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ORNL’s Xiahan Sang unambiguously resolved the atomic structure of MXene, a 2D material promising for energy storage, catalysis and electronic conductivity. Image credit: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy; photographer Carlos Jones

Two-dimensional MXene materials get their close-up

Researchers have long sought electrically conductive materials for economical energy-storage devices. Two-dimensional (2D) ceramics called MXenes are contenders. Unlike most 2D ceramics, MXenes have inherently good conductivity because they are molecular sheets made from the carbides ...

Water is seen as small red and white molecules on large nanodiamond spheres. The colored tRNA can be seen on the nanodiamond surface. Image by Michael Mattheson, OLCF, ORNL

Diamonds that deliver

It’s not enough to design new drugs. For drugs to be effective, they have to be delivered safely and intact to affected areas of the body. And drug delivery, much like drug design, is an immensely complex task.
3-D visualization of chemically-ordered phases in an iron-platinum (FePt) nanoparticle.

Supercomputing, Experiment Combine for First Look at Magnetism of Real Nanoparticle

Barely wider than a strand of human DNA, magnetic nanoparticles—such as those made from iron and platinum atoms—are promising materials for next-generation recording and storage devices like hard drives. Building these devices from nanoparticles should increase storage capaci...

SPRUCE experiment enclosure

Warming global temperatures may not affect carbon stored deep in northern peatlands

Deep stores of carbon in northern peatlands may remain stable despite rising temperatures, according to a team of researchers from several U.S.-based institutions. And that is good news for now, the researchers said. Florida State University ...

A simulation shows the path for the collision of a krypton ion (blue) with a defected graphene sheet and subsequent formation of a carbon vacancy (red). Red shades indicate local strain in the graphene. Image credit: Kichul Yoon, Penn State

Simulations Show How to Turn Graphene’s Defects into Assets

Researchers at Penn State, the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company have developed methods to control defects in two-dimensional materials, such as graphene, that may lead to improved membranes for water desalination, energy...
A 32-face 3-D truncated icosahedron mesh was created to test the simulation’s ability to precisely construct complex geometries.

Researchers combine simulation, experiment for nanoscale 3-D printing

Designing a 3-D printed structure is hard enough when the product is inches or feet in size. Imagine shrinking it smaller than a drop of water, smaller even than a human hair, until it is dwarfed by a common bacterium. This impossibly small structure can be made a reality with fo...
In conventional, low-temperature superconductivity (left), so-called Cooper pairing arises from the presence of an electron Fermi sea. In the pseudogap regime of the cuprate superconductors (right), parts of the Fermi sea are “dried out” and the charge-ca

Titan Shines Light on High-Temperature Superconductor Pathway

When physicists Georg Bednorz and K. Alex Muller discovered the first high-temperature superconductors in 1986, it didn’t take much imagination to envision the potential technological benefits of harnessing such materials.
Department of Energy national lab researchers found strain dramatically influences low-temperature oxygen electrocatalysis on perovskite oxides, enhancing bifunctional activity essential for fuel cells and metal–air batteries.

ORNL researchers use strain to engineer first high-performance, two-way oxide catalyst

Catalysts make chemical reactions more likely to occur. In most cases, a catalyst that’s good at driving chemical reactions in one direction is bad at driving reactions in the opposite direction. However, a research team led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory ...

In unbound calyx[4]pyrrole, two pyrrole “petals” are flipped up and two, down.

Chalice receptors attract metal contaminants with new chemical selectivity

Atomic charges in chemical solutions are like Switzerland—they strive for neutrality. The tendency to balance charges drives dynamics when charged atoms or molecules, called ions, are present in solutions. Recently, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laborat...

Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers made a molecule that could selectively bind to metals in the middle of the lanthanide series.

ORNL scientists show charged salts can extract specific central lanthanide elements

Rare earth elements are metals used in technologies from wind turbines and magnetic resonance imaging agents to industrial catalysts and high-definition televisions. Most are lanthanides, elements with atomic number from 57 to 71, lanthanum to lutetium, in the periodic table. The la...