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.
Two fusion energy leaders have joined ORNL in the Fusion and Fission Energy and Science Directorate, or FFESD.
ORNL is leading three research collaborations with fusion industry partners through the Innovation Network for FUSion Energy, or INFUSE, program that will focus on resolving technical challenges and developing innovative solutions to make practical fusion energy a reality.
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.
In response to a renewed international interest in molten salt reactors, researchers from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a novel technique to visualize molten salt intrusion in graphite.
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.
Using neutrons to see the additive manufacturing process at the atomic level, scientists have shown that they can measure strain in a material as it evolves and track how atoms move in response to stress.
ORNL will lead three new DOE-funded projects designed to bring fusion energy to the grid on a rapid timescale.
ORNL, a bastion of nuclear physics research for the past 80 years, is poised to strengthen its programs and service to the United States over the next decade if national recommendations of the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee, or NSAC, are enacted.
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.