How can spray foam insulation participate in the circular economy?

Spray foam insulation provides excellent thermal performance, but its end-of-life disposal remains a challenge. Currently, once spray foam has fully reacted and solidified, there is no viable way to recycle or repurpose it, as it must be reverted to a liquid state to be reintegrated into new formulations. Given the growing emphasis on sustainability and circular economy principles, we seek innovative solutions for repurposing, breaking down, or reprocessing spray foam waste. Are there chemical, mechanical, or biological methods that could help us reclaim materials from cured spray foam? How can we design formulations with end-of-life recyclability in mind while maintaining product performance?

How can we make our spray foam insulation more fire and smoke resistant?

Spray foam insulation must meet strict fire and smoke standards to be certified for use in buildings. While current formulations achieve compliance, there is an opportunity to improve fire and smoke resistance further, particularly as building codes and safety expectations evolve. We are interested in exploring alternative raw materials, novel additives, and chemical modifications that could enhance fire retardancy without compromising insulation performance, sustainability, or cost-effectiveness. Are there innovative approaches from other industries that could be applied to spray foam insulation? How do we balance safety, regulatory compliance, and environmental considerations in our material selection?

What are the primary mechanisms of gas generation in lithium-ion batteries at elevated temperatures, and how can electrolyte modifications mitigate its risks?

Gas evolution due to electrolyte decomposition and side reactions is a major safety risk in EVs. This question focuses on electrolyte additives, and thermal management solutions to reduce gas formation and enhance battery safety at elevated temperatures.

What are the most effective experimental and computational validation methods for AI-predicted solid-state electrolyte materials?

AI models can propose solid-state electrolyte candidates, but their performance must be validated through experiments and simulations. This question explores how electrochemical testing and molecular dynamics simulations can be combined for reliable validation.

What AI-guided strategies can improve the ionic conductivity, stability, and manufacturability of solid-state electrolytes for plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) batteries?

PHEVs require high-performance, safe, and long-cycle-life batteries. Solid-state electrolytes offer advantages, but scalability and manufacturability remain challenges. How to optimize material selection, synthesis parameters, and processing techniques to accelerate commercialization?

How can we predict creep of carbon steel as the system of nuclear storage waste undergoes glaciation, on a time scale of 100 000 – 1 000 000 years?

We are challenged to develop a safety case that radionuclides from the waste will not reach the earth surface from the deep geological repository location, which will be 500-800 m below surface. Because the hazard is long-lived, it is necessary to understand the system behaviour for hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Multiple barriers are used to maintain safety, including the engineered barriers (used fuel container and a clay-based sealing system), as well the fuel form itself (insoluble oxide fuel within a corrosion resistant cladding) and the host rock natural barrier. The waste storage structures contain carbon steel reinforcements, but our understanding of steel decay process on such long time scales is limited.

How can we improve the thermal conductivity of the bentonite used in nuclear waste storage structures without affecting its other properties to both gain confidence in its ongoing performance and potentially decrease the repository footprint?

Owing to radioactive decay of the used nuclear fuel within the container, there is an ongoing, decreasing emission of heat from the containers within the repository. The heat is transferred to the bentonite clay sealing system, a modest heat conductor, that slowly transfers the thermal energy to the host rock as it heats. Bentonite is a mixture of natural products, but the desirable constituent is montmorillonite, a clay that swells to self-seal the repository. One of the possible approaches is to enrich bentonite with montmorillonite, particularly sodium montmorillonite. We are interested to explore technical and economic feasibility of such approach.

How do we accurately characterize the size of branched hierarchically structured nanofibrils?

Characterizing the size of branched and hierarchically structured cellulosic micro/nano-fibrils is important for customers as well as for health and safety certifications. Traditional methods for measuring size, such as light scattering or microscopy techniques are not capable of providing absolute values for the size of a particle that may contain a relatively large ‘trunk’, with an array of branches and sub-branches attached along its length. These particles can have lengths of up to 1-2mm, with some regions having widths in the 10-30um range, but the branches and sub-branches having widths down to below 100nm. Because of this structure, values such as average particle diameter or average width do not represent the true characteristics of the material. Additionally, microscopy methods such as light microscopy can be used to image an entire particle but are not capable of visualizing/measuring the smaller fibrils, whereas SEM can be used to image the smaller fibrils, but at the expense of only imaging a small portion of the particle at any given time. It has been proposed that a technique for measuring the length-fraction or volume-fraction of the material with widths within certain ranges could be used to provide an accurate and useful characterization of the nanofibrillated cellulose. What techniques or methods could be used to provide an accurate and simple answer for the question: “How big are nanofibrillated cellulose particles”.

What are the issues facing the use of vanadium alloy and silicon carbide inside a fusion device, and how can these materials be optimized? Further, what other materials could be considered that have low neutron activation, neutron damage and embrittlement.

Stellarex is a nuclear fusion energy development company. We have materials issues related to the interaction of the thermonuclear plasma with the material inside wall of the reactor. The wall is subjected to 14 MeV neutrons and a flux of energetic ions with a broad energy spectrum. Our concerns for the materials of the wall include neutron damage, neutron activation and embrittlement from the hydrogen isotopes in the plasma. We are interested in innovative wall materials such as vanadium alloy and silicon carbide, but are concerned about the above issues. These materials have low levels of neutron activation.