Skip to main content
Pellet selector

When it’s up and running, the ITER fusion reactor will be very big and very hot, with more than 800 cubic meters of hydrogen plasma reaching 170 million degrees centigrade. The systems that fuel and control it, on the other hand, will be small and very cold. Pellets of frozen gas will be shot int...

Default image of ORNL entry sign
Biofuels pioneer Mascoma LLC and the Department of Energy's BioEnergy Science Center have developed a revolutionary strain of yeast that could help significantly accelerate the development of biofuels from nonfood plant matter.
Default image of ORNL entry sign

A major multinational report on bioenergy and sustainability released Tuesday concludes the sustainable production of bioenergy can be an important tool for addressing climate change. Two researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Lab...

ORNL Image
Scientists focused on producing biofuels more efficiently have a new powerful dataset to help them study the DNA of microbes that fuel bioconversion and other processes.
ORNL Image
Dr. Michael Simpson, Oak Ridge National Laboratory Corporate Fellow and Group Leader of the Nanofabrication Research Laboratory Group in the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) at ORNL, has been appointed the next director of the UT-ORNL Joint Institute for Biological Sciences (JIBS). This appointment is in addition to his role at CNMS.
ORNL Image
Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory got a surprise when they built a highly ordered lattice by layering thin films containing lanthanum, strontium, oxygen and iron. Although each layer had an intrinsically nonpolar (symmetric) distribution of electrical charges, the lattice had an asymmetric distribution of charges. The charge asymmetry creates an extra “switch” that brings new functionalities to materials when “flipped” by external stimuli such as electric fields or mechanical strain. This makes polar materials useful for devices such as sensors and actuators.
ORNL Image
Vertimass LLC, a California-based start-up company, has licensed an Oak Ridge National Laboratory technology that directly converts ethanol into a hydrocarbon blend-stock for use in transportation fuels.
ORNL Image
Arthur Ragauskas, an authority in bioenergy, has been named a University of Tennessee–Oak Ridge National Laboratory Governor’s Chair.
Default image of ORNL entry sign
The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has developed a technology leading to more secure seals on containers filled with nuclear material. The technology uses a light source of entangled photons to verify the continuity of a fiber-based seal. E...
Default image of ORNL entry sign
The associate laboratory director for Energy and Environmental Sciences (EES) at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and two University of Tennessee-ORNL Governor’s Chair researchers are among the newly elected fellows of the American Associa...