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Nuclear—Deep space travel

By automating the production of neptunium oxide-aluminum pellets, Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists have eliminated a key bottleneck when producing plutonium-238 used by NASA to fuel deep space exploration.

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Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists studying fuel cells as a potential alternative to internal combustion engines used sophisticated electron microscopy to investigate the benefits of replacing high-cost platinum with a lower cost, carbon-nitrogen-manganese-based catalyst.

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Thought leaders from across the maritime community came together at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to explore the emerging new energy landscape for the maritime transportation system during the Ninth Annual Maritime Risk Symposium.

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Self-driving cars promise to keep traffic moving smoothly and reduce fuel usage, but proving those advantages has been a challenge with so few connected and automated vehicles, or CAVs, currently on the road.

ORNL Director Thomas Zacharia (center, seated) visited Robertsville Middle School to present a check in support of the school’s CubeSat efforts.

Last November a team of students and educators from Robertsville Middle School in Oak Ridge and scientists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory submitted a proposal to NASA for their Cube Satellite Launch Initiative in hopes of sending a student-designed nanosatellite named RamSat into...

ORNL researchers Todd Toops, Charles Finney, and Melanie DeBusk (left to right) hold an example of a particulate filter used to collect harmful emissions in vehicles.

Researchers are looking to neutrons for new ways to save fuel during the operation of filters that clean the soot, or carbon and ash-based particulate matter, emitted by vehicles. A team of researchers from the Energy and Transportation Science Division at the Department of En...

Oak Ridge National Laboratory researcher Halil Tekinalp combines silanes and polylactic acid to create supertough renewable plastic.

A novel method developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory creates supertough renewable plastic with improved manufacturability. Working with polylactic acid, a biobased plastic often used in packaging, textiles, biomedical implants and 3D printing, the research team added tiny amo...

California charging EV station map

Officials responsible for anticipating the demand for electric vehicle charging stations could get help through a sophisticated new method developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The method considers electric vehicle volume and the random timing of vehicles arriving at cha...