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It’s one of the most persistent questions in nuclear energy: What about the waste? A new collaboration between Idaho National Laboratory and the University of Utah hopes to answer that question by making fuel recycling a reality for advanced reactors.

Over the past decade, just as the invention of the silicon microchip revolutionized electronics, crystalline minerals called perovskites have helped researchers discover new, innovative electronics and energy technologies. Now, at Idaho National Laboratory, researchers are using perovskites for different energy applications: converting fuel into electricity or producing valuable chemicals such as ethylene, hydrogen or ammonia.

The development of new, more efficient electrochemical cells could provide a good option for carbon-free hydrogen and chemical production along with large-scale electricity generation and storage. But first, scientists must overcome several challenges, including how to make the cells more efficient and cost-effective. Recently, a research team led by Idaho National Laboratory used a simple process to bind materials more tightly within protonic ceramic electrochemical cells, also known as PCECs, solving a mystery that had limited the technology’s performance.

People rely on electronics, and that reliance will only grow in the coming years. As the newest gadgets prompt us to dispose of our old ones, we unwittingly become contributors to a major conundrum for our world – electronic litter. The need to properly recycle electronics is not new, but it has become more of a concern due to the industry’s rapid growth. The Idaho National Laboratory-developed technology known as E-RECOV is working to combat this problem.

Researchers at Idaho National Laboratory are looking for field demonstration partners to help investigate how regional hydropower operators can integrate industrial-scale energy storage to make their plants capable of providing local emergency power during blackouts.

Recently, researchers at Spero Renewables, a California-based green technology company, tapped into Idaho National Laboratory’s (INL) Technical Assistance Program to work with researchers at the Biomass Feedstocks National User Facility. The program provides U.S.-based small businesses with access to INL experts and unique capabilities at no cost. Spero is using environmentally friendly practices to manufacture renewable chemicals from plant-based materials.

For the first time, researchers at Idaho National Laboratory have adapted a commercially available X-ray microscope to examine the internal structure of the uranium kernels inside irradiated TRISO particles, TRi-structural ISOtropic particle fuel. The particles were irradiated for 560 days in Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Test Reactor.

Workers at Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Test Reactor have completed an 11-month outage for a core overhaul that occurs about every 10 years to maintain peak performance. During the overhaul, operators and maintenance teams replaced components that wear out over time — akin to rebuilding the engine of a high-performance car.

Idaho National Laboratory continues its 70-year legacy of clean energy leadership today by committing to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2031.

A 2013 sniper attack on an electric power substation in Northern California, which caused more than $15 million in damages and destroyed 17 transformers, led Idaho National Laboratory researchers to develop a novel protective solution. Now, the lab’s Armored Transformer Barrier system has been licensed for production by Michigan-based Waltonen Engineering, a full-service design and engineering company.