(AGENPARL) – ven 08 marzo 2024 A weekly compendium of media reports on science and technology achievements
at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Though the Laboratory reviews
items for overall accuracy, the reporting organizations are responsible for
the content in the links below.
….. LLNL Report, March 8, 2024
Left to right: Keith Morrison, Jason Moore, Keo Springer, Keith Coffee and
Batikan Koroglu stand in front of the cryo-focused pyrolysis GC-MS (gas
chromatography mass spectrometer). The team used this instrument to capture
and cryo (liquid nitrogen) trap the gases that evolve from high explosives as
they thermally decompose. Photo by Blaise Douros/LLNL.
… Hot stuff

A new thermal pathway for a high explosive

TATB (1,3,5-triamino-2,4,6-trinitrobenzene) is an important explosive
compound because of its extensive use in munitions and worldwide weapons
systems. Despite its importance, researchers have been trying to understand
its response to temperature extremes for the past 50 years.
A Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) team has uncovered a new
thermal decomposition pathway for TATB that has a significant bearing on
computational models that predict the energy release and thermal behavior of
TATB and possibly other insensitive high explosives (IHEs).
TATB is widely viewed as the most stable IHE, as it is not easily detonated
by external stimuli. It does not undergo the thermal sequence of
deflagration-to-detonation, which is unique among explosives. It requires a
proper detonation chain to initiate, so handling the material is relatively
free from accidental initiation if proper safety methods are followed.
One aspect of this safety envelope is how the material responds to
temperature extremes; whether this material becomes more sensitive and is no
longer safe to handle when subjected to abnormal thermal environments.
“Our goal with this project was to understand the behavior experimentally
to construct computational models predicting behavior for any thermal
exposure conditions,” said LLNL scientist Keith Morrison.
Read More

A new thermal pathway for a high explosive

Hydrogen is one of the smallest elements but may hold a big promise for clean
energy. Photo courtesy of USGS.
… Hunting for hydrogen underground
https://ciphernews.com/articles/a-treasure-hunt-for-underground-hydrogen-is-on/
U.S. Energy Department Secretary Jennifer Granholm calls clean hydrogen the
“‘Swiss Army Knife’ of zero-carbon solutions because it can do just
about everything.” But producing hydrogen with current technologies takes a
lot of energy and is carbon intensive. Geologic hydrogen could sidestep both
obstacles, which could ultimately reduce costs.
Last month was particularly busy on this front: In early February, the Energy
Department announced it was investing $20 million into 16 projects related to
naturally occurring hydrogen.
While tracking down existing geologic hydrogen resources is a first
challenge, the $20 million in Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy
funding is going toward researching how to accelerate and stimulate the
natural geochemical process by which it is made. Not all reserves of
naturally occurring hydrogen are going to be accessible and at concentrations
economically viable to extract, so helping these natural processes along
would increase the quantity of hydrogen we can get out of the ground.
Maria Gabriela Davila Ordonez, a research scientist and chemical engineer at
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has received Energy Department funds
to research how to stimulate hydrogen production where it is not currently
happening by injecting specific organic acids underground.
“One of our main impacts for this project will be analyzing or quantifying
the change in the physical properties in the rock,” Davila Ordonez said.
Read More
https://ciphernews.com/articles/a-treasure-hunt-for-underground-hydrogen-is-on/
Jennifer Pett-Ridge speaks at the Roads to Removal symposium at UC Merced.
Photo courtesy of UC Merced.
… Fighting climate change, one symposium at a time
https://news.ucmerced.edu/news/2024/roads-removal-symposium-looks-opportunities-fight-climate-change
Discussions around climate change often center around the bad news — the
planet is warming, weather is getting more extreme, resources are
increasingly scarce. But there also is cause for hope. There are options to
mitigate climate change, and some of them are already happening.
This was the message behind “Roads to Removal,” a symposium at UC Merced
based on the report by the same name. The report was commissioned by the
Department of Energy and produced by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
(LLNL) in conjunction with scientists from more than a dozen institutions
across the nation, including UC Merced. Symposiums around the country will
continue throughout the year.
Roughly 175 people from academia, science, agriculture and business attended
the symposium, the first of several planned to highlight what can be done in
specific areas of the United States to reduce global warming.
The federal government has set a goal to reach net-zero emissions by
decarbonizing the economy, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and
storing at least a billion tonnes — a metric ton — a year by 2050. “Roads
to Removal” is aimed at determining how much carbon dioxide can be removed
and at what cost. The UC Merced event focused on soils, cropland and
management; direct air capture; geologic storage; and biomass carbon removal
and storage..
“We can use technology that we know works today to remove carbon, and in the
process create hundreds of thousands of jobs,” said Jennifer Pett-Ridge, a
senior staff scientist at LLNL and adjunct professor at UC Merced who is the
lead author of the report. “We need to weigh how these new approaches to
reducing carbon are going to affect our lives.”
Read More
https://news.ucmerced.edu/news/2024/roads-removal-symposium-looks-opportunities-fight-climate-change
An artist’s view of small-diameter carbon nanotubes that pass through water
molecules (red and white) and reject ions (blue). High permselectivity of
small-diameter nanotubes can enable advanced water desalination technologies.
illustration concept: A. Noy, T. A. Pham, Y. Li, Z. Li, F. Aydin (LLNL).
Illustration by Ella Maru Studios.
… Looking deep into the smallest pores
https://smartwatermagazine.com/news/karlsruhe-institute-technology-kit/cleaning-or-desalinating-water-quickly-looking-deep-smallest
Membranes of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (VaCNT) can be used to clean
or desalinate water at high flow rate and low pressure. Recently, researchers
of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Lawrence Livermore carried out
steroid hormone adsorption experiments to study the interplay of forces in
the small pores. They found that VaCNT of specific pore geometry and pore
surface structure are suited for use as highly selective membranes.
Clean drinking water is of vital importance to all people worldwide.
Membranes are used to efficiently remove micropollutants, such as steroid
hormones that are harmful to health and the environment. A very promising
membrane material is made of (VaCNT)s.
In experiments with steroid micropollutants, IAMT researchers studied why
VaCNT membranes are perfect water filters. They used membranes produced by
the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The membranes were
developed by Francesco Fornasiero and his team at LLNL. The experiments with
the micropollutants were carried out and evaluated using latest analytical
instruments at IAMT
The study was the first to focus on the interplay of hydrodynamic forces,
friction and forces of attraction and repulsion. It provides basic findings
with respect to water processing. These may benefit ultra- and nanofiltration
processes controlled by nanopores.
Read More
https://smartwatermagazine.com/news/karlsruhe-institute-technology-kit/cleaning-or-desalinating-water-quickly-looking-deep-smallest
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