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ORNL’s Tomás Rush examines a culture as part of his research into the plant-fungus relationship that can help or hinder ecosystem health. Credit: Genevieve Martin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

New computational framework speeds discovery of fungal metabolites, key to plant health and used in drug therapies and for other uses. 
 

2023 Top Science Achievements at SNS & HFIR

The 2023 top science achievements from HFIR and SNS feature a broad range of materials research published in high impact journals such as Nature and Advanced Materials.

From left, researchers Syed Islam and Ramesh Bhave discuss the nickel sulfate recovered from end-of-life lithium-ion batteries using the membrane solvent extraction process they co-invented at ORNL. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Scientists at ORNL have developed a technique for recovering and recycling critical materials that has garnered special recognition from a peer-reviewed materials journal and received a new phase of funding for research and development.

A Univ. of Michigan-led team used Frontier, the world’s first exascale supercomputer, to simulate a system of nearly 75,000 magnesium atoms at near-quantum accuracy. Credit: SC23

 

A team of eight scientists won the Association for Computing Machinery’s 2023 Gordon Bell Prize for their study that used the world’s first exascale supercomputer to run one of the largest simulations of an alloy ever and achieve near-quantum accuracy.

Kim Tutin, founder and chief executive officer of Captis Aire, receives the EPA Green Chemistry Challenge Award. Credit: Eric Vance/USEPA

The founder of a startup company who is working with ORNL has won an Environmental Protection Agency Green Chemistry Challenge Award for a unique air pollution control technology. 

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In response to a renewed international interest in molten salt reactors, researchers from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a novel technique to visualize molten salt intrusion in graphite.

red and green sphagnum moss

A type of peat moss has surprised scientists with its climate resilience: Sphagnum divinum is actively speciating in response to hot, dry conditions. 

The sun sets behind the ORNL Visitor Center in this aerial photo from April 2023. Credit: Kase Clapp/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

In fiscal year 2023 — Oct. 1–Sept. 30, 2023 — Oak Ridge National Laboratory was awarded more than $8 million in technology maturation funding through the Department of Energy’s Technology Commercialization Fund, or TCF.

ORNL’s organocatalyst deconstructs mixed plastics at different temperatures, which facilitates recovering their individual monomers separately, in reusable form. Credit: Jill Hemman/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Little of the mixed consumer plastics thrown away or placed in recycle bins actually ends up being recycled. Nearly 90% is buried in landfills or incinerated at commercial facilities that generate greenhouse gases and airborne toxins. Neither outcome is ideal for the environment.

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The Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, a Department of Energy Office of Science user facility at ORNL, is pleased to announce a new allocation program for computing time on the IBM AC922 Summit supercomputer.