Feature Articles

Ames Laboratory

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Updates every hour. Last Updated: 13-Jun-2026 01:15 ET (13-Jun-2026 05:15 GMT/UTC)

Battery research at Argonne targets a fast charging future

DOE/Argonne National Laboratory

The Argonne-led XCEL initiative is steadily improving lithium-ion batteries to accommodate fast charging for electric cars and trucks.

Journal: Journal of Power Sources

Adding ozone lowers the heat for biofuel combustion

DOE/US Department of Energy

Studying low temperature chemistry (LTC) aids in understanding how internal combustion engines burn fuel. Fuel ignition is a complex two-step process that affects how engines produce harmful emissions. One way to make an LTC reaction faster is to inject ozone into a system. This study examined the use of ozone injection with methyl hexanoate to broaden understanding of LTC and potentially reduce harmful emissions.

Journal: The Journal of Physical Chemistry

Q&A: Could magnesium be a battery future? Argonne chemist Brian Ingram weighs in

DOE/Argonne National Laboratory

Argonne chemist Brian Ingram answers questions about magnesium-ion batteries.

Journal: ACS Energy Letters

Learning to improve chemical reactions with artificial intelligence

DOE/Idaho National Laboratory

INL researchers working with the innovative Temporal Analysis of Products (TAP) reactor system are trying to improve understanding of chemical reactions by studying the role of catalysts, which are components that can be added to a mixture of chemicals to alter the reaction process.

Journal: Chemical Engineering Journal

PPPL collaborations support the recent European production of historic fusion power

DOE/Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

A close-up look at the PPPL collaboration that helped set the stage for JET's recent record output that advances the development of safe and clean fusion power.

Complicating the opioid epidemic: the many faces of Fentanyl

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

PNNL scientists are protecting first responders and others by expanding what’s known about fentanyl, the driver of the opioid epidemic. They’re expanding the library of known fentanyl analogs and predicting new forms that might exist someday.

Funder: U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Alexandre M. Tartakovsky: Then and Now / 2011 Early Career Award Winner

DOE/US Department of Energy

Supported by his 2011 Early Career Research Program award, Alexandre Tartakovsky developed modeling methods. The models explain how mass spreads from highly concentrated areas to less concentrated areas and the interactions of several fluids.

Scientists discover a surprising structural change in metal oxide at low temperature

DOE/Argonne National Laboratory

Scientists from Argonne, University of Florida and UCLA report a surprising structural change in metal oxide at low temperature. It could help resolve a 60-year-old mystery and find applications in thermochromic devices and energy-efficient systems.

Journal: Physical Review Letters

A day in the life of two accelerator experts

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Upgrading a particle accelerator is a lot like modernizing a house. It just requires extra teamwork, a mountain of parts and a highly specialized understanding of the physics and technology that make accelerators work.

Major milestone for B61-12 life extension program

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories

Sandia National Laboratories marked a major milestone when the Nuclear Security Enterprise successfully produced the first completely refurbished bomb for the B61-12 life extension program in November 2021. More than 5,000 employees have worked on the B61-12 life extension program at Sandia during the last decade. As part of the program, Sandia worked to refurbish, replace or reuse about 50 different components and sub-systems that make up the B61-12.