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While making materials samples to pursue their own research goals, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory discovered that an unwanted byproduct of their experiments was an extremely high-quality and difficult-to-obtain substance sought after by scientists researching layered materials.

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Scientists at the Institute for Cooperative Upcycling of Plastics (iCOUP) have discovered a chemical process that provides biodegradable chemicals, which are used as surfactants and detergents in a range of applications, from discarded plastics.

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Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory have observed novel helical magnetic ordering in the topological compound EuIn2As2 which supports exotic electrical conduction tunable by a magnetic field.

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Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory and their partners from Clemson University have discovered a green, low-energy process to break down polystyrene, a type of plastic that is widely used in foam packaging materials, disposable food containers, cutlery, and many other applications.

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Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory and collaborators at Brookhaven National Laboratory and the University of Alabama at Birmingham have discovered a new light-induced switch that twists the crystal lattice of the material, switching on a giant electron current that appears to be nearly dissipationless. The discovery was made in a category of topological materials that holds great promise for spintronics, topological effect transistors, and quantum computing.

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Computational materials science experts at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory enhanced an algorithm that borrows its approach from the nesting habits of cuckoo birds, reducing the search time for new high-tech alloys from weeks to mere seconds.

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Ames Laboratory will partner with Electron Energy Corporation to improve a mainstay of magnet technology-- the samarium cobalt (SmCo) magnet.

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The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Critical Materials Institute has developed a low-cost, high performance permanent magnet by drawing inspiration from an out-of-this-world source: iron-nickel alloys in meteorites. The magnet rivals widely used “Alnico” magnets in magnetic strength and has the potential to fill a strong demand for rare-earth- and cobalt-free magnets in the market.

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A team of scientists led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory has developed a first-of-its-kind catalyst that is able to process polyolefin plastics, types of polymers widely used in things like plastic grocery bags, milk jugs, shampoo bottles, toys, and food containers.

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Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory have discovered a metal-free carbon-based catalyst that has the potential to be much less expensive and more efficient for many industrial concerns, including manufacturing of bio- and fossil fuels, electrocatalysis, and fuel cells.