We are pleased to announce the publication of “A Model for the Nation: Promoting Education and Innovation in Vermont’s Electricity Sector,” a 70-page report summarizing the activities and outcomes of our Vermont-Sandia partnership’s initial year.

This document speaks to the broad collaborative effort involved, to the strong and enduring partnership, now formally known as the Center for Energy Transformation and Innovation, that has emerged from this initial year, and to our common belief that a more sustainable energy future, with Vermont as a national model of energy innovation and grid transformation, is possible.

For more Vermont-Sandia Partnership information, contact Laurie Burnham.

Sandia ear-plug-sized samplers, with silvery microvalves and solder connectors, seemingly hang poised to sample gases relevant to climate and weather. The prototype devices actually rest on a mirror, reflecting the day’s Albuquerque weather. (Photo by Randy Montoya)

Each sampling container is only about the size of an earplug, and incorporates a chamber made from commonly available alumina alloy, that is topped with a tough, inexpensive microvalve. An electric pulse (provided by an external source) causes that valve to open, drawing the necessary volume of air into the chamber within a few seconds, through an opening with a diameter close to that of three human hairs.

A tiny hotplate built into the top of the chamber then heats the alloy adjacent to that opening. Because alumina is a type of solder, it liquefies, filling in the opening. Once the melted solder cools and resolidifies, the air is sealed inside the chamber. It can stay in there indefinitely, until the sampler is opened at a laboratory for analysis. The alloy doesn’t off-gas at all, so the sample inside the chamber should remain uncorrupted.

Read the rest of the article and analysis at Product Design and Development, Azosensors.com (the A to Z of sensors), bits of science, or gizmag.com. Read the Sandia news release. Sandia news media contact: Neal Singer, 505-845-7078.

April 2 was the deadline for entries; according to Alda and the Center for Communicating Science, which is hosting the challenge, 822 entries have been sent in from all over the world. Submissions will be screened by scientists for accuracy, then sent to over 130 schools where they will be judged by 11-year-olds. The winner will be announced at the World Science Festival in New York City in early June.

Of course, we have our own choice for the winning entry! Check it out here!
 

The Flame Challenge from Tomoji Mangus on Vimeo.

Sandia has decades of experience developing and improving wind-turbine technology. It performed extensive R&D on vertical-axis wind turbines in the 1970s and 80s.

While one might be tempted by headlines to assume that wind-energy-related activity in the U.S. will come to a screeching halt at the end of the year, with the seemingly almost certain expiration of the federal production tax credit, that temptation would lead you astray.

At least, that was the suggestion that grew out of a recent conversation between Renewable Energy Magazine and Josh Paquette of Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Sandia is one the United States’ foremost research facilities when it comes to the future of wind energy, and Paquette is the laboratory’s Task Leader for Laboratory and Field Testing of Wind Turbine Blades.

When REM caught up with him, Paquette was running between meetings on various ongoing research projects. One was with a study group called the blade reliability collaborative, a research team that is looking at the intersection of materials and manufacturing, and how materials get put into wind turbine blades. At the same time the group is taking a hard look at the reliability of blades that are currently coming out of the factory and during their operational life.

Another of the meetings on Paquette’s busy schedule involved a long-term project where we are looking into the feasibility of putting very large, floating, vertical- axis wind turbines in the offshore environment off the U.S. coast.

Read the rest of the article at Renewable Energy Magazine.

The MetIL’s cation complex evenly distributes its net charge across its surface—like a soccer ball has evenly spaced white/black panels. Because of this symmetrical charge distribution, no two complexes can come close enough to each other to initiate ion pairing/solid formation, but they can easily capture, release, and exchange electrons.

A flow battery is a rechargeable energy storage device that pumps a solution of charged metals dissolved in an electrolyte through a membrane to convert chemical energy into electricity. Flow batteries can be rapidly “recharged” by replacing the electrolyte liquid while simultaneously recovering the spent material for external recharging.

Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have discovered a new family of metal-based liquid salt electrolytes, for use in just such flow batteries. The electrochemically reversible metal-based ionic liquids (MetILs) could lead to batteries packed with 3–10 times the energy density of other available storage technologies. The main innovation is the use of a nonaqueous electrolyte which does not need to be dissolved in a solvent—it is its own solvent. The Sandia team has invented a method for synthesizing MetILs from low-cost materials that contain transition metal atoms.

The research, published in Dalton Transactions, might lead to devices that can help economically and reliably incorporate large-scale intermittent renewable energy generation, like solar and wind, into the nation’s electric grid.

The grid was designed for steady power sources, making fluctuating electricity from intermittent renewable energy generation difficult to accommodate. Better energy-storage techniques help even out the flow of such fluctuating sources, and Sandia researchers are studying new ways to develop a more flexible, cost-effective and reliable electric grid with improved energy storage.

Read the rest of the article at EnergyDaily.com.

Read the article at R&D Magazine.

Read the Sandia news release. Sandia news media contact: Stephanie Hobby, (505) 844-0948.

Read the rest of the article at Electro IQ.

Link to the review in Nature Nanotechnology.

The Z Accelerator at Sandia National Laboratories. Thicknesses of the aluminum and quartz drive plates and water samples were a few hundred microns; the rear quartz window was a few millimeters thick.

When squeezed to pressures and temperatures like those inside giant planets, water molecules are less squeezable than anticipated, defying a set of decades-old equations used to describe watery behavior over a range of conditions.

Studying how molecules behave in such environments will help scientists better understand the formation and composition of ice giants like Uranus and Neptune, as well as those being spotted in swarms by planet hunters. The new work, which appears in the March 2 Physical Review Letters, also suggests that textbooks about planetary interiors and magnetic fields may need reworking.

In the lab, scientists generated pressures reaching 700 gigapascals—almost 7 million times the atmospheric pressure at the Earth’s surface—using the Z machine, an accelerator at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M. “It really is a regime that we don’t experience in our lives,” says planetary scientist Jonathan Fortney of the University of California, Santa Cruz. “Even at the bottom of the ocean.”

Scientists from Sandia, Harvard University, the University of Rostock (Germany), and the University of California-Santa Cruz collaborated on this research.

Read the rest of the article at Science News.

Read the abstract at Physical Review Letters.

Khalifa University hosted the opening of the 2012 Gulf Nuclear Energy Infrastructure Institute

Khalifa University has hosted the opening of the Gulf Nuclear Energy Infrastructure Institute (GNEII) 2012 Fellows. The four-module, sixteen-week course includes 20 students from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.

GNEII national stakeholders represent Khalifa University, Critical National Infrastructure Authority (CNIA), Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC), and Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR).

The course will be carried out in partnership with Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia), Nuclear Security Science and Policy Institute (NSSPI) at Texas A&M University in the U.S., and Khalifa University. GNEII’s Fundamentals Course offers a comprehensive curriculum designed to build a broad knowledge base among course participants and ensures familiarity with the important topics of nuclear safety, safeguards, and security.

Read the rest of the article at AME Info.com.

Sandia's Anthony Lentine with the smart outlet. (Photo by Randy Montoya)

Sandia National Laboratories has developed an experimental “smart outlet” that autonomously measures, monitors and controls electrical loads with no connection to a centralized computer or system. The goal of the smart outlet and similar innovations is to make the power grid more distributed and intelligent, capable of reconfiguring itself as conditions change.

Decentralizing power generation and controls would allow the grid to evolve into a more collaborative and responsive collection of microgrids, which could function individually as an island or collectively as part of a hierarchy or other organized system.

Read the rest of the article at R&D Magazine.

Read about this at Engadget.com and FellowGeek.com.

Sandia's Jonathan Zimmerman demonstrates the nanowires' properties using EnSight and provides 3-D renderings of the results.

Simulation plays a critical role in design—even in very, very, very, small structures. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories are performing simulations at microscopic levels (with help from CEI’s EnSight software) in order to predict the performance of nanowires.

Nanowire performance is affected by deformities in the wires. Researcher Jonathan Zimmerman and others at Sandia perform simulations to predict those deformities, when the wires will fail and by which physical mechanisms, and how nanowire geometry influences the failure process.

Read the rest of the article at Engineering on the Edge.

The Sandia booth at the ARPA-E summit provides materials on our many energy-innovation projects—conducted in partnership with industry—to improve energy generation, transmission, storage, and distribution.

Sandia has more than a dozen scientists and managers attending and participating in the ARPA-E summit‘s sessions and events. A recent highlight was the on-stage discussion between Energy Secretary Stephen Chu and Bill Gates, who is now involved in several energy innovation ventures, on how America can meet and prosper from 21st century global energy challenges.

During their 45-minute conversation, they touched on many energy innovation topics (e.g., grid-scale energy storage, integrating renewable energy generation into the grid, 4th generation nuclear designs, solar thermal storage, solar-to-chemical-energy conversion, and how analysis tools such as high-performance computing simulation can support innovation in these areas) that have a home at Sandia, both under the auspices of ARPA-E and through other DOE sponsorship.

Their talk also covered system-scale issues like diversity in generation portfolio, managing long-distance transmission and local generation and storage, and incorporating energy efficiency and combined heat and power—also areas where Sandia excels and contributes to the national research portfolio.

Chemical technologist Harry Pratt synthesizes a copper-based ionic liquid. (Photo by Randy Montoya)

Sandia researchers have developed a new family of liquid salt electrolytes, known as metal-based ionic liquids (MetILs), that could lead to batteries able to cost-effectively store three times more energy than today’s batteries. The research, published in Dalton Transactions, might lead to devices that can help economically and reliably incorporate large-scale intermittent renewable energy sources, like solar and wind, into the nation’s electric grid.

The grid was designed for steady power sources, making fluctuating electricity from intermittent renewable energy difficult to accommodate. Better energy storage techniques help even out the flow of such fluctuating sources, and Sandia researchers are studying new ways to develop a more flexible, cost-effective, and reliable electric grid with improved energy storage.

Sandia researchers have discovered a new family of liquid salt electrolytes that could lead to batteries with three times greater energy density. The MetILs are, from left to right: copper-based compound, cobalt-based compound, manganese-based compound, iron-based compound, nickel-based compound, and vanadium-based compound. (Photo by Randy Montoya)

“The U.S. and the world need significant breakthroughs in battery technology for renewable energy sources to replace today’s carbon-based energy systems,” said Anthony Medina, director of Sandia’s Energetic Components Realization program. “MetILs are a new, promising battery chemistry that might provide the next generation of stationary storage battery technology, replacing lead-acid and lithium-ion batteries and providing significantly higher energy storage density for these applications.”

This story has been picked up by multiple media outlets across the country.

Read the article at CleanTechnica.com.

Read the article at Azom.com.

Read the article at PhysOrg.com.

Read the article at ScienceCodex.com.

Sandia news media contact: Stephanie Hobby, (505) 844-0948.

Sandia researcher Geoff Klise worked with Solar Power Electric™ to develop a tool that can be used to appraise photovoltaic installations on homes and businesses. (Photo by Randy Montoya)

Consistent appraisals of homes and businesses outfitted with photovoltaic (PV) installations are a real challenge for the nation’s real estate industry, but a new tool developed by Sandia National Laboratories and Solar Power Electric™ and licensed by Sandia addresses that issue. Sandia scientists, in partnership with Jamie Johnson of Solar Power Electric™, have developed PV Value^TM, an electronic form to standardize appraisals. Funded by the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the tool will provide appraisers, real estate agents, and mortgage underwriters with more accurate values for PV systems.

Read the rest of the article at SolarServer.

Read the article at Solar Industry magazine.

The suitcase-like handle are the two nanowires, one above the other. The darkest areas are gallium arsenide crystal. The two lighter areas in the shape of “plus” signs are gold gates at the top and bottom of the device. (Sandia scanning electron microscope image)

Unexpected voltage increases of up to 25 percent in two barely separated nanowires have been observed at Sandia National Laboratories. Designers of next-generation devices using nanowires to deliver electric currents—including telephones, handheld computers, batteries and certain solar arrays—may need to make allowances for such surprise boosts.

“People have been working on nanowires for 20 years,” says Sandia lead researcher Mike Lilly. “At first, you study such wires individually or all together, but eventually you want a systematic way of studying the integration of nanowires into nanocircuitry. That’s what’s happening now. It’s important to know how nanowires interact with each other rather than with regular wires.”

Read the rest of the article at ScienceDaily.

Read the abstract in the December 2011 issue of Nature Nanotechnology.

This illustration of a metal-organic framework (MOF) shows the metal center bound to organic molecules. Each MOF has a specific framework determined by the choice of metal and organic. Sandia chemists identified a MOF whose pore size and high surface area can separate and trap radioactive iodine molecules from a stream of spent nuclear fuel. (Credit: Sandia National Laboratories)

Research by a team of Sandia chemists could impact worldwide efforts to produce clean, safe nuclear energy and reduce radioactive waste. The Sandia researchers have used metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) to capture and remove volatile radioactive gas from spent nuclear fuel. “This is one of the first attempts to use a MOF for iodine capture,” said chemist Tina Nenoff of Sandia’s Surface and Interface Sciences Department.

The discovery could be applied to nuclear fuel reprocessing or to clean up nuclear reactor accidents. A characteristic of nuclear energy is that used fuel can be reprocessed to recover fissile materials and provide fresh fuel for nuclear power plants. Countries such as France, Russia, and India are reprocessing spent fuel.

The process also reduces the volume of high-level wastes, a key concern of the Sandia researchers. “The goal is to find a methodology for highly selective separations that result in less waste being interred,” Nenoff said.

Read the rest of the article at ScienceDaily.

Read the “Trapping Guests within a Nanoporous Metal-Organic Framework through Pressure-Induced Amorphization,” abstract or the “Capture of Volatile Iodine, a Gaseous Fission Product, by Zeolitic Imidazolate Framework-8,” abstract at Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to discuss President Obama’s blueprint for an American economy built to last – a blueprint which includes support for energy innovation and advanced manufacturing. His visit included a tour of Sandia National Laboratories’ National Solar Thermal Test Facility, newly upgraded with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu engaged in a dialogue and answered questions from members of the Sandia workforce during a town hall meeting. (Photo by Randy Montoya)

Read the story posted at the DOE website.

Sandia combustion researchers Craig Taatjes and David Osborn discuss data found from the detection and measurement of Criegee intermediate reactions. The apparatus seen on the left was used to make the measurements, which researchers believe will substantially impact existing atmospheric chemistry. (Photo by Dino Vournas)

In a breakthrough paper published in the January 13, 2012, issue of Science magazine, researchers from Sandia’s Combustion Research Facility, the University of Manchester, and Bristol University report direct measurements of reactions of a gas-phase Criegee intermediate using photoionization mass spectrometry. (Click here to see a short video of Sandia combustion chemists discussing the research.)

Criegee intermediates—carbonyl oxides—are implicated in autoignition chemistry and are pivotal atmospheric reactants, but only indirect knowledge of their reaction kinetics had previously been available. The article, titled “Direct kinetic measurements of Criegee intermediate (CH₂OO) formed by reaction of CH₂I with O₂,” reports the first direct kinetics measurements made of reactions of any Criegee species, in this case formaldehyde oxide (CH₂OO). These measurements determine rate coefficients with key species, such as sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), and provide new insight into the reactivity of these transient molecules.

The team’s kinetics results indicate a much greater role of carbonyl oxides in tropospheric sulfate and nitrate chemistry than models had assumed, a conclusion that will substantially impact existing atmospheric chemistry mechanisms. This capability breakthrough was funded by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences (BES) within the Office of Science in the U.S. Department of Energy, and conducted using the Advanced Light Source, a scientific user facility supported by BES.

Read the Sandia news release.

Read the article abstract at Science magazine.

The University of Vermont will host the newly formed Center for Energy Transformation and Innovation, a joint center for research in areas such as energy efficiency, complex systems, consumer response and acceptance, and energy policy and governance.

Vermont—a leader in energy efficiency and deployment of so-called smart-grid technology—will become home to a $15 million national energy research project, officials announced Monday. The Center for Energy Transformation and Innovation will be housed at the University of Vermont.

The three-year project is a partnership among the state of Vermont, Sandia National Laboratories of New Mexico, UVM and other academic institutions, Vermont utility companies, and Efficiency Vermont—a statewide energy efficiency utility program.

Read the rest of the article at Businessweek.

Read the press release from Senator Bernie Sanders’ office.

View the video from Senator Bernie Sanders’ office

View the video from Governor Peter Shumlin’s office.

Switchgrass is a promising prospect for advanced biofuels because it grows rapidly on marginal agricultural land without fertilizers or other additives.

Many experts believe that advanced biofuels made from cellulosic biomass are the most promising alternative to petroleum-based liquid fuels for a renewable, clean, green, domestic source of transportation energy. Nature, however, does not make it easy. Unlike the starch sugars in grains, the complex polysaccharides in the cellulose of plant cell walls are locked within a tough woody material called lignin. For advanced biofuels to be economically competitive, scientists must find inexpensive ways to release these polysaccharides from their bindings and reduce them to fermentable sugars that can be synthesized into fuels.

An important step towards achieving this goal has been taken by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), a DOE Bioenergy Research Center led by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The JBEI researchers, working with researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service, have demonstrated that introducing a maize (corn) gene into switchgrass, a highly touted potential feedstock for advanced biofuels, more than doubles (250 percent) the amount of starch in the plant’s cell walls and makes it much easier to extract polysaccharides and convert them into fermentable sugars.

The gene, a variant of the maize gene known as Corngrass1 (Cg1), holds the switchgrass in the juvenile phase of development, preventing it from advancing to the adult phase. “We show that Cg1 switchgrass biomass is easier for enzymes to break down and also releases more glucose during saccharification,” says Sandia’s Blake Simmons, a chemical engineer who heads JBEI’s Deconstruction Division and was one of the principal investigators for this research.

Read the rest of the article at Bio Fuel Daily.