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Conceptual art connects the atomic underpinnings of the neutron-rich calcium-48 nucleus with the Crab Nebula, which has a neutron star at its heart. Zeros and ones depict the computational power needed to explore objects that differ in size by 18 orders o
An international team led by Gaute Hagen of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory used America’s most powerful supercomputer, Titan, to compute the neutron distribution and related observables of calcium-48
In complex alloys, chemical disorder results from a greater variety of elements than found in traditional alloys. Traces here indicate electronic states in a complex alloy; smeared traces reduced electrical and thermal conductivity. Image credit: Oak Ridg
Designing alloys to withstand extreme environments is a fundamental challenge for materials scientists. Energy from radiation can create imperfections in alloys, so researchers in an Energy Frontier Research Center led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National ...
An ORNL technology that converts waste rubber into a valuable energy storage material has been licensed to RJ Lee Group. ORNL inventors Amit Naskar (left) and Parans Paranthaman flank Richard Lee, CEO of RJ Lee Group.
RJ Lee Group has signed an agreement to license an invention developed at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory that converts waste rubber into a valuable energy storage material. The technology turns rubber sources such as tires into carbon blac...
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Catalysts that power chemical reactions to produce the nylon used in clothing, cookware, machinery and electronics could get a lift with a new formulation that saves time, energy and natural resources.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Award-winning author Richard Rhodes, who wrote the book “The Making of the Atomic Bomb,” told an Oak Ridge audience that despite new forms of clean energy being developed, coal is still the world’s primary producer of energy, listing several reasons. “In a world...
Redistribution of electronic clouds causes a lattice instability and freezes the flow of heat in highly efficient tin selenide. The crystal lattice adopts a distorted state in which the chemical bonds are stretched into an accordion-like configuration, an

Engines, laptops and power plants generate waste heat. Thermoelectric materials, which convert temperature gradients to electricity and vice versa, can recover some of that heat and improve energy efficiency. A team of scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridg...

Coastal wetlands are just one of dozens of environments where scientists found genes that transform mercury into the neurotoxin methylmercury. (Photo courtesy of Smithsonian Environmental Research Center/Grace Schwartz)
Thawing permafrost and contaminated sediment in marine coastal areas pose some of the greatest risks for the production of highly toxic methylmercury, according to findings published in the journal Science Advances. The discovery of these newly identified location...
New additive manufacturing technologies are being explored at DOE's Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at ORNL.

The Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Strangpresse LLC of Youngstown, Ohio, have signed a non-exclusive licensing agreement on a portfolio of ORNL patents related to large-scale additive manufacturing. ORNL is leading advances in the productio...

New additive manufacturing technologies are being explored at DOE's Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at ORNL.

The Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Strangpresse LLC of Youngstown, Ohio, have signed a non-exclusive licensing agreement on a portfolio of ORNL patents related to large-scale additive manufacturing. ORNL is leading advances in the productio...

A surfactant template guides the self-assembly of functional polymer structures in an aqueous solution. Image credit: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy; image by Youngkyu Han and Renee Manning.
The efficiency of solar cells depends on precise engineering of polymers that assemble into films 1,000 times thinner than a human hair. Today, formation of that polymer assembly requires solvents that can harm the environment, but scientists at the Department of En...