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Oscar Martinez loads a special form capsule into the leak tester for a helium leak test in the packaging facility of the National Transportation Research Center. Credit: Jason Richards/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

As program manager for the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Package Testing Program, Oscar Martinez enjoys finding and fixing technical issues.

Salting the gears

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory proved that a certain class of ionic liquids, when mixed with commercially available oils, can make gears run more efficiently with less noise and better durability.