The Oak Ridge National Laboratory will open its doors July 14-15 for its “Explore ORNL” conference designed to introduce the region’s business community to the lab’s world-class R&D facilities and expertise.
Hyundai Motor Company and the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have signed an agreement intended to strengthen the automaker’s U.S. research and development portfolio.
Biofuels pioneer Mascoma LLC and the Department of Energy's BioEnergy Science Center have developed a revolutionary strain of yeast that could help significantly accelerate the development of biofuels from nonfood plant matter.
Scientists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider started recording data from the highest-energy particle collisions achieved on Earth. This new data will enable an international collaboration to study the Higgs boson, search for dark matter and develop a more complete understanding of the laws of nature. Oak Ridge National Laboratory led an equipment upgrade for LHC’s A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE), which aims to learn more about conditions of the early universe.
An international team of researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Macquarie University, the University of Western Sydney and the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry set out to assess how two Free-Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) projects compared to eleven vegetation models that simulate various ecological processes. Instead of only benchmarking whether or not an individual model matched the experimental data, the researchers developed an “assumption-centered” approach to evaluate why certain models performed better than others.
Researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Washington State University and the University of Idaho have developed a process to make a thermoset that can be reshaped and reused. The new plastic is a shape-memory polymer, so named because the material can “remember” its original shape and return to it after being deformed with heat or other forces.
Cameron Roberts, a recent High Flux Isotope Reactor visiting research user, stands out from the usual queue of university academics, industry R&D staff, and DOE scientists—this user is a junior in high school.
One of the barriers to using graphene at a commercial scale could be overcome using a method demonstrated by researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Supercomputing resources at Oak Ridge National Laboratory will support a new initiative designed to advance how scientists digitally reconstruct and analyze individual neurons in the human brain.
Run-2 for the Large Hadron Collider—the world’s largest and most powerful particle collider—began April 5 at CERN. In preparation, Thomas M. Cormier, who leads the LHC Heavy Ion group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, led an upgrade of the electromagnetic calorimeter used for LHC’s experiment called ALICE (for A Large Ion Collider Experiment). This detector measures the energies of high-energy electrons and gamma rays emitted from the quark–gluon plasma.
A moth’s eye and lotus leaf were the inspirations for an antireflective water-repelling, or superhydrophobic, glass coating that holds significant potential for solar panels, lenses, detectors, windows, weapons systems and many other products.
ORNL scientists combined atomic force microscopy and mass spectrometry into one instrument that can probe a polymer sample in three dimensions and overlay information about the topography of its surface, the atomic-scale mechanical behavior of the bulk sample, and subsurface chemistry. Their results are published in ACS Nano.
While experimenting with a heat treatment process he modified by eliminating a couple of steps, Klett made a discovery that caused quite a stir and prompted hundreds of inquiries from scientists, academia and industry.
A group of 13 Ph.D. students from 3 partnering universities gathered at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in April for an intensive course in how to apply neutron scattering to their studies of materials science and biological systems with hands-on use of instruments at ORNL’s Spallation Neutron Source and High Flux Isotope Reactor.
Researcher applies materials science techniques to the field of forensics, and some of her research has helped crime scene investigators rebuild fingerprints after they have faded over time.
For the first time, industry and policymakers have a comprehensive report detailing the U.S. hydropower fleet’s 2,198 plants that provide about 7 percent of the nation’s electricity.
A major United Nations report on bioenergy and sustainability released Tuesday concludes the sustainable production of bioenergy can be an important tool for addressing climate change.
Summit, a high-performance computing system set to be delivered to Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2017 and available to researchers in 2018, will support DOE’s Office of Science in its broad science and energy mission.
Scientists focused on producing biofuels more efficiently have a new powerful dataset to help them study the DNA of microbes that fuel bioconversion and other processes.
After two years of upgrades and repairs, proton beams once again circulate around the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Oak Ridge National Laboratory has led an 8-year upgrade of the electromagnetic calorimeter used for LHC’s experiment called ALICE (for A Large Ion Collider Experiment). This detector measures the energies of high-energy electrons and gamma rays to learn more about the conditions of the early universe.
Researchers from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory will play key roles in an expansive new project that aims to bring the future of tropical forests and the climate system into much clearer focus by coupling field research with the development of a new ecosystem model.
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A meeting to explore research collaborations between Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee set the foundation for a company that provides accessible and remote health screenings for patients concerned about diabetic related eye diseases.
Desalination is an energy-intensive process, which concerns those wanting to expand its application. Now, a team of experimentalists led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has demonstrated an energy-efficient desalination technology that uses a porous membrane made of strong, slim graphene—a carbon honeycomb one atom thick. The results are published in the March 23 advance online issue of Nature Nanotechnology.
In this Q&A Andrew Stack, a geochemist at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, advances understanding of the dynamics of minerals underground. Stack and his team make discoveries that will help to improve our understanding of a wide range of energy-related issues, such as geologic storage of carbon dioxide, oil and gas discovery and development, and remediation of toxic contaminants. His current research spans three disciplines—geology, chemistry and computing.
Representatives from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics are meeting at ORNL this week as part of an agreement between the two institutions to work together on the advancement of salt-cooled nuclear reactor technologies.
Graphene, a strong, lightweight carbon honeycombed structure, only one atom thick, holds great promise for energy research and development. Recently scientists with the Fluid Interface Reactions, Structures, and Transport Energy Frontier Research Center, led by the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, revealed graphene can serve as a proton-selective permeable membrane, providing a new basis for streamlined and more efficient energy technologies such as improved fuel cells.
In this Q&A Andrew Stack of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory calls on expertise in geology, chemistry and computing to advance understanding of the dynamics of minerals underground. He investigates chemical processes that take place on mineral surfaces at scales ranging from individual atoms to entire rocks. These processes can trap contaminants, such as nuclear waste, carbon dioxide and toxic by-products from hydraulic fracturing.
ORNL’s infrared imaging system can help automakers quickly determine whether a weld is good or bad without damaging the part. The infrared check can be performed in a few seconds, offering industry a low-cost and non-destructive alternative to monitor welds in real time.
Buildings are responsible for about 40 percent of the energy consumed in the United States. Studies indicate that advanced sensors and controls have the potential to reduce the energy consumption of buildings by 20-30 percent.
The Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Whirlpool Corporation are collaborating to design a refrigerator that could cut energy use by up to 40 percent compared with current models.
Ada Yonath, a pioneer in using crystallographic techniques to visualize ribosome structure, was the most recent Eugene P. Wigner Distinguished Lecturer at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Her work continues to contribute to ribosomal research, prompting researchers to look more closely at antibiotics that target bacterial ribosomes, including those of pathogenic bacteria species, an avenue that could help reverse current levels of antibiotic resistance. At the talk, she steered conversation to species-specific antibiotic resistance.
James Roberto, the associate laboratory director for Science and Technology Partnerships at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been elected a fellow of the Materials Research Society.
Experiments conducted by researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have uncovered a way of controlling friction on ionic surfaces at the nanoscale using electrical stimulation and ambient water vapor.
Researchers have developed a population distribution model that provides unprecedented county-level predictions of where people will live in the U.S. in the coming decades.
Washington, D.C.-based R&K Cyber Solutions LLC (R&K) has licensed Hyperion, a cyber security technology from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory that can quickly recognize malicious software even if the specific program has not been previously identified as a threat.
While researchers in ORNL’s buildings group focus on increasing energy efficiency using new foam insulation panels, the nanophase materials sector experiments with catalyst performance, revealing an oxidation discovery that could help reduce vehicle emissions.
Additionally, ORNL researchers aim to reduce the size, weight and power for some particle accelerators with development of a new voltage supply. And by using water and nano-sized particles isolated from trees and plants, scientists explore low-cost and nontoxic metal oxides.
Properties of water molecules on the surface of metal oxides can be used to better control these minerals and use them to make products such as more efficient semiconductors for organic light emitting diodes and solar cells, safer vehicle glass in fog and frost, and more environmentally friendly chemical sensors for industrial applications.
A multi-institutional research team led by Chris Dealwis from Case Western Reserve University has used the new IMAGINE instrument at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s High Flux Isotope Reactor to map an enzyme that could play an important role in anti-cancer drug development.
Langan will lead the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's neutron science activities, which include two leading DOE Office of Science user facilities for neutron scattering analysis
A team led by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory has discovered a way to dramatically increase the selectivity and binding strength of crown ethers by incorporating them within a rigid framework of graphene. Strong, specific electrostatic binding of crown ethers may advance sensors, chemical separations, nuclear-waste cleanup, extraction of metals from ores, purification and recycling of rare-earth elements, water purification, biotechnology, energy production in durable lithium-ion batteries, catalysis, medicine and data storage.