Skip to main content
Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers re-evaluated used nuclear fuel rods from a commercial reactor and reduced data uncertainties by an order of magnitude compared with previous measurements taken at a different lab.

Nearly 100 commercial nuclear reactors supply one-fifth of America’s energy. For each fuel rod in a reactor assembly, only 5 percent of its energy is consumed before fission can no longer be sustained efficiently for power production and the fuel assembly must be replaced. Power plan...

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;
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

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.
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...
Default image of ORNL entry sign

Adrian Sabau and Robert Wagner of the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have been appointed fellows of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), an honor conferred to members who have demonstrated significant, long-term engineering achievements.

Default image of ORNL entry sign

Claus Daniel, materials scientist and deputy director of the Sustainable Transportation program at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, delivered a Gilbreth Lecture at the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) annual meeting, held February 11 in...

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)

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)
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.
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.”
The development team for ORNL's Hyperion technology, which has won a Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer award, included (from left) Stacy Prowell, Mark Pleszkoch, Richard Willems and Kirk Sayre.

The commercial licensing of a cyber security technology developed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been recognized by the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC) as a top example of moving technology