For many scientists and engineers, the first real test of their mettle comes not in a classroom, but in a lab or the field, where hands-on experience can teach volumes. For Susan Hogle, that hands-on experience just happened to be with material that was too hot to handle—literally....
Using a novel, reusable carbon material derived from old rubber tires, an Oak Ridge National Laboratory-led research team has developed a simple method to convert used cooking oil into biofuel.
Fusion scientists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, as part of the DIII-D National Fusion Facility team at General Atomics, are studying an approach to insulate the reactor’s innermost wall that surrounds the burning plasma from the energy created when hydrogen isotopes are heated...
An Oak Ridge National Laboratory–led team discovered that vanadium dioxide in a crystalline thin film makes an outstanding electrode for lithium-ion batteries. Theory and computation predicted a high capacity for lithium storage, which experiments confirmed with tests in coin c...
Finding new energy uses for underrated materials is a recurring theme across Amit Naskar’s research portfolio. Since joining Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2006, he has studied low-cost polymers as carbon fiber precursors, turning lignin−a byproduct of biofuel production−into renewable thermoplastics and creating carbon battery electrodes from recycled tires.
No two scientists have the same story about how they ended up in their field. Some people seem to have been born scientists; others develop their love for it as budding minds full of curiosity. Then there are those who don’t discover science until later in life, but when they do, the...
Not everyone can look back on their life and pick the specific instance that brought them to their current field and dictated the course of their career. For Jason Newby, that instance was a high school physics class that would eventually lead to him studying nuclear technology and i...
Oak Ridge National Laboratory has successfully developed and tested a novel sand casting technique to quickly design complex patterns to fabricate components for industry partner Emrgy Hydro, makers of hydropower devices designed to generate electricity from slow or shallow water flo...
Advanced manufacturing will benefit from additive manufacturing techniques as demonstrated by a team led by Michael Kirka of Oak Ridge National Laboratory.