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Media Contacts
![Symposium guests view posters in the poster competition. Credit: Laetitia Delmau/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2024-01/symposium%20better.jpg?h=92229be0&itok=KZ6tVYQi)
The 21st Symposium on Separation Science and Technology for Energy Applications, Oct. 23-26 at the Embassy Suites by Hilton West in Knoxville, attracted 109 researchers, including some from Austria and the Czech Republic. Besides attending many technical sessions, they had the opportunity to tour the Graphite Reactor, High Flux Isotope Reactor and both supercomputers at ORNL.
![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.
![Seeing the difference Ac-225 could make to cancer patients made Raina Setzer want to come to ORNL to directly work with the isotope. Credit: Allison Peacock/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-11/rs_0.jpg?h=71976bb4&itok=nFsgqwUT)
Raina Setzer knows the work she does matters. That’s because she’s already seen it from the other side. Setzer, a radiochemical processing technician in Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Isotope Processing and Manufacturing Division, joined the lab in June 2023.
![Group image](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-10/2023-P11446_0.jpg?h=8f9cfe54&itok=bk8wRZSk)
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.
![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.
![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](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-09/2021-P04915.David_.Sholl_.jpg?h=c6980913&itok=qT7ZMJX2)
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.
![Connecting wires to the interface of the topological insulator and superconductor enables probing of novel electronic properties. Researchers aim for qubits based on theorized Majorana particles. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-09/2023-P04516.jpg?h=c6980913&itok=BoCZtfwR)
Quantum computers process information using quantum bits, or qubits, based on fragile, short-lived quantum mechanical states. To make qubits robust and tailor them for applications, researchers from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory sought to create a new material system.
![Chathuddasie Amarasinghe explains her research poster, “Using Microfluidic Mother Machine Devices to Study the Correlated Dynamics of Ribosomes and Chromosomes in Escherichia Coli.” Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-09/2023-P11614_0.jpg?h=06ac0d8c&itok=kjePlpfo)
Speakers, scientific workshops, speed networking, a student poster showcase and more energized the Annual User Meeting of the Department of Energy’s Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, or CNMS, Aug. 7-10, near Market Square in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee.
![Ken Engle portrait](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-08/engle%20profile.jpg?h=72898f5b&itok=ZIKd9Gn1)
It was reading about current nuclear discoveries in textbooks that first made Ken Engle want to work at a national lab. It was seeing the real-world impact of the isotopes produced at ORNL
![Eric Myers](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-08/2023-P08714_0.jpg?h=8f9cfe54&itok=M3ciWm1M)
Eric Myers of ORNL has been named a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, effective June 21.