Research 
Highlights... 
 
 

Workers install the Stirling engine on dish/Stirling system at NREL. 

See below. 
 
 Number 7 June 29, 1998 
 
Bugs that Eat Napalm for Lunch

Scientists at DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed and American Technologies, Inc. has licensed a bacterial technology that can dispose of napalm and other explosives. Researchers have developed special bacteria that produce chemical-degrading enzymes; so far the process has been used to render the hazardous chemicals trichloroethylene and trinitrotoluene harmless but Oak Ridge-based American Technologies plans to use the method for disposing of unexploded ordnance.

[Fred Strohl, 423/574-4165, strohlhf@ornl.gov]

‘Human Presence Detector’ Failed Controlled Tests at Sandia  

A recent double-blind test at DOE’s Sandia National Laboratories of an instrument that its manufacturer said could detect the presence of human beings at a distance through any material found no evidence that it could do so. The test results, requested by DOE’s Office of Safeguards and Security, showed that the DKL LifeGuard Model 2 “human presence detector” failed to meet its published specifications and its performance was no better than random chance. Such a detection device, if the capability could be reliably demonstrated, would be a tremendous help in search and rescue, law enforcement and security options. Word about the device had gained attention in government circles. The question that DOE posed to Sandia simply was, “Does it work?” More at http://www.sandia.gov/media/hudet.htm.  
 

 [Larry Perrine, 505/845-8511, lgperri@sandia.gov]

Improved Bio Protection for Troops 

DOE's Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories have joined forces with the DOD community to help improve protection against biological weapons for troops in the field. The project, the Joint Biological Remote Early Warning System, is sponsored by DOD's Joint Project Office for Biological Defense. It intends to deliver a demonstration system to the U.S. European Command by December 1999. The two DOE labs are creating the detection software and wireless communications necessary to coordinate the deployment and operation of arrays of approximately 130 bio sensors that communicate with each other and with central military command posts.

 [Jeff Garberson, 925/423-3125, jbg@llnl.gov]

New Laser’s “First Light” Shatters Record  

Researchers at DOE’s Jefferson Lab delivered 155 watts of light from their Free Electron Laser (FEL) on June17. This light is 150,000 times more powerful than a supermarket scanner—fifteen times the power of existing FELs. Jefferson Lab pioneered superconducting technology for accelerating electrons to high energy in efficient, cost-effective accelerators. This technology offers two cost advantages for FELs: the laser can stay on 100% of the time and 99% of the energy not converted to light can be recycled. The FEL could potentially produce light at a cost useful for industrial processing and it provides a unique tool for basic research in materials. For more information, see http://www.jlab.org/FEL/firstlight.html. 
 

 [Linda Ware, 757/269-7689, ware@jlab.org]

Pacific Northwest Computerizes Crimefighting  

Computer scientists at DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are improving Washington state crime databases to help police in that state share information on unsolved cases and track violations committed by criminals on parole. Through these databases, officers will be able to retrieve information on offenders previously inaccessible and do so within minutes rather than days or weeks. The work is funded by the state attorney general’s office, which will test the Pacific Northwest-developed computer systems with three or four police departments of varying size around the state later this year.  
 

[Staci West, 509/372-6313, staci.west@pnl.gov]

Packing More on Microchips

Computer chips are the raw material of the Cyber Age, but the push to process more data faster and faster also is pushing engineers near the limits of current chip-manufacturing technology.  The secret is to pack more circuits on a chip, and researchers at DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a new tool -- called an amorphous diamond emitter--that "writes" twice or more as many circuits on a chip than current state-of-the-art technologies. The new technology would radically improve current chip manufacturing and make possible innovative chip designs for the future.

[Ron Walli, 423/576-0226, wallira@ornl.gov]

Princeton Physicists Study Solar Phenomena 

Researchers at DOE’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory are studying magnetic reconnection—the topological breaking and reconnection of magnetic field lines in plasmas, or hot ionized gases. Magnetic reconnection has relevance not only to fusion energy research, but also to solar physics, astrophysics, and magnetospheric physics. It may play a key role in heating the plasma in the solar corona. Researchers hope to explain why the sun’s corona (2 million degrees Celsius) gets so much hotter than the sun’s surface (6,000 degrees Celsius). Princeton’s magnetic reconnection experiments could aid in the interpretation of photographs of solar flares and arcades taken by the Yohkoh satellite, a joint effort of the United States and Japan. 
 

 [Anthony R. DeMeo, 609/243-2755, ademeo@pppl.gov] 

Sandia Detector Determines if Food Not Fit to Eat  

If frozen food thawed on the cross-country truck transporting it, was then refrozen and you bought it, how would you know the food wasn’t fit to eat? Perhaps by the color change in a very inexpensive thaw indicator placed in the package. The indicator, originated at and patented by DOE’s Sandia National Laboratories and the byproduct of a solar research project, changes color when its temperature rises above 32 degrees F, the point above which harmful bacteria multiply, and the color doesn’t change back if the temperature then drops below freezing. For details see http://www.sandia.gov/media/food.htm.  
 

 [Neal Singer, 505/845-7078, nsinger@sandia.gov]
 
Zed Zero Hits New Highs 

DOE’s Stanford Linear Accelerator Center is celebrating as collaborators in the SLD/SLC group logged 350,000 Z0 events in its 12-month experimental run, which is more than the number of events for the 1992, 1993, 1994-95, and 1996 runs combined. In the last full day of logging data, over 5300 Z0’s were recorded in 24 hours. This output has delighted experimenters who are analyzing the information for presentation at summer conferences. The Z0 data provide the world’s most precise measurements in several areas which deal with the basic forces of nature: electromagnetism and the weak force. 
 

 [P.A. Moore, 650/926-2605, xanadu@slac.stanford.edu]
 
 
 
Solar Energy System Offers Solutions

An eye-catching 50-foot diameter solar collector—shaped like a concave dish with sixteen 10.5-foot diameter mirrors—is up and running at DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). 

The dish/Stirling system uses mirrors to focus sunlight into a concentrated beam. The beam strikes a thermal receiver that absorbs the heat to run a Stirling engine. The engine then drives a generator to produce electricity.
 

Workers install the Stirling engine on dish/Stirling system at NREL last April.

The prototype concentrator, developed by Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), incorporates new cost-saving features such as an increased reflective area, an improved control system that provides autonomous operation and a Stirling engine with 42 percent thermal efficiency. 

The engine, produced by Stirling Thermal Motors Inc., can be powered by natural gas or other fuels during the night or in cloudy weather. The project is funded by a subcontract SAIC has with Sandia National Laboratories and is managed by SunLab, a DOE research organization that combines the expertise of NREL and Sandia. The system at NREL is the first of at least five systems that will be installed throughout the country during the next year. A system was recently installed on the grounds of the Pentagon to demonstrate its environmental benefits and generating efficiency. 

Laboratory research in support of SAIC’s efforts will focus on optical characterization and alignment of the dish/Stirling system, accelerated testing of optical materials, wind load characterization and emissions measurements. 

“The goal for the next year is to begin building a reliability record for the systems,” Mark Mehos, senior mechanical engineer in NREL’s Research Program Management Office, said. “This should yield statistically meaningful data on their reliability, which is critical before they will be accepted in the marketplace.” 

Past dish/Stirling systems have demonstrated impressive 30 percent solar to electric conversion efficiencies. Their greatest potential is in developing countries and remote, sunny areas around the world because they can be used on or off the grid, reducing the need for costly electric power infrastructure investments. Individual systems range in size from 10 kW to 50 kW and can be used independently or linked to increase generating capacity. 

Submitted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory 
 

 

DOE Pulse highlights work being done at the Department of Energy's national laboratories. DOE's laboratories house world-class facilities where more than 30,000 scientists and engineers perform cutting-edge research spanning DOE's science, energy, national security and environmental quality missions. DOE Pulse is distributed every two weeks. For more information, please contact Jeff Sherwood (jeff.sherwood@hq.doe.gov, 202-586-5806)
 
Medical Physicist Seeks Better Cancer Therapy

Christine Hartmann Siantar can recall all too vividly her days in an oncology clinic in Wisconsin. As a medical physicist working in radiation therapy for cancer patients, she saw too many deaths. 

Christine Hartmann-Siantar“It was very stressful,” she said. “In graduate school, we were trained to use science to solve problems. I thought that there must be ways to apply physics to make radiation therapy more effective.” 

In 1993 Hartmann-Siantar got her chance. She joined DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to help a research team apply tools used for nuclear weapons work to radiation therapy. Now, she is the principal investigator of PEREGRINE, a revolutionary new radiation transport modeling system that promises higher cure rates in cancer patients. 

Until now, radiation therapists have been forced to calculate the passage of radiation through the human body as though it consisted entirely of water, without full consideration for differences between bones, body cavities or even a metal prosthesis. 

Yet precision in radiation therapy is critical. The margin of error between failing to cure a tumor and damaging, perhaps killing, healthy tissue can be very small. PEREGRINE provides the most accurate dose calculations so doctors can plan safe, effective radiation therapy. 

The success of the PEREGRINE project arises from an integrated team of physicists, electrical engineers, computer scientists and collaborators from leading medical institutions in the United States. Together, they have created the fastest and most accurate transport algorithms, used the best atomic data bases and built a highly efficient computer platform from commercial hardware to provide a solution to one of the most persistent problems in providing better care for cancer patients. 

Christine thinks PEREGRINE could be available to hospitals in 1999. “This is the most exciting thing I could ever work on—taking technology developed for our national security and using it to save lives,” she says. 

Submitted by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 
 
 
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Volume 7, June 29, 1998
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