A change in agricultural policy focus could lead to greater energy security, lower greenhouse emissions and a cleaner environment, according to researchers at ORNL and the University of Tennessee. With a doubling of bioenergy crop yields in the United States and changes in payment programs, the nati...
If a so-called dirty bomb were deployed anywhere in the United States, a system developed at ORNL could save thousands of lives. SensorNet, which provides near real-time detection, identification and assessment of chemical, biological and radiological threats, allows informed first-responders to be ...
Ecotera Energy's new microturbine-based engine promises to deliver high performance in a compact and energy-efficient package. The engine, based on a technology developed at ORNL and licensed to Ecotera, also boasts low emissions and quiet operation, making it ideal for a wide range of applications....
Paper mills across the country have more reliable and efficient recovery boilers because of ORNL and partners. The problem faced by numerous paper mills was that their recovery boilers, which burn organic waste to generate steam and electric power for the mills, were developing cracks. Repairs or re...
Chemists at ORNL are the first to build a three-dimensional chain of spherical polymer particles with unique optical and physical properties they believe will be useful for probing properties of materials. The finding, to be published in Physical Review Letters, represents a big step toward fabricat...
ORNL's 3,500 strains of mice made at ORNL can be shared for studies among the seven partners in the Tennessee Mouse Genome Consortium because researchers were able to develop a way to transfer mouse stocks via embryo. Researchers could not simply send existing mice at ORNL to the other institutions ...
Thousands of landfills around the nation may be serving as bioreactors, turning inorganic mercury into methylated - or organic - mercury, according to a study by researchers at ORNL. An unknown but likely significant amount of methylated mercury, which is far more toxic than inorganic mercury, is be...
Working with SpectruMedix Corp., researchers at ORNL could soon find mutations in mice in months instead of years. Researchers are using the Temperature-Gradient Capillary Electrophoresis system to identify mutations simultaneously in 96 samples in less than an hour. This scanning technique has 13 t...
Most criminals know about robots armed with cameras and shotguns, but there's a new law enforcement weapon on the horizon. Actually, the weapon is a micro-robot about the size of a june bug, so it's only on the horizon if you're at floor level. And that's the idea, according to developers in ORNL's ...
ORNL researchers are saving key industries of the future hundreds of thousands of dollars in energy costs with a process that starts by simply taking a look around. The DOE program, called BestPractices, encourages industries to examine their most energy-intensive plant utility systems and make impr...