Plants and other biomass can be converted into a variety of renewable high-value products including carbon fibers, plastics, and liquid fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel that are beneficial for reducing petroleum use and vehicle emissions. Breaking down plants in order to release...
The efficiency of solar cells depends on precise engineering of polymers that assemble into films 1,000 times thinner than a human hair.
Today, formation of that polymer assembly requires solvents that can harm the environment, but scientists at the Department of En...
A research demonstration unveiled today at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory combines clean energy technologies into a 3D-printed building and vehicle to showcase a new approach to energy use, storage and consumption. The Additive Manufactur...
For early career researchers, a fellowship can be a valuable foot in the door, exposing them to the opportunity to gain experience in areas of science and technology of national importance.
Crude oil refinement can be an extremely costly chemical process. In an effort to reduce energy and cost demands, Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers Anibal Ramirez-Cuesta and Stuart Campbell are collaborating with University of Nottingham (UK) researchers to develop metal-orga...
Groundbreaking work at two Department of Energy national laboratories has confirmed plutonium’s magnetism, which scientists have long theorized but have never been able to experimentally observe. The advances that enabled the discovery hold great pro...
Six researchers with the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory received awards at this week's Society of Automotive Engineers International (SAE) World Congress. Scott Sluder received SAE's Lloyd L. Withrow Distinguished Speaker Award, which ...
For more than 50 years, scientists have debated what turns particular oxide insulators, in which electrons barely move, into metals, in which electrons flow freely.
Complex oxides have long tantalized the materials science community for their promise in next-generation energy and information technologies. Complex oxide crystals combine oxygen atoms with assorted metals to produce unusual and very desirable properties.
When Orlando Rios first started analyzing samples of carbon fibers made from a woody plant polymer known as lignin, he noticed something unusual. The material’s microstructure -- a mixture of perfectly spherical nanoscale crystallites distributed within a fibrous matrix -- looked almost too good to be true.