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Researchers analyzed 15 years of data across 16 neighborhoods, shown in orange, in the Las Vegas Valley Water District to determine whether one home’s participation in the utility’s water conservation program had a measureable effect on their neighbors’ l

A team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory has discovered that residents living in arid environments share a desire for water security, which can ultimately benefit entire neighborhoods. Las Vegas, Nevada’s water utility was the first utility in the United States to implement ...

A simulation of runaway electrons in the experimental tokamak at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility at General Atomics shows the particle orbits in the fusion plasma and the synchrotron radiation emission patterns. Credit: Oak Ridge National Laboratory,

Fusion scientists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory are studying the behavior of high-energy electrons when the plasma that generates nuclear fusion energy suddenly cools during a magnetic disruption. Fusion energy is created when hydrogen isotopes are heated to millions of degrees...

ORNL’s new salt purification lab offers tools to make and purify the salt and perform corrosion testing, which are essential steps in qualifying molten salt reactor technologies for commercial use. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Oak Ridge National Laboratory has developed a salt purification lab to study the viability of using liquid salt that contains lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride, known as FLiBe, to cool molten salt reactors, or MSRs. Multiple American companies developing advanced reactor technol...

Oak Ridge National Laboratory used neutrons to evaluate the behavior of ions adsorbed on the external surfaces onion-like carbon electrodes and determine the right balance of two liquid salts that yields optimal energy storage potential.

Energy storage could get a boost from new research of tailored liquid salt mixtures, the components of supercapacitors responsible for holding and releasing electrical energy. Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Naresh Osti and his colleagues used neutrons at the lab’s Spallation Neutron ...

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A new manufacturing method created by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Rice University combines 3D printing with traditional casting to produce damage-tolerant components composed of multiple materials. Composite components made by pouring an aluminum alloy over a printed steel lattice showed an order of magnitude greater damage tolerance than aluminum alone.

This isotropic, neodymium-iron-boron bonded permanent magnet was 3D-printed at DOE’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have demonstrated that permanent magnets produced by additive manufacturing can outperform bonded magnets made using traditional techniques while conserving critical materials. Scientists fabric...

ORNL Director Thom Mason (left) and Thomas Roberts of Oddello Industries LLC sign a research and development agreement.

A process developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory for large-scale recovery of rare earth magnets from used computer hard drives will undergo industrial testing under a new agreement between Oddello Industries LLC and ORNL, as part of the Department of Energy’s Crit...

ORNL researchers are developing an idealized collector molecule that has a shape complementary to the surface atomic structure of xenotime, a rare earth yttrium-rich phosphate mineral.

Ensuring a reliable supply of rare earth elements, including four key lanthanides and yttrium, is a major goal of the Critical Materials Institute (https://cmi.ameslab.gov) as these elements are essential to many clean-energy technologies. These include energy-efficient lighting, ...

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A new technology developed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Critical Materials Institute that aids in the recycling, recovery and extraction of rare earth minerals has been licensed to U.S. Rare Earths, Inc.

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An alloy discovered at Oak Ridge National Laboratory holds great promise for permanent magnets as the material retains its magnetic properties at higher temperatures yet contains no rare-earth elements. This finding is significant because while rare-earth-based magnets are critical to alternative ...