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• Since UT-Battelle began managing ORNL in 2000, 97 ORNL researchers have reached this milestone.
• The inventors are Justin Baba, Brian Davison, James Kiggans and Vlastimil Kunc.
• Baba is the first scientist of African origin to be named a Battelle Distinguished Inventor from ORNL.

In October, President Biden signed an executive order outlining how the United States will promote safe, secure and trustworthy AI. The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is harnessing its extensive array of resources to support the nation as it harnesses the power of these transformative technologies.

The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has joined a global consortium of scientists from federal laboratories, research institutes, academia and industry to address the challenges of building large-scale artificial intelligence systems and advancing trustworthy and reliable AI for scientific discovery. The partnership, known as the Trillion Parameter Consortium, or TPC, seeks to grow and improve large-scale generative AI models aimed at tackling complex scientific challenges. 

• Caldera Holding has licensed ORNL's membrane solvent extraction technique to separate rare earth elements in mined ore.
• The company also owns the Pea Ridge iron mine in Missouri.
• The Pea Ridge mine is among the first in America shown to have relatively high amounts of dysprosium, a critical element for permanent magnets.

Used lithium-ion batteries from cell phones, laptops and a growing number of electric vehicles are piling up, but options for recycling them remain limited mostly to burning or chemically dissolving shredded batteries. Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have improved on approaches that dissolve the battery in a liquid solution in order to reduce the amount of hazardous chemicals used in the process. This simple, efficient and environmentally-friendly solution developed by ORNL researchers overcomes the main obstacles presented by previous approaches.

Benjamin Manard, an analytical chemist in the Chemical Sciences Division of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been selected for the 2023 Emerging Investigator Lectureship from the Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry. JAAS is a publication of the Royal Society of Chemistry that shares innovative research on the fundamental theory and application of spectrometric techniques. Manard is the first winner of this award from a Department of Energy lab.

Guided by machine learning, chemists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory designed a record-setting carbonaceous supercapacitor material that stores four times more energy than the best commercial material. A supercapacitor made with the new material could store more energy — improving regenerative brakes, power electronics and auxiliary power supplies.

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory used their knowledge of complex ecosystem processes, energy systems, human dynamics, computational science and Earth-scale modeling to inform the nation’s latest National Climate Assessment, which draws attention to vulnerabilities and resilience opportunities in every region of the country.

Seven scientists from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have been named among the world’s most influential researchers on the 2023 Highly Cited Researchers list, produced by Clarivate, a data analytics firm that specializes in scientific and academic research.

In 1973, physicist Phil Anderson hypothesized that the quantum spin liquid, or QSL, state existed on some triangular lattices, but he lacked the tools to delve deeper. Fifty years later, a team led by researchers associated with the Quantum Science Center headquartered at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has confirmed the presence of QSL behavior in a new material with this structure, KYbSe2.