Skip to main content
Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s PenDoc makes sampling the surface of a strawberry for pesticides, for example, quick and easy.
Mass spectrometry and direct sampling come together in a powerful way with a new technology that can identify a material in mere seconds. PenDoc, invented by Gary Van Berkel and Vilmos Kertesz of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, could help in drug discovery, medical diagnostics, food ...
By wet-sieving stream sediment, (from left) Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Kenneth Lowe, Melanie Mayes and John Dickson sort sediment into different particle size in this stream near Rocky Top.

An Oak Ridge National Laboratory study is providing an unprecedented watershed-scale understanding of mercury in soils and sediments. Researchers focused on evaluating mercury and soil properties along the banks of a mercury-contaminated stream in Oak Ridge, Tenn., sampling 145 loca...

The SaltX heating system offers better efficiency than today’s best furnaces and a potential payback of just three to four years.

Salt and ammonia are key ingredients of a high-efficiency natural gas-fired heat pump system being developed by researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Rheem and ClimateWell. Potentially, the SaltX system could provide 43 percent greater efficiency than today’s best furn...

Melanie Debusk collects soot samples from a reactivity controlled compression ignition engine at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s National Transportation Research Center.

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are taking a closer look at previously uncharacterized, microscopic soot particles collected during lab experiments on light-duty, multi-cylinder advanced combustion engines. The ORNL-led team is widely known for advancing a combustion te...

A 90-kilogram 430-bar prototype of the steel-concrete composite vessel has been manufactured, and is undergoing fatigue testing.
A stationary vessel developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers Zhili Feng and Yanli Wang could be the key to less expensive hydrogen storage, making it possible for more hydrogen-powered vehicles to hit the road in the near future. Feng and Wang have designed a...
ORNL’s new climate change methodology helps predict energy efficiency impacts in rapidly growing areas like greater Chicago. This tool can be applied to any U.S. or global region.
Increasing temperatures are one of several conditions scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are studying to determine how changes in climate – along with population growth and aging power plants – will affect the nation’s future energy needs. Looking at greater Chicago, a mult...
An ORNL-led study discovered that defects (pictured in green, purple and yellow) in strontium titanate interact to influence the material’s overall properties.
Scientists have long known that adding tiny defects into otherwise perfect materials can influence the substance’s electronic or magnetic properties. Now, a new study led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory shows that defects in complex oxides do not act independently, which will chang...
The Carmel caprock, which overlies an aquifer naturally charged with carbon dioxide, was analyzed with neutron scattering, revealing alteration only in the basal 7 cm and progression of caprock corrosion an order of magnitude slower than expected.
Storing carbon dioxide for millennia in geologic formations relies on effective seals. Gernot Rother of Oak Ridge National Laboratory participated in analysis of neutron scattering data taken at the Jülich Centre for Neutron Science during a collaborative study led by Cambridge Univ...
Temperature is represented by different colors for this heat sink for a 50-kilowatt DC-to-DC converter with red being the hottest.
Increased power densities in electronics will require more efficient heat sinks, and additive manufacturing combined with a simple thermal annealing process could help designers meet that goal. A team that includes Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Tong Wu reported that while a 3-D printed aluminum alloy heat sink equaled or measured 10 percent worse than those manufactured conventionally, after the treatment the performance gap vanished.
Temperature is represented by different colors for this heat sink for a 50-kilowatt DC-to-DC converter with red being the hottest.

Production run spot checks of materials for lithium-ion batteries and fuel cells could be a thing of the past because of a process developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The infrared/thermal nondestructive evaluation technique invented by a team led by David Wood examines key parameters such as porosity and thickness of the coating in real time without destroying product.