Features

ORNL's Communications team works with news media seeking information about the laboratory. Media may use the resources listed below or send questions to news@ornl.gov.

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ORNL’s Jim Keiser and Mike Stephens (on stepladder) prepare to install samples in a Keiser rig, a furnace for exposing materials to corrosive gases, crushing pressures and calamitous heat. Image credit: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy;

‘Keiser rigs’ stress materials to the max to improve products for power, propulsion

The global marketplace demands constant improvements in performance and efficiency of aircraft engines, power turbines and other modern mainstays of energy technology. This progress requires advanced structural materials, such as ceramic composites and metal alloys with higher-t...
Default image of ORNL entry sign

UT, ORNL scientists gain new insights into atomic disordering of complex metal oxides

A study led by the University of Tennessee and the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory could soon pay dividends in the development of materials with energy-related applications. Three UT researchers—Maik Lang, assistant professor

Behind the work station, cryomodule 19 undergoes in-situ plasma processing inside the SNS linac. The inset shows a 6-cell cavity with monitored plasma inside each cell. Image credit: Genevieve Martin/ORNL.

Plasma Processing Technique Takes SNS Accelerator to New Energy Highs

A novel technique known as in-situ plasma processing is helping scientists get more neutrons and better data for their experiments at the Spallation Neutron Source at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “Plasma cleaning is a well-known technique in electrosta...
The Advanced Reactors Technical Summit III, hosted by Oak Ridge National Laboratory Feb. 10-11, had a record 180-plus participants. (Photo by Rachel Brooks)

Reactors summit at ORNL charts course for clean energy

Moving advanced nuclear reactors from the drawing board to the field was the focus of the Advanced Reactors Technical Summit III, hosted by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and attended by 180 experts from industry, government and academia. The conference, ...

Researchers used experimental data to create a 23.7-million atom biomass model featuring cellulose (purple), lignin (brown), and enzymes (green). (Image credit: Mike Matheson, ORNL)

Titan Probes Depths of Biofuel’s Biggest Barrier

Ask a biofuel researcher to name the single greatest technical barrier to cost-effective ethanol, and you’re likely to receive a one-word response: lignin. Cellulosic ethanol—fuel derived from woody plants and waste biomass—has the potential to become an affordable, renew...
In pure water, lignin adopts a globular conformation (left) that aggregates on cellulose and blocks enzymes. In a THF-water cosolvent, lignin adopts coil conformations (right) that are easier to remove during pretreatment.

Biofuel Researchers Employ Titan to Probe ‘Lignin Shield’

When the Ford Motor Company’s first automobile, the Model T, debuted in 1908, it ran on a corn-derived biofuel called ethanol, a substance Henry Ford dubbed “the fuel of the future.”
Proton density after laser impact on a spherical solid density target: irradiated by an ultra-short, high intensity laser (not in picture) the intense electro-magnetic field rips electrons apart from their ions and creates a plasma.

Titan Targets Tumors

Since lasers were first produced in the early 1960s, researchers have worked to apply laser technology from welding metal to surgeries, with laser technology advancing quickly through the last 50 years. Surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy all play important roles...

Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Joe Giaquinto investigates chemical clues for trace-level radioactivity. Giaquinto leads ORNL’s Nuclear Analytical Chemistry and Isotopics Laboratory, which makes critical contributions to nuclear forensics and nonprolifera

Cracking Cases

A group of nuclear detectives at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory takes on tough challenges, from detecting illicit uranium using isotopic “fingerprints” to investigating Presidential assassination conspiracies. 

In a Fluid Interface Reactions, Structures and Transport Center project to probe a battery’s atomic activity during its first charging cycle, Robert Sacci and colleagues used the Spallation Neutron Source’s vibrational spectrometer to gain chemical inform

ORNL researchers use neutrons to gain insight into battery inefficiency

Rechargeable batteries power everything from electric vehicles to wearable gadgets, but obstacles limit the creation of sleeker, longer-lasting and more efficient power sources. Batteries produce electricity when charged atoms, known as ions, move in a circuit from a positive end ...

ORNL’s Ralph Dinwiddie uses infrared cameras to create heat maps of working materials that reveal their thermal properties and subsurface structure. This 1998 image of an aging aircraft’s engine cowling revealed severe subsurface corrosion.

ORNL’s thermal cameras snoop beneath surfaces to reveal materials’ secrets

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are pioneering the use of infrared cameras to image additive manufacturing processes in hopes of better understanding how processing conditions affect the strength, residual stresses and microstructure of ...