Infrastructure and Consumer Goods

The NIST Materials Data Curation System (MDCS) provides a means for capturing, sharing, and transforming materials data into a structured format that is XML based amenable to transformation to other formats. The data are organized using user-selected templates encoded in XML Schema. These templates are used to create data entry forms. The documents are saved in a non-relational (NoSQL) database, namely MongoDB. The data can be searched and retrieved via several means: by a template-driven web-based form, by a SPARQL endpoint query, and by a RESTful API call.

Sourcing sufficient quantities of precursor chemicals at the appropriate purity can be a major challenge for scaling up production of advanced materials containing critical and/or strategic elements (many of which are imported). The USGS Minerals Program has been applying several innovative technologies for in-situ quantification of the amounts and forms of critical and/or strategic metals in potential domestic sources including historic ores, unconventional mineral deposits, and various types of solid and liquid waste streams.

A team of researchers in the USGS Minerals Program is improving and expanding the available methods for direct quantification of hexavalent chromium [Cr(VI)] in solids using innovative techniques. Synchrotron-based X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) is currently the best available technique for direct quantification of Cr(VI) in solids at trace (ppm) levels and in phases lacking long-range atomic order. The USGS group has developed semi-automated peak-fitting methods to overcome user bias in this approach to quantifying Cr(VI).

The development of a materials innovation infrastructure (MII) that will enable rapid and significant reductions in the development time for new materials with improved properties is a critical element of the Materials Genome Initiative (MGI). Within this infrastructure materials data and modeling tools will be integrated to optimize material properties for a given set of design criteria. Case studies will be used to determine which data structure and tools need to be implemented to facilitate efficient advanced materials design and establish standards for the MII. This project highlights a materials design approach to the design of a high temperature cobalt-based superalloys for the aerospace and power generation industries.

Currently in the aerospace industry it takes approximately 18 months to design a part, but it can take over 10 years to design the ideal material from which to make the designed part. The goal of this project is to dramatically reduce the time to design a new material for a specific application. For the specific case study of a new class of γ/γ´ Cobalt-based superalloys, the two most important design criteria are:

• Increased homologous operating temperature (> 50 degrees higher that current Ni-based superalloys), which will increase the turbine engine efficiency and thus decrease fuel consumption and emissions.
• Increased wear resistance, which will increase the service life of the engine and lower operational costs.

The DOE EERE Fuel Cell Technologies Office maintains a publicly accessible database of the material properties of hydrogen storage materials (adsorbents, chemicals, and reversible hydrides). The database collects information from experimentation and computational models developed both with and without DOE funding, with the intent of accelerating the development of hydrogen storage materials.

A team of researchers from the Air Force Research Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Carnegie Mellon University, Petra III (Germany), PulseRay, and Cornell University have developed a revolutionary experimental capability using high energy synchrotron x-ray techniques to non-destructively measure the internal structure and micro-mechanical state of deforming polycrystalline solids.