Energy and environment. A Sandia technology bulletin

The Planning and Staff Support of the Sandia National Laboratories publishes a monthly bulletin titled, Energy and Environment. The bulletin facilitates technology exchange with industries, universities, and with other government agencies. This bulletin is for the month of April 1992 and covers such things as new methods of soldering which reduces environmental threats by avoiding chlorofluorocarbon solvents. Some technologies developed are soldering in controlled atmospheres, acid-vapor soldering, and laser soldering. Another topic in this bulletin is the designing of catalysts of chemical reactions by computers. Biomimetic catalysts are being created by Computer-Aided Molecular Design. These biomimetic catalysts can aid in fuel conversion. In-situ remediation of soils contaminated by heavy metals was another topic in this bulletin. This in-situ process is called, electrokinetic remediation. It uses electrodes to induce a metal-attracting electric field in the ground. The last topic in this bulletin is the design of a semiconductor bridge (SCB) which is used to improve the timing and effectiveness of blasting. Timing and accuracy is important; and the blasting industry is no exception. This SCB gives a low-energy pulse which causes a doped region on a polysilicon substrate into a bright plasma. This plasma discharge causes the ignition and produces anmore » accurate explosion in microseconds. (MB)« less