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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

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.
 

Screen capture from video illustrating light-activated acid drives energy-efficient, on-demand release of captured CO2

Using light instead of heat, researchers at ORNL have found a new way to release carbon dioxide, or CO2, from a solvent used in direct air capture, or DAC, to trap this greenhouse gas. The novel approach paves the way for economically viable separation of CO2 from the atmosphere.

Steve Nolan, left, who manages many ORNL facilities for United Cleanup Oak Ridge, and Carl Dukes worked closely together to accommodate bringing members of the public into the Oak Ridge Reservation to collect distant images from overhead for the BRIAR biometric recognition project. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Carl Dukes’ career as an adept communicator got off to a slow start: He was about 5 years old when he spoke for the first time. “I’ve been making up for lost time ever since,” joked Dukes, a technical professional at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Michelle Kidder is the recipient of the 2023 American Chemical Society’s Mid-Career Award. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Michelle Kidder, a senior R&D staff scientist at ORNL, has received the American Chemical Society’s Energy and Fuels Division’s Mid-Career Award for sustained and distinguished contributions to the field of energy and fuel chemistry.

ZEISS Head of Additive Manufacturing Technology Claus Hermannstaedter, left, and ORNL Interim Associate Laboratory Director for Energy Science and Technology Rick Raines sign a licensing agreement that allows ORNL’s machine-learning algorithm, Simurgh, to be used for rapid evaluations of 3D-printed components with industrial X-ray computed tomography, or CT. Using machine learning in CT scanning is expected to reduce the time and cost of inspections of 3D-printed parts by more than ten times.

A licensing agreement between the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and research partner ZEISS will enable industrial X-ray computed tomography, or CT, to perform rapid evaluations of 3D-printed components using ORNL’s machine

HFIR

Creating energy the way the sun and stars do — through nuclear fusion — is one of the grand challenges facing science and technology. What’s easy for the sun and its billions of relatives turns out to be particularly difficult on Earth.

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Scientist-inventors from ORNL will present seven new technologies during the Technology Innovation Showcase on Friday, July 14, from 8 a.m.–4 p.m. at the Joint Institute for Computational Sciences on ORNL’s campus.

Radu Custelcean's sustainable chemistry for capturing carbon dioxide from air has been licensed to Holocene. Credit: Genevieve Martin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

An innovative and sustainable chemistry developed at ORNL for capturing carbon dioxide has been licensed to Holocene, a Knoxville-based startup focused on designing and building plants that remove carbon dioxide

The Fuel Pellet Fueling Laboratory at ORNL is part of a suite of fusion energy R&D capabilities and provides test equipment and related diagnostics for carrying out experiments to develop pellet injectors for plasma fueling applications. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

ORNL will team up with six of eight companies that are advancing designs and research and development for fusion power plants with the mission to achieve a pilot-scale demonstration of fusion within a decade.

ORNL researchers encoded grid hardware operating data into a color band hidden inside photographs, video or artwork, as shown in this photo. The visual can then be transmitted to a utility’s control center for decoding. Credit: ORNL/U.S. Dept. of Energy

Inspired by one of the mysteries of human perception, an ORNL researcher invented a new way to hide sensitive electric grid information from cyberattack: within a constantly changing color palette.