In what areas of clean energy could PSFC research potentially be applied?
Nuclear fusion
Capabilities
- Cyclotron proton source
- Magnetohydrodynamic modeling for fusion breeder blanket design
- High-field magnet design
Needs
- Understanding materials degradation in a deuterium-tritium fusion environment
- Low-activation materials
- RF heating systems
- Tritium accountancy and accountability
Power grid
Capabilities
Needs
- Low-loss transmission lines for power grid
- Transformers
- Better fault current limiters for power grid
Geothermal energy
Capabilities
- Gyrotron drilling
Needs
- Cements that cure at high temperatures
- Explosives that work at high temperatures
- Drilling electronics that operate at high temperatures
- Seismic methods for measuring permeability and fluid mobility in the lithosphere
- Real-time monitoring technologies for drilling, stimulation and heat extraction in deep geothermal
Nuclear fission
Capabilities
Needs
- Extending nuclear plant lifetimes
- Processing transuranic elements in nuclear fission waste (e.g. by transmuting them using neutron beams)
- Materials testing and characterization services
Waste treatment
Capabilities
- Leslie Bromberg and Daniel R Cohn have worked a lot in this area!
Needs
- Maybe plasma-based waste treatment technologies, such as plasma gasification or pyrolysis, can help convert various waste streams, including municipal solid waste or hazardous materials, into valuable products like syngas or recoverable metals.
Energy storage
- Better flywheels for grid stabilization
- Superconducting magnetic energy storage systems
- I’m not aware of anybody working on this at PSFC..
More efficient power generation
Capabilities
- Better turbine materials, e.g. using Silicon carbide or High‐Resolution Spatially-Graded Additive Manufacturing
Hydrogen
Capabilities
- Tungsten fuzz as a high-surface area catalytic surface
- Perhaps PSFC has expertise in plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) or plasma-assisted surface modification?
Needs
- These could enable the production of high-performance materials with improved properties, such as enhanced energy storage materials, durable coatings, or efficient catalyst.
Adaptation and resiliency
Capabilities
Unknown
Needs
Many
Space
- Ion propulsion systems that can withstand solar wind damage in space
- Electronics that can sustain Single Event Effects in space
- A compact (1-10 kW) magnetoplasmadynamic thruster
Other
- Quantum computing (e.g. Squeegee cooling)
- Medical (e.g. Portable MRI for ambulatory medical diagnostics)