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6-Apr-2016

Plastic proteins: Synthetic material mimics essential characteristics of natural proteins

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

PNNL researchers hoping to design new materials for energy uses have developed a system to make synthetic polymers -- some would say plastics -- with the versatility of nature's own polymers, the ubiquitous proteins. Based on an inexpensive industrial chemical, these synthetic polymers might one day be used to create materials with functions as limitless as proteins, which are involved in every facet of life.

Journal: Angewandte Chemie International Edition
Funder: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

1-Apr-2016

Low-cost and lightweight

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

For the first time, researchers have been able to see what makes this titanium alloy so strong -- and then make it stronger.

Journal: Nature Communications
Funder: US Department of Energy's Vehicle Technologies Office -- Propulsion Materials Program

15-Mar-2016

Microbes may not be so adaptable to climate change

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Microbes in soil -- organisms that exert enormous influence over our planet's carbon cycle -- may not be as adaptable to climate change as most scientists have presumed.

Journal: PLOS One
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

10-Mar-2016

PNNL gives a helping hand to small green businesses

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Grant and Award Announcement

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will help three small businesses reduce the cost of hydropower, cut building energy use, and make adhesives from plants through new projects announced today by DOE's Small Business Vouchers program.

Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

8-Mar-2016

Mix and match MOF

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Inexpensive materials called MOFs pull gases out of air or other mixed gas streams, but fail to do so with oxygen. Now, a team has overcome this limitation by creating a composite of a MOF and a helper molecule in which the two work in concert to separate oxygen from other gases simply and cheaply, they report in Advanced Materials.

Journal: Advanced Materials
Funder: Department of Energy

3-Mar-2016

Pushing boundaries

DOE/Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Solid-liquid interface studies have a long history at EMSL. The insights gained from this research spans areas including terrestrial ecosystems, energy materials, aerosols and biological systems. With improved understanding of interfacial events, scientists working at EMSL have developed more predictive models and made significant advances in addressing real-world challenges. EMSL's focus on solid-liquid interface research has pushed the development of new instruments and techniques to better study these complex surfaces for even greater scientific results.

3-Mar-2016

Cloudy problems: Today's clouds might not be the same as pre-industrial ones

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Clouds are notoriously hard to simulate in computer programs that model climate. A new study in the Proceedings on the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition suggests why -- either clouds are more variable than scientists give them credit for, or those bright white clouds in the sky are much dirtier than scientists thought.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

2-Mar-2016

The world's newest atom-smasher achieves its 'first turns'

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

One of the world's top particle accelerators has reached a milestone, achieving its 'first turns' -- circulating beams of particles for the first time. Japan's SuperKEKB accelerator is at the forefront of the 'intensity frontier' and is designed to deliver more than 40 times the rate of collisions between particles than its predecessor. Scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have led the US contribution to the main experiment, with 75 US scientists from 14 institutions contributing.

18-Feb-2016

Biofuel tech straight from the farm

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Nature's figured it out already, how to best break down food into fuel. Now scientists have caught up, showing that fungi found in the guts of goats, horses and sheep could help fill up your gas tank too.

Journal: Science
Funder: US Department of Energy's Office of Science, US Department of Agriculture, Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies

28-Jan-2016

PNNL moves cybersecurity software and a novel disinfecting system beyond the lab

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Grant and Award Announcement

Software that helps cybersecurity analysts prevent hacks and a microbial disinfecting system that kills with an activated salt spray are two of the latest innovations Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has successfully commercialized with the help of business partners. The Federal Laboratory Consortium has honored the two teams with 2016 Excellence in Technology Transfer awards.

Funder: Department of Energy