Electric vehicles can drive longer distances if their lithium-ion batteries deliver more energy in a lighter package. A prime weight-loss candidate is the current collector, a component that often adds 10% to the weight of a battery cell without contributing energy.
The 21st Symposium on Separation Science and Technology for Energy Applications, Oct. 23-26 at the Embassy Suites by Hilton West in Knoxville, attracted 109 researchers, including some from Austria and the Czech Republic. Besides attending many technical sessions, they had the opportunity to tour the Graphite Reactor, High Flux Isotope Reactor and both supercomputers at ORNL.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have identified the most energy-efficient 2024 model year vehicles available in the United States, including electric and hybrids, in the latest edition of the Department of Energy’s Fuel Economy Guide.
“Three-Dimensional Breast Cancer Spheroids” submitted by radiotherapeutics researcher Debjani Pal is stunning. Brilliant blue dots pop from an electric sphere threaded with bright colors: greens, aqua, hot pink and red.
Nuclear engineering students from the United States Military Academy and United States Naval Academy are working with researchers at ORNL to complete design concepts for a nuclear propulsion rocket to go to space in 2027 as part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency DRACO program.
ORNL and Caterpillar Inc. have entered into a cooperative research and development agreement, or CRADA, to investigate using methanol as an alternative fuel source for four-stroke internal combustion marine engines.
Within the Department of Energy’s National Transportation Research Center at ORNL’s Hardin Valley Campus, scientists investigate engines designed to help the U.S. pivot to a clean mobility future.
Lee's paper at the August conference in Bellevue, Washington, combined weather and power outage data for three states – Texas, Michigan and Hawaii – and used a machine learning model to predict how extreme weather such as thunderstorms, floods and tornadoes would affect local power grids and to estimate the risk for outages. The paper relied on data from the National Weather Service and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Environment for Analysis of Geo-Located Energy Information, or EAGLE-I, database.
Used lithium-ion batteries from cell phones, laptops and a growing number of electric vehicles are piling up, but options for recycling them remain limited mostly to burning or chemically dissolving shredded batteries.
ORNL’s Luiz Leal of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is the recipient of the 2023 Seaborg Medal from the American Nuclear Society.