U.S. Department of Energy Research News

Public Release: 30-Nov-2012
ORNL develops lignin-based thermoplastic conversion process
Turning lignin, a plant's structural "glue" and a byproduct of the paper and pulp industry, into something considerably more valuable is driving a research effort headed by Amit Naskar of Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Public Release: 30-Nov-2012
Team led by Argonne National Lab selected as DOE's Batteries and Energy Storage Hub
Energy Secretary Steven Chu joined Illinois dignitaries in announcing that a team led by Argonne National Laboratory was selected for an award of up to $120 million over five years to establish a new Batteries and Energy Storage Hub. The Hub -- the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research -- will combine the R&D firepower of five DOE national laboratories, five universities, and four private firms in an effort toward achieving revolutionary advances in battery performance.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 29-Nov-2012
Greener storage for green energy
Renewable energy solutions like wind and solar operate on nature's timetable. Power is plentiful -- but not necessarily at the moments when consumers need it. To give renewables a fighting chance, a team led by engineers and chemists at Harvard will use a one-year, $600,000 innovation grant from the US Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency�Energy program to develop a new type of storage battery.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 29-Nov-2012
2 Berkeley Lab scientists named AAAS Fellows
Susan Celniker of the Life Sciences Division and Wim Leemans of the Accelerator and Fusion Research Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have been named 2012 Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 29-Nov-2012

Science
X-ray laser helps fight sleeping sickness
An international group of scientists working at SLAC has mapped a weak spot in the parasite that causes African sleeping sickness, pinpointing a promising new target for treating a disease that kills tens of thousands of people each year.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 28-Nov-2012
ARPA-e awards $130 million for transformation energy technology projects
Sixty six cutting-edge research projects have been selected by the Energy Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy to receive a total of $130 million in funding.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 28-Nov-2012
NREL updates solar radiation database
The US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory and collaborators released a 20-year updated version of the US National Solar Radiation Database, a web-based technical report that provides critical information about solar and meteorological data for 1,454 locations in the US and its territories.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 28-Nov-2012

Science
NREL researchers use imaging technologies to solve puzzle of plant architecture
Scientists at the US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the BioEnergy Science Center combined different microscopic imaging methods to gain a greater understanding of the relationships between biomass cell wall structure and enzyme digestibility, a breakthrough that could lead to optimizing sugar yields and lowering the costs of making biofuels.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 26-Nov-2012

Nature Communications
Penn researchers make flexible, low-voltage circuits using nanocrystals
Electronic circuits are typically integrated in rigid silicon wafers, but flexibility opens up a wide range of applications in a world where electronics are becoming more pervasive. Finding materials with the right mix of performance and manufacturing cost, however, remains a challenge. Now researchers from the University of Pennsylvania has shown that nanoscale particles, or nanocrystals, of the semiconductor cadmium selenide can be "printed" or "coated" on flexible plastics to form high-performance electronics.

US Department of Energy, National Science Foundation

Public Release: 26-Nov-2012
Researchers test novel power system for space travel
A team of researchers, including engineers from Los Alamos National Laboratory, has demonstrated a new concept for a reliable nuclear reactor that could be used on space flights.

Public Release: 26-Nov-2012

Physical Review Letters
Modeling the breaking points of metallic glasses
Metallic glass alloys (or liquid metals) are three times stronger than the best industrial steel, but can be molded into complex shapes with the same ease as plastic. These materials are highly resistant to scratching, denting, shattering and corrosion. Mathematical methods developed by a Berkeley Lab scientists will help explain why liquid metals have wildly different breaking points.

Public Release: 21-Nov-2012

Nature
New structures self-assemble in synchronized dance
With self-assembly guiding the steps and synchronization providing the rhythm, a new class of materials forms dynamic, moving structures in an intricate dance. Researchers from the University of Illinois and Northwestern University have demonstrated tiny spheres that synchronize their movements as they self-assemble into a spinning microtube. Such in-motion structures, a blending of mathematics and materials science, could open a new class of technologies with applications in medicine, chemistry and engineering.

National Science Foundation, US Department of Energy, US Army Research Office

Public Release: 19-Nov-2012

Physical Review Letters
BaBar experiment confirms time asymmetry
Digging through nearly 10 years of data from billions of BaBar particle collisions, researchers found that certain particle types change into one another much more often in one way than they do in the other, a violation of time reversal symmetry and confirmation that some subatomic processes have a preferred direction of time.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 16-Nov-2012

Advanced Materials
ORNL recipe for oxide interface perfection opens path to novel materials
By tweaking the formula for growing oxide thin films, researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory achieved virtual perfection at the interface of two insulator materials.

Public Release: 15-Nov-2012

Physical Review Letters
ORNL pushes the boundaries of electron microscopy to unlock the potential of graphene
Electron microscopy at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory is providing unprecedented views of the individual atoms in graphene, offering scientists a chance to unlock the material's full potential for uses from engine combustion to consumer electronics.

Public Release: 14-Nov-2012
Titan is also a green powerhouse
Not only is Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Titan the world's most powerful supercomputer, it is also one of the most energy efficient.

Public Release: 14-Nov-2012
Traumatic brain injury patients, supercomputer simulations studied to improve helmets
Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories and the University of New Mexico are comparing supercomputer simulations of blast waves on the brain with clinical studies of veterans suffering from mild traumatic brain injuries to help improve helmet designs.

Office of Naval Research

Public Release: 13-Nov-2012

Supercomputing 2012
PNNL expertise highlighted at Supercomputing
PNNL research describing new and improved ways to crunch massive amounts of data will be presented at the Supercomputing 2012 conference. Papers to be presented include how to use matching approximation to find similar patterns in different data sets and a new software that helps speed up parallel computations by automatically translating MPI code.

Public Release: 13-Nov-2012
Department of Energy's ESnet rolls out world's fastest science network
The US Department of Energy's (DOE) ESnet (Energy Sciences Network) is now operating the world's fastest science network, serving the entire national laboratory system, its supercomputing centers, and its major scientific instruments at 100 gigabits per second -- 10 times faster than its previous generation network.

Department of Energy Office of Science

Public Release: 12-Nov-2012

Advanced Functional Materials
'Strain tuning' reveals promise in nanoscale manufacturing
ORNL researcher combined theoretical and experimental studies to understand and control the self-assembly of insulating barium zirconium oxide nanodots and nanorods within barium-copper-oxide superconducting films.

Public Release: 11-Nov-2012

Nature Photonics
Study provides recipe for 'supercharging' atoms with X-ray laser
Researchers using a free-electron X-ray laser have found a way to strip most of the electrons from xenon atoms, creating a "supercharged," strongly positive state at energies previously thought too low.

US Department of Energy/Office of Science

Public Release: 8-Nov-2012

Nature
More bang for the biofuel buck
Berkeley Lab researchers have shown that a fermentation process used in World War I to make cordite for bullets and artillery shells, in combination with a modern palladium catalyst could produce gasoline, diesel or jet fuel from the sugars found in biomass.

Energy Biosciences Institute

Public Release: 8-Nov-2012

Science
Nanocrystals and nickel catalyst substantially improve light-based hydrogen production
Hydrogen is an attractive fuel source because it can easily be converted into electric energy and gives off no greenhouse emissions. A group of chemists at the University of Rochester is adding to its appeal by increasing the output and lowering the cost of current light-driven hydrogen-production systems.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 5-Nov-2012
November 2012 story tips
Scientists have found that rising levels of ozone may amplify the impacts of higher temperatures and reduce streamflow from forests to rivers, streams and other water bodies. Recommendations to accelerate climate modeling to learn more about climate's regional ramifications and future effects. Research project to continue, providing additional data that could make houses of tomorrow even better. Ethanol blends of 10 to 25 percent could potentially have more fuel pump compatibility issues than higher blends.

Public Release: 5-Nov-2012

Nature Chemistry
Researchers make strides toward selective oxidation catalysts
Solid catalysts tend to be highly reactive, but more efficient chemical processes require that catalysts be more scrupulous about their reactants. Now Northwestern University researchers have a new method for making selective oxidation catalysts, a step that could lead to greener energy.

US Department of Energy