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Media Contacts
![Kevin Robb, a staff scientist at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is taking what he learned from developing the Liquid Salt Test Loop—a key tool in deploying molten salt technology applications Kevin Robb, a staff scientist at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is taking what he learned from developing the Liquid Salt Test Loop—a key tool in deploying molten salt technology applications](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/news/images/2017-P03818_1.jpg?itok=qQLLL9dH)
Thanks in large part to developing and operating a facility for testing molten salt reactor (MSR) technologies, nuclear experts at the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are now tackling the next generation of another type of clean energy—concentrating ...
![From left, ORNL’s Rick Lowden, Chris Bryan and Jim Kiggans were troubled that target discs of a material needed to produce Mo-99 using an accelerator could deform after irradiation and get stuck in their holder. From left, ORNL’s Rick Lowden, Chris Bryan and Jim Kiggans were troubled that target discs of a material needed to produce Mo-99 using an accelerator could deform after irradiation and get stuck in their holder.](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/news/images/2018-P01734.jpg?itok=IbSUl9Vc)
“Made in the USA.” That can now be said of the radioactive isotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99), last made in the United States in the late 1980s. Its short-lived decay product, technetium-99m (Tc-99m), is the most widely used radioisotope in medical diagnostic imaging. Tc-99m is best known ...
![Julie Smith Julie Smith](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/julie_smith_bb.png?itok=Z9DoY2ss)
It may take a village to raise a child, according to the old proverb, but it takes an entire team of highly trained scientists and engineers to install and operate a state-of-the-art, exceptionally complex ion microprobe. Just ask Julie Smith, a nuclear security scientist at the Depa...
![Composites scientist and engineer Vlastimil Kunc with the latest large-scale 3Dprinter at the MDF. Composites scientist and engineer Vlastimil Kunc with the latest large-scale 3Dprinter at the MDF.](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/news/images/Kunc200.jpg?itok=Z4xuRYuR)
Vlastimil Kunc grew up in a family of scientists where his natural curiosity was encouraged—an experience that continues to drive his research today in polymer composite additive manufacturing at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “I’ve been interested in the science of composites si...
![Germina Ilas (left) and Ian Gauld review spent fuel data entries in the SFCOMPO 2.0 database. Germina Ilas (left) and Ian Gauld review spent fuel data entries in the SFCOMPO 2.0 database.](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/news/images/2018-P00005_r3_0.jpg?itok=FrGhhOuK)
![ORNL Image](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2017-P04962.jpg?h=dafbaa5b&itok=kG3bP2Q9)
Working backwards has moved Josh Michener’s research far forward as he uses evolution and genetics to engineer microbes for better conversion of plants into biofuels and biochemicals. In his work for the BioEnergy Science Center at ORNL, for instance, “we’ve gotten good at engineering microbes th...
![ORNL’s Xiahan Sang unambiguously resolved the atomic structure of MXene, a 2D material promising for energy storage, catalysis and electronic conductivity. Image credit: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy; photographer Carlos Jones ORNL’s Xiahan Sang unambiguously resolved the atomic structure of MXene, a 2D material promising for energy storage, catalysis and electronic conductivity. Image credit: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy; photographer Carlos Jones](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/Sang_2016-P07680_0.jpg?itok=w0e5eR_U)
Researchers have long sought electrically conductive materials for economical energy-storage devices. Two-dimensional (2D) ceramics called MXenes are contenders. Unlike most 2D ceramics, MXenes have inherently good conductivity because they are molecular sheets made from the carbides ...
![Pellet selector Pellet selector](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/news/images/Fusion%20pellet%20art%202.jpg?itok=4KhWRcQt)
When it’s up and running, the ITER fusion reactor will be very big and very hot, with more than 800 cubic meters of hydrogen plasma reaching 170 million degrees centigrade. The systems that fuel and control it, on the other hand, will be small and very cold. Pellets of frozen gas will be shot int...
![Processing plutonium-238 Processing plutonium-238](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/news/images/Pu-238%20art.jpg?itok=3k_Y0YT_)
Since its 1977 launch, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has travelled farther than any other piece of human technology. It is also the only human-made object to have entered interstellar space. More recently, the agency’s New Horizons mission flew past Pluto on July 14, giving us our first close-up lo...
![ORNL Image](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/legacy_files/Image%20Library/Main%20Nav/ORNL/News/Features/2014/iter_3d_300.jpg?itok=7DLRz2SC)
ITER, the international fusion research facility now under construction in St. Paul-lez-Durance, France, has been called a puzzle of a million pieces. US ITER staff at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are using an affordable tool—desktop three-dimensional printing, also known as additive printing—to help them design and configure components more efficiently and affordably.