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Media Contacts
![Researchers have shown how an all-solid lithium-based electrolyte material can be used to develop fast charging, long-range batteries for electric vehicles that are also safer than conventional designs. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-10/Lui_solid_state_0.png?h=27870e4a&itok=hd5IA-bH)
Currently, the biggest hurdle for electric vehicles, or EVs, is the development of advanced battery technology to extend driving range, safety and reliability.
![Neutron scattering experiments at the Spallation Neutron Source revealed how the dynamics between copper and oxygen make a special type of enzyme excel at breaking down biomass. Insights could lead to lowering the cost of biofuel production. Credit: Jill Hemman/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-05/23-G02576_Meilleur_0.png?h=b6717701&itok=jPIOwV6b)
Nonfood, plant-based biofuels have potential as a green alternative to fossil fuels, but the enzymes required for production are too inefficient and costly to produce. However, new research is shining a light on enzymes from fungi that could make biofuels economically viable.
![Heat is typically carried through a material by vibrations known as phonons. In some crystals, however, different atomic motions — known as phasons — carry heat three times faster and farther. This illustration shows phasons made by rearranging atoms, shown by arrows. Credit: Jill Hemman/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-02/23-G01840_Phason_Manly_proof3_0.png?h=10d202d3&itok=3NpjriWi)
Warming a crystal of the mineral fresnoite, ORNL scientists discovered that excitations called phasons carried heat three times farther and faster than phonons, the excitations that usually carry heat through a material.
![An ORNL research team is investigating new catalysts for ethanol conversion that could advance the cost-effective production of renewable transportation. Credit: Unsplash](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2021-07/catalyst_story_tip_0.jpg?h=78aab1d8&itok=0ieRdqRo)
Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have developed a new catalyst for converting ethanol into C3+ olefins – the chemical
![Researchers built optical tools called zero-mode waveguides, illustrated here, used to observe proteins that are implicated in human heart function. Credit: David S. White/University of Wisconsin-Madison](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2021-07/Zero-mode%20waveguides%20-%20story%20tip_1.jpg?h=71558423&itok=OODOCLHO)
Researchers working with Oak Ridge National Laboratory developed a new method to observe how proteins, at the single-molecule level, bind with other molecules and more accurately pinpoint certain molecular behavior in complex
![Transition metals stitched into graphene with an electron beam form promising quantum building blocks. Credit: Ondrej Dyck, Andrew Lupini and Jacob Swett/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2021-02/quantum-building-blocks.jpg?h=6e276780&itok=uf-gKRle)
Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists demonstrated that an electron microscope can be used to selectively remove carbon atoms from graphene’s atomically thin lattice and stitch transition-metal dopant atoms in their place.
![Researchers at ORNL’s Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center partnered to design a COVID-19 screening whistle for convenient home testing. Credit: Michelle Lehman/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2021-01/covid_whistle_tag_no_logo_0.png?h=d1cb525d&itok=IMMECFgK)
Collaborators at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center are developing a breath-sampling whistle that could make COVID-19 screening easy to do at home.
![self-healing elastomers](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2021-01/Buildings%20-%20Unbreakable%20bond-%20small.png?h=5ded6b27&itok=Du9vTz_5)
![An international research team used scanning tunneling microscopy at ORNL to send and receive single molecules across a surface on an atomically precise track. Credit: Michelle Lehman/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2021-01/5.png?h=d1cb525d&itok=TtJEEiiq)
Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences contributed to a groundbreaking experiment published in Science that tracks the real-time transport of individual molecules.
![UTK researchers used neutron probes at ORNL to confirm established fundamental chemical rules can also help understand and predict atomic movements and distortions in materials when disorder is introduced, as arrows show. Credit: Eric O’Quinn/UTK](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-11/Neutrons-disordered_ordered_0.png?h=e91a75a9&itok=hlh7xoRJ)
Pauling’s Rules is the standard model used to describe atomic arrangements in ordered materials. Neutron scattering experiments at Oak Ridge National Laboratory confirmed this approach can also be used to describe highly disordered materials.