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Media Contacts
![2023 Battelle Distinguished Inventors](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-11/23-G07641-Battelle-Distinguished-Inventor-graphic-pcg_0.jpg?h=d1cb525d&itok=uhmqAKgT)
Four scientists affiliated with ORNL were named Battelle Distinguished Inventors during the lab’s annual Innovation Awards on Dec. 1 in recognition of being granted 14 or more United States patents.
![ORNL researchers Lu Yu and Yaocai Bai examine vials that contain a chemical solution that causes the cobalt and lithium to separate from a spent battery, followed by a second stage when cobalt precipitates in the bottom. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-11/2023-P12386_0.jpg?h=8f9cfe54&itok=CVJOHRVM)
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.
![Conceptual art depicts machine learning finding an ideal material for capacitive energy storage. Its carbon framework (black) has functional groups with oxygen (pink) and nitrogen (turquoise). Credit: Tao Wang/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-11/Press%20release%20image_0.jpg?h=706c9a24&itok=zX1lC5ud)
Guided by machine learning, chemists at ORNL designed a record-setting carbonaceous supercapacitor material that stores four times more energy than the best commercial material.
![An electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, can be triggered by a nuclear explosion in the atmosphere or by an electromagnetic generator in a vehicle or aircraft. Here’s the chain of reactions it could cause to harm electrical equipment on the ground. Credit: Andy Sproles/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-11/EMP_illust04_0.png?h=21cd0a81&itok=M9UNd-n0)
Researchers at ORNL have been leading a project to understand how a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, could threaten power plants.
![The image conceptualizes the processing, structure and mechanical behavior of glassy ion conductors for solid state lithium batteries. Credit: Adam Malin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-10/SSB%20image_0.jpg?h=9d172ced&itok=o6AXEIXc)
As current courses through a battery, its materials erode over time. Mechanical influences such as stress and strain affect this trajectory, although their impacts on battery efficacy and longevity are not fully understood.
![ORNL’s David Sholl is director of the new DOE Energy Earthshot Non-Equilibrium Energy Transfer for Efficient Reactions center to help decarbonize the industrial chemical industry. Credit: Genevieve Martin, ORNL/U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-09/2021-P04915.David_.Sholl_.jpg?h=c6980913&itok=qT7ZMJX2)
ORNL has been selected to lead an Energy Earthshot Research Center, or EERC, focused on developing chemical processes that use sustainable methods instead of burning fossil fuels to radically reduce industrial greenhouse gas emissions to stem climate change and limit the crisis of a rapidly warming planet.
![Connecting wires to the interface of the topological insulator and superconductor enables probing of novel electronic properties. Researchers aim for qubits based on theorized Majorana particles. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-09/2023-P04516.jpg?h=c6980913&itok=BoCZtfwR)
Quantum computers process information using quantum bits, or qubits, based on fragile, short-lived quantum mechanical states. To make qubits robust and tailor them for applications, researchers from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory sought to create a new material system.
![Marm Dixit, a Weinberg Distinguished Staff Fellow at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, was honored for his work on imaging techniques for solid state batteries. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-04/Marm.chair__0.jpg?h=036a71b7&itok=lKca1x8Z)
Marm Dixit, a Weinberg Distinguished Staff Fellow at ORNL has received the 2023 Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Award.
![Isostatic pressing illustration](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-03/isostatic%20pressing%20illustration.png?h=e91a75a9&itok=jvDoO8Zs)
Following months of promising test results, battery researchers at ORNL are recommending that the solid-state battery industry focus on a technique known as isostatic pressing as it looks to commercialize next-generation batteries.
![UKAEA will provide novel fusion materials to be irradiated in ORNL’s HFIR facility over the next four years. From left, Kathy McCarthy, Jeremy Busby, Mickey Wade, Prof Sir Ian Chapman (UKAEA CEO), Cynthia Jenks and Yutai Kato will represent this new partnership. Not pictured: Dr. Amanda Quadling, UKAEA’s Director of Materials Research Facility. Credit: Genevieve Martin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-03/ukaea_0.png?h=781886b5&itok=8TMsXYxx)
ORNL has entered a strategic research partnership with the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, or UKAEA, to investigate how different types of materials behave under the influence of high-energy neutron sources. The $4 million project is part of UKAEA's roadmap program, which aims to produce electricity from fusion.