Feature Articles

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

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Updates every hour. Last Updated: 21-Jun-2026 11:15 ET (21-Jun-2026 15:15 GMT/UTC)

Studying the mechanism of metal extraction with ionic liquids

DOE/US Department of Energy

The “superheavy” elements are found only in labs. The small amounts of material available means chemists must use special techniques to study them. This research developed a new way to study the chemistry of metallic elements with extremely low concentrations of material. This may lead to better methods of recovering iridium, an element that is critical to national security and the economy.

Journal: New Journal of Chemistry

Let’s get small: New Argonne method greatly improves X-ray nanotomography resolution

DOE/Argonne National Laboratory

Using X-rays to study batteries and electronics at nanometer scales requires extremely high resolution. Argonne scientists led an effort to build a new instrument and devise a new algorithm to greatly improve the resolution for nanotomography.

Journal: Advanced Materials

To reduce vehicle pollution, a single atom can do the work of several

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

A discovery from PNNL and Washington State University could help reduce the amount of expensive material needed to treat vehicle exhaust by making the most of every precious atom.

Journal: Angewandte Chemie International Edition

Automated disassembly line aims to make battery recycling safer, faster

DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a robotic disassembly system for spent electric vehicle battery packs to safely and efficiently recycle and reuse critical materials while reducing toxic waste.

Funder: U.S. Department of Energy

Katie Sautter: building materials for a quantum future

DOE/Argonne National Laboratory

Katie Sautter, a postdoctoral scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, is building new, exquisite, atomically engineered materials that will be used for quantum communication. Her work is part of Q-NEXT, a DOE National Quantum Information Science Research Center.

Argonne study on costs and benefits of new transportation technologies the most comprehensive to date

DOE/Argonne National Laboratory

The laboratory’s analyses offer the most complete understanding yet of the costs of owning and operating a vehicle and how those costs vary by powertrain, from the conventional to the cutting-edge.

Argonne supercomputing resources power energy savings analysis

DOE/Argonne National Laboratory

As part of a larger goal to model the energy use of every building in the nation, researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory have analyzed 178,000 buildings using the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility.

James Kneller: Then and Now / 2011 Early Career Award Winner

DOE/US Department of Energy

At North Carolina State University, associate professor James Kneller studies neutrinos emitted from exploding stars.

Nuclear reactor components 3D printed by ORNL now installed at TVA Browns Ferry nuclear plant

DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Four first-of-a-kind 3D-printed fuel assembly brackets, produced at the Department of Energy’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, have been installed and are now under routine operating conditions at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant Unit 2 in Athens, Alabama.

A call to rethink electricity measurement

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

PNNL researcher's proposed overhaul of outdated electricity measurements could mean fewer blackouts, better automation, and more clean energy resources.