U.S. Department of Energy Research News

Public Release: 23-May-2013
PNNL staff recognized for scientific accomplishments, moving technologies into the marketplace
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory honored more than 165 staff for their creation, development and commercialization of intellectual property at PNNL's annual Intellectual Property Commercialization Recognition & Rewards Program banquet.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 22-May-2013
PNNL-developed injection molding process recognized with emerging technologies award
An injection-molding method that has potential to aid the aerospace, biomedical and auto industries by increasing the use of titanium and other durable, lightweight and corrosion-resistant metals has earned a national innovation award.

Department of Energy

Public Release: 22-May-2013

Advanced Functional Materials
Innovation could bring flexible solar cells, transistors, displays
Researchers have created a new type of transparent electrode that might find uses in solar cells, flexible displays for computers and consumer electronics and future "optoelectronic" circuits for sensors and information processing.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 21-May-2013

Nature Nanotechnology
Whirlpools on the nanoscale could multiply magnetic memory
Research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Advanced Light Source promises four-bit magnetic cells instead of the two-bit magnetic domains of standard magnetic memories. Magnetic vortices are whirlpools of magnetic field, in which electron spins point either clockwise or counterclockwise. In the crowded center of the whirlpool the spins point either down or up. These four orientations could represent separate bits of information in a new kind of memory, if controlled independently and simultaneously.

US Department of Energy Office of Science, European Regional Development Fund, Czech Republic Grant Agency

Public Release: 21-May-2013
Solar and lithium ion car race winners announced
Ninety-seven teams from 28 Colorado schools participated in today's car competitions hosted by the US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The student teams raced solar and lithium ion powered vehicles they designed and built themselves.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 20-May-2013
Not just blowing in the wind: Compressing air for renewable energy storage
A comprehensive study into the potential for compressed air energy storage in the Pacific Northwest has identified two locations in Washington state that could store enough wind energy to power about 85,000 homes each month.

Bonneville Power Administration, DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Public Release: 19-May-2013

Nature Materials
Kinks and curves at the nanoscale
Since 2004, materials scientists and nanotechnology experts have been excited about a special of arrangement of atoms called a "coherent twin boundary" that can add enormous strength to metals like gold and copper. The CTBs are described as "perfect," appearing like a one-atom-thick plane in models and images. New research shows that these boundaries are not perfect. Even more surprising, the newly discovered kinks and defects appear to be the cause of the CTB's strength.

US Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, NASA

Public Release: 16-May-2013

Science
Stacking 2-D materials produces surprising results
New experiments reveal previously unseen effects, could lead to new kinds of electronics and optical devices.

US Department of Energy, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, National Science Foundation

Public Release: 16-May-2013

Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters
Add boron for better batteries
A graphene-boron compound is theoretically capable of storing double the energy of common graphite anodes used in lithium-ion batteries.

Honda Research Institute, US Department of Energy

Public Release: 16-May-2013

Nano Letters
Artificial forest for solar water-splitting
Berkeley Lab researchers have created the first fully integrated artificial photosynthesis nanosystem. While "artificial leaf" is the popular term for such a system, the key to this success was an "artificial forest."

US Department of Energy Office of Science

Public Release: 16-May-2013

ACS Nano
DNA-guided assembly yields novel ribbon-like nanostructures
DNA "linker" strands coax nano-sized rods to line up in way unlike any other spontaneous arrangement of rod-shaped objects. The arrangement -- with the rods forming "rungs" on ladder-like ribbons could result in the fabrication of new nanostructured materials with desired properties.

DOE Office of Science

Public Release: 15-May-2013
The DOE Joint Genome Institute expands capabilities via new partnerships
Positioning itself to provide the most current technology and expertise to their users in order to address pressing energy and environmental scientific challenges, the DOE Joint Genome Institute announces six projects with which to launch the Emerging Technologies Opportunity Program. These new partnerships span the development of new scalable DNA synthesis technologies to the latest approaches to high throughput sequencing and characterization of single microbial cells from complex environmental samples.

DOE Office of Science

Public Release: 14-May-2013
Saudi Arabia looks to NREL for solar monitoring expertise
Saudi Arabia is planning to move aggressively into renewable energy, with plans to install more solar and wind power in the next 20 years than the rest of the world has installed to date. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is working with the US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory for training and expertise in measuring its solar resource.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 9-May-2013

Nature Communications
Flawed diamonds promise sensory perfection
By extending the coherence time of electron states to over half a second, a team of scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of California at Berkeley, and Harvard University has improved the performance of one of the most potent sensors of magnetic fields on the nanoscale -- a diamond defect no bigger than a pair of atoms called a nitrogen vacancy center. The achievement is important news for nanoscale sensors and quantum computing.

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, National Science Foundation, Israeli Ministry of Defense, North Atlantic Treaty Organization Science for Peace

Public Release: 9-May-2013

Science
Heady mathematics
Two UC Berkeley applied mathematicians have found a way to mathematically describe the evolution and disappearance of a foam. Using these equations, they were able to generate a movie that shows the complex draining, popping and rearrangement of these bubbles as the foam vanishes.

US Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, NIH/National Cancer Institute

Public Release: 8-May-2013

Nature Communications
Spintronics discovery
In research that is helping to lay the groundwork for the electronics of the future, University of Delaware scientists have confirmed the presence of a magnetic field generated by electrons which scientists had theorized existed, but that had never been proven until now.

US Department of Energy, National Science Foundation

Public Release: 8-May-2013

Nature
Researchers find a way to make steel without greenhouse-gas emissions
Steelmaking, a major emitter of climate-altering gases, could be transformed by a new process developed at MIT.

American Iron and Steel Institute, US Department of Energy

Public Release: 7-May-2013
NREL quantifies significant value in concentrating solar power
Researchers from the US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory have quantified the significant value that concentrating solar power plants can add to an electric grid.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 7-May-2013

Energy & Environmental Science
Combining strategies speeds the work of enzymes
Enzymes could break down cell walls faster -- leading to less expensive biofuels for transportation -- if two enzyme systems are brought together in an industrial setting, new research by the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory suggests.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 7-May-2013
NREL staff recognized for breakthrough technologies
The Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory recently recognized the professionals behind the lab's greatest innovations from the past year during its Intellectual Property & Technology Transfer Awards.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 6-May-2013
May 2013 story tips from Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The following are story ideas from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory for May 2013.

Public Release: 5-May-2013

Nature Materials
Improving materials that convert heat to electricity and vice-versa
Thermoelectric materials can be used to turn waste heat into electricity or to provide refrigeration without any liquid coolants, and a research team from the University of Michigan has found a way to nearly double the efficiency of a particular class of them that's made with organic semiconductors.

US Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences

Public Release: 5-May-2013

Nature Methods
A new cost-effective genome assembly process
Genome assembly, the molecular equivalent of trying to put together a multi-million piece jigsaw puzzle without knowing what the picture on the cover of the box is, remains challenging due to the very large number of very small pieces, which must be assembled using current approaches. As reported May 5 online in the journal Nature Methods, a collaboration involving DOE JGI researchers has resulted in an improved and fully automated workflow for genome assembly.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 25-Apr-2013

Nature
Bold move forward in molecular analyses
New metrics for analyzing data from small angle scattering experiments should dramatically improve the ability of scientists to study the structures of macromolecules such as proteins and nanoparticles in solution.

US Department of Energy Office of Science, National Institutes of Health

Public Release: 24-Apr-2013

Nature Communications
Speeding the search for better methane capture
Systematic in silico studies have identified several zeolite compounds that show technological promise for capturing methane, the main component of natural gas, that can serve as an ally or an adversary in combating global climate change.

US Department of Energy Office of Science