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Media Contacts
![Three staff members in Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Fusion and Fission Energy and Science Directorate (FFESD) have moved into newly established roles facilitating communication and program management with sponsors of the directorate’s Nuclear Energy and Fuel Cycle Division.](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2024-02/3_people_spacing.jpg?h=08ef668f&itok=33PRJFyS)
Three staff members in ORNL’s Fusion and Fission Energy and Science Directorate have moved into newly established roles facilitating communication and program management with sponsors of the directorate’s Nuclear Energy and Fuel Cycle Division.
![Caption: Jaswinder Sharma makes battery coin cells with a lightweight current collector made of thin layers of aligned carbon fibers in a polymer with carbon nanotubes. Credit: Genevieve Martin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2024-01/sharma1_1.jpg?h=f7dae89e&itok=JiSsMewF)
Electric vehicles can drive longer distances if their lithium-ion batteries deliver more energy in a lighter package. A prime weight-loss candidate is the current collector, a component that often adds 10% to the weight of a battery cell without contributing energy.
![ORNL intern Jack Orebaugh holds the drone used in his research to help locate human remains. Credit: Lena Shoemaker/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2024-01/jack.jpg?h=0261ddcd&itok=yZ9N5dAh)
Jack Orebaugh, a forensic anthropology major at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has a big heart for families with missing loved ones. When someone disappears in an area of dense vegetation, search and recovery efforts can be difficult, especially when a missing person’s last location is unknown. Recognizing the agony of not knowing what happened to a family or friend, Orebaugh decided to use his internship at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory to find better ways to search for lost and deceased people using cameras and drones.
![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.
![ORNL researcher Anne Campbell will present a paper in Korea next year on materials support of carbon-free nuclear energy. Credit: Adam Malin, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-11/nuclear-future-72dpi_0.jpg?h=d1cb525d&itok=HCXlz2mw)
Anne Campbell, a researcher at ORNL, recently won the Young Leaders Professional Development Award from the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society, or TMS, and has been chosen as the first recipient of the Young Leaders International Scholar Program award from TMS and the Korean Institute of Metals and Materials, or KIM.
![The sun sets behind the ORNL Visitor Center in this aerial photo from April 2023. Credit: Kase Clapp/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-10/sunset_visitor-center_0.png?h=10d202d3&itok=jLImPT0R)
In fiscal year 2023 — Oct. 1–Sept. 30, 2023 — Oak Ridge National Laboratory was awarded more than $8 million in technology maturation funding through the Department of Energy’s Technology Commercialization Fund, or TCF.
![Photo 1: Event organizers from the Nuclear Energy Fuel Cycle Division. Credit: Carol Morgan/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-10/2023-p15692.jpg?h=c6980913&itok=ommiWsy2)
The heat is on at this year’s Molten Salt Reactor Workshop – where top research and industry minds are melding to advance development on molten salt technology – at ORNL.
![Professional women in the IAEA’s Lise Meitner Programme 2023 cohort and supporters assembled at ORNL. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-10/2023-P14921.jpg?h=8f9cfe54&itok=EUxRbkj2)
The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory hosted the second 2023 cohort of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Lise Meitner Programme in October.
![ORNL’s organocatalyst deconstructs mixed plastics at different temperatures, which facilitates recovering their individual monomers separately, in reusable form. Credit: Jill Hemman/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-10/23-G05683_MixedPlasticRecycling_proof2_0.png?h=27870e4a&itok=jjYga9GD)
Little of the mixed consumer plastics thrown away or placed in recycle bins actually ends up being recycled. Nearly 90% is buried in landfills or incinerated at commercial facilities that generate greenhouse gases and airborne toxins. Neither outcome is ideal for the environment.
![When exposed to radiation, electrons produced within molten zinc chloride, or ZnCl2, can be observed in three distinct singly occupied molecular orbital states, plus a more diffuse, delocalized state. Credit: Hung H. Nguyen/University of Iowa](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-10/bernard-wide_0.png?h=dba5e3ef&itok=DgnYZ_Vy)
In a finding that helps elucidate how molten salts in advanced nuclear reactors might behave, scientists have shown how electrons interacting with the ions of the molten salt can form three states with different properties. Understanding these states can help predict the impact of radiation on the performance of salt-fueled reactors.