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Media Contacts
![Water from local creeks now flows through these simulated streams in the Aquatic Ecology Laboratory, providing new opportunities to study mercury pollution and advance solutions. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-10/img_3692.jpg?h=77bd3ecb&itok=dM1eszup)
New capabilities and equipment recently installed at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are bringing a creek right into the lab to advance understanding of mercury pollution and accelerate solutions.
![These fuel assembly brackets, manufactured by ORNL in partnership with Framatome and Tennessee Valley Authority, are the first 3D-printed safety-related components to be inserted into a nuclear power plant. Credit: Fred List/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-10/FramatomeCB1.jpg?h=7c790887&itok=oVGkqZYZ)
The Transformational Challenge Reactor, or TCR, a microreactor built using 3D printing and other new advanced technologies, could be operational by 2024.
![Jianlin Li employs ORNL’s world-class battery research facility to validate the innovative safety technology. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2022-01/2020-P14810-blurred_0.jpg?h=245bf488&itok=DMmYlD02)
Soteria Battery Innovation Group has exclusively licensed and optioned a technology developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory designed to eliminate thermal runaway in lithium ion batteries due to mechanical damage.
![Oak Ridge National Laboratory entrance sign](/themes/custom/ornl/images/default-thumbnail.jpg)
![Oak Ridge National Laboratory entrance sign](/themes/custom/ornl/images/default-thumbnail.jpg)
Rufus Ritchie came from Kentucky coal country, a region not known for producing physicists.
![Xunxiang Hu, a Eugene P. Wigner Fellow in ORNL’s Materials Science and Technology Division, designed this machine to produce large, crack-free pieces of yttrium hydride to be used as a moderator in the core of ORNL’s Transformational Challenge Reactor and other microreactors. Credit: Xunxiang Hu/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-09/HuYHxphoto.jpg?h=eef83f16&itok=7KfkqQLh)
About 60 years ago, scientists discovered that a certain rare earth metal-hydrogen mixture, yttrium, could be the ideal moderator to go inside small, gas-cooled nuclear reactors.
![A selfie from the Curiosity rover as it explores the surface of Mars. Like many spacecraft, Curiosity uses a radioisotope power system to help fuel its mission. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-09/Curiousity_1.jpg?h=86a9dded&itok=Jo0vD321)
Radioactive isotopes power some of NASA’s best-known spacecraft. But predicting how radiation emitted from these isotopes might affect nearby materials is tricky
![VERA’s tools allow a virtual window inside the reactor core, down to a molecular level.](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-08/Godfrey_2d_pin_power.png?h=507248e9&itok=SIcNrXUE)
As CASL ends and transitions to VERA Users Group, ORNL looks at the history of the program and its impact on the nuclear industry.
![Enzyme activity during organophosphate poisoning](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-08/anecdote1_0.png?h=d1cb525d&itok=wpYYilBI)
Pick your poison. It can be deadly for good reasons such as protecting crops from harmful insects or fighting parasite infection as medicine — or for evil as a weapon for bioterrorism. Or, in extremely diluted amounts, it can be used to enhance beauty.