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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.

3d prnited lunar rover wheel based on a NASA design

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in collaboration with NASA, are taking additive manufacturing to the final frontier by 3D printing the same kind of wheel as the design used by NASA for its robotic lunar rover, demonstrating the technology for specialized parts needed for space exploration.

Photo collage with text that reads " A New era of discovery"

ORNL, a bastion of nuclear physics research for the past 80 years, is poised to strengthen its programs and service to the United States over the next decade if national recommendations of the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee, or NSAC, are enacted.

Group photo of Attendees of the second collaborative ORNL-Vanderbilt University workshop

When the second collaborative ORNL-Vanderbilt University workshop took place on Sept. 18-19 at ORNL, about 70 researchers and students assembled to share thoughts concerning a broad spectrum of topics.

The 25th annual National School on Neutron and X-ray Scattering was held August 6–18. Each year, graduate students visit Oak Ridge and Argonne National Laboratories to learn how to use neutrons and X-rays to study energy and materials. Credit: Genevieve Martin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

In 2023, the National School on X-ray and Neutron Scattering, or NXS, marked its 25th year during its annual program, held August 6–18 at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge and Argonne National Laboratories.   

Xiaohan Yang is using his expertise in synthetic biology and capabilities like the Advanced Plant Phenotyping Laboratory at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to accelerate the development of drought-tolerant, fast-growing bioenergy crops suited for conversion into clean jet fuels. Credit: Genevieve Martin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Scientist Xiaohan Yang’s research at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory focuses on transforming plants to make them better sources of renewable energy and carbon storage.

Members of the Analytics and AI Methods at Scale group in the National Center for Computational Sciences at ORNL developed the mixed-precision performance benchmarking tool OpenMxP. From left are group leader Feiyi Wang, technical lead Mike Matheson and research scientist Hao Lu. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

As Frontier, the world’s first exascale supercomputer, was being assembled at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility in 2021, understanding its performance on mixed-precision calculations remained a difficult prospect.

Conceptual art depicts an atomic nucleus and merging neutron stars, respectively, areas of study in ORNL-led projects called NUCLEI and ENAF within the Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing, or SciDAC, program. Credit: Adam Malin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

ORNL is leading two nuclear physics research projects within the Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing, or SciDAC, program from the Department of Energy Office of Science.

Chathuddasie Amarasinghe explains her research poster, “Using Microfluidic Mother Machine Devices to Study the Correlated Dynamics of Ribosomes and Chromosomes in Escherichia Coli.” Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Speakers, scientific workshops, speed networking, a student poster showcase and more energized the Annual User Meeting of the Department of Energy’s Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, or CNMS, Aug. 7-10, near Market Square in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee.

A rendering of the CFM RISE program’s open fan architecture. (bottom) A GE visualization of turbulent flow in the tip region of an open fan blade using the Frontier supercomputer at ORNL. Credit: CFM, GE Research (CFM is a 50­–50 joint company between GE and Safran Aircraft Engines)

Outside the high-performance computing, or HPC, community, exascale may seem more like fodder for science fiction than a powerful tool for scientific research. Yet, when seen through the lens of real-world applications, exascale computing goes from ethereal concept to tangible reality with exceptional benefits.