Feature Articles

ORNL’s electromagnetic isotope separator, or EMIS, made history in 2018 when it produced 500 milligrams of the rare isotope ruthenium-96, unavailable anywhere else in the world. And EMIS technology just keeps getting better, said Brian Egle, who heads the Enrichment Science and Engineering Division’s Stable Isotope Research, Development and Production Section. “It’s capable of, essentially, separating the whole periodic table,” he said.

Developers seeking to deploy advanced nuclear reactors can find high market potential in states with energy-intensive industries, nuclear-friendly laws, and widespread social acceptance – factors outlined in a new report by researchers at Idaho National Laboratory (INL).

Tomonori Saito, a distinguished innovator in the field of polymer science and senior R&D staff member at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, was honored on May 11 in Columbus, Ohio, at Battelle’s Celebration of Solvers.

The Climate Risk and Resilience Portal received a 2023 Climate Leadership Award recognizing Argonne National Laboratory’s collaboration with AT&T and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The portal provides projections and maps to enhance U.S. preparedness for climate risks.

Nonfood, plant-based biofuels have potential as a green alternative to fossil fuels, but the enzymes required for production are too inefficient and costly to produce. However, new research is shining a light on enzymes from fungi that could make biofuels economically viable.

More than three years ago, the Sandia National Laboratories-operated atmospheric measurement facility in Alaska switched from launching helium-filled weather balloons to launching weather balloons filled with hydrogen produced on-site. By switching the gas used in their weather balloons, they have reduced their metaphorical footprint on the fragile Arctic ecosystem. Since then, they have launched nearly 5,000 hydrogen balloons with minimal issues.

Storm-DEPART helps utilities refine their damage estimates by combining utility infrastructure data with weather data from the National Hurricane Center to efficiently deploy restoration resources.

Argonne fellow Ashley Bielinski developed a new approach to study atomic layer deposition, an important technique in research and industry.

Rouven Essig is a theoretical particle physicist at Stony Brook University. He conceives new experiments and detection methods in the search for knowledge about dark matter.

The start of this year’s physics run at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) also marks the start of a new era. For the first time since RHIC began operating at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in 2000, a brand new detector, known as sPHENIX, will track what happens when the nuclei of gold atoms smash into one another at nearly the speed of light. RHIC’s STAR detector, which has been running and evolving since 2000, will also see some firsts in Run 23.