical processes through the utilization of renewable energy.

The current study builds upon Taylor’s extensive body of work in renewable energy, with a recent emphasis on storing sustainably produced energy for utilization during off-peak hours.

In addition to Taylor and Maclean, the dedicated team of NYU Tandon researchers contributing to this study includes Syed Raza, Hang Wang, Chiamaka Igbomezie, Jamin Liu, Nathan Makowski, Yuanyuan Ma, Yaxin Shen, and Jason A. Röhrl. Collaborating across borders, Guo-Ming Weng from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China also played a crucial role as a team member.

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Potable or drinking water is for the developed world essentially a seldom considered topic of concern. But for billions of people clean safe drinking water is a daily worry. Where daily food and water supplies are a constant concern this kind of research is of great importance.

There isn’t a lot of information on the electrical demands beyond including the renewable interest. One has to be careful though, as the demand might be quite substantial and have a slowing or stop effect to utilization. Coming up with electrical power for most of the world remains a huge endeavor.

But if this technology can do double duty in storage of energy and produce potable water the value to a society surely doubles – if not more. This might be seen as a breakthrough technology someday.

The article reporting the new work has been published in Science.

When cooled to a critical temperature, superconductors can conduct electricity without resistance or energy loss. These materials have intrigued physicists for decades because they can achieve a state of perfect conductivity allowing an electric current to flow indefinitely. But most superconductors only exhibit this peculiarity at temperatures so low – a few degrees above absolute zero – which renders them impractical.

The report describes experiments that grew out of theoretical calculations that included those by a Rutgers team led by Jedediah Pixley, a condensed matter theorist and an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences.

The experiments confirmed predictions by Pixley and Pavel Volkov, who at the time was a postdoctoral fellow at the Rutgers Center for Materials Theory. These predictions, based on mathematical models Pixley and Volkov (now at the University of Connecticut) devised to represent the underlying quantum physical behavior, projected how cuprate superconductors would behave if they were placed in proximity in specific configurations and at varying angles.

Superconductor Fabrication Process. A. BSCCO is identified and gold contacts pre-evaporated next to it. B. Cold PDMS is quickly pulled away, cleaving the crystal. C. Substrate is quickly rotated by θ, and top crystal is quickly re-assembled with the bottom. D. Assembly is warmed to -35° C, and PDMS slowly removed. E. Top contacts on bottom crystal deposited. Image Credit: Rutgers University. For more info the reporting paper is behind a paywall. However much can be learned from the supplemental materials available at this link.

Superconductors are already in use today. Since the 1970s, scientists have employed superconducting magnets to generate the powerful magnetic fields needed for the operation of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines. Maglev trains using the technology were introduced in the 1980s. More recently, scientists have harnessed the power of superconducting magnets to guide electron beams in experimental devices such as synchrotrons and accelerators.

In the future, scientists envision a world where ultra-efficient electricity grids, ultrafast and energy-efficient computer chips, and even quantum computers are powered by new kinds of superconducting materials.

The new experiments that validated Pixley’s and Volkov’s ideas were conducted by a team at Harvard University led by professor and physicist Philip Kim.

Pixley explained, “We took two cuprate superconductors – materials that already were interesting – and, in placing them together and twisting them in a precise way, made something else that was very interesting: another superconductor which could have lots of technological applications.”

Because of its unique properties, the new superconductor is a promising candidate for the world’s first high-temperature, superconducting diode, essentially a switch that controls the flow of electrical current, the researchers said.

Such a device could potentially fuel fledgling industries such as quantum computing, which rely on fleeting phenomena produced in materials like superconductors, they added.

Pixley, who joined the Rutgers faculty in 2017, earned his doctoral degree by studying the conditions involved in producing superconductivity in unconventional materials. The latest research extends the field of “twistronics,” which involves twisting flat layers of two-dimensional materials to produce physical effects at the subatomic level that are observable on the macroscopic scale.

To Pixley, the study enlarges the paradigm of what materials can exhibit superconducting properties when twisted. The work yields other insights, as well. “At the same time, we have found that this leads to a novel type of ‘magnetic’ superconducting state that has been long sought after, showing definitively that different superconducting phases can be reached via a twist,” he said.

The experimentalists first split an extremely thin film of a superconductive cuprate – nicknamed “BSCCO” and made of bismuth strontium calcium copper oxide – into two layers. Then, maintaining frigid conditions, they stacked the layers at a 45-degree twist, like an ice cream sandwich with askew wafers, retaining superconductivity at the fragile interface.

Cuprates are copper oxides that, decades ago, upended the physics world by showing they become superconducting at much higher temperatures than theorists had thought possible. BSCCO is considered a high-temperature superconductor because it starts superconducting at about -288 Fahrenheit. That is very cold by practical standards, but astonishingly high among classical superconductors, which typically must be cooled to about -400 Fahrenheit.

The work opens the door to more experiments, Pixley said.

“It will be very exciting to extend these experiments to other configurations of superconductors – twisted monolayers and a few twisted multilayers of superconductors at small twist angles,” Pixley said.

Other researchers on the study included scientists from the University of British Columbia, Brookhaven National Laboratory, the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research in Germany, Seoul National University in South Korea and the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan.

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Perhaps the superconductor effort is going to get practical. Minus 288º F is more than one hundred degrees Fahrenheit closer to practical. Maybe 250 degrees warmer would do the trick. It would certainly get closer to practical refrigeration. Getting to about a minus 30º F is way less expensive in equipment and energy than trying to get to -288º.

The big news is that the innovation in construction has made quite a leap forward. Now there are two ideas to research, the materials and the build design. One is inclined to think superconductivity will get practical someday.

Water electrolysis utilizing renewable energy sources is emerging as a promising clean method for hydrogen production. But the water electrolysis method, a promising avenue for hydrogen production, relies on substantial freshwater consumption, thereby limiting the regions available with water resources required for water electrolysis. Therefore, it is imperative to develop a new technology for water electrolysis that can directly harness the abundant supply of seawater.

The paper reporting the results has been published as “Durable high-entropy non-noble metal anodes for neutral seawater electrolysis” in the Chemical Engineering Journal.

During seawater electrolysis, the anode reaction generates oxygen from water, chlorine gas, and hypochlorous acid from chloride ions.

Precious metal electrodes, such as platinum oxide, ruthenium oxide, and iridium oxide, which are unaffected by chlorine, are widely used as anode electrodes.

Although precious metals are undesirable as electrodes for the widespread seawater electrolysis technology, non-noble metals, which are highly reactive with chloride ions, cannot be employed for durable anodes.

A graphical illustration of multi-elemental alloy electrode composed of nine non-noble metal elements. Image Credit: University of Tsukuba. There is an expanded abstract at Chemical Engineering Journal. However the full study is behind a paywall.

The research group developed a multi-elemental alloy electrode composed of nine non-noble metal elements and conducted an accelerated degradation test, consisting of turning the power supply on and off, which mainly caused degradation during the operation of the water electrolysis system.

The results suggest sustained anode performances for over a decade when powered by solar energy.

The anode made of this alloy requires higher voltages than that of the precious metal, such as iridium oxide. However, this anode offers direct seawater electrolysis without using fresh water. This innovation is expected to transcend geographical restrictions owing to the availability of fresh water, thereby promoting hydrogen production in regions abundant with renewable energy, such as coastal desert areas.

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This research may well encourage more hydrogen production. There is an abundance of seawater, wind and sunshine and a deep cost cut from the precious metal problem could well incite much more attention.

The bugs, such as more voltage, aren’t really clear and even the study paper isn’t making a quick illustrative comparison. But the paper is showing 6000 cycles and a 100-hour life span.

So there looks like some market legs are under this research.  Trials look to be a very good idea.