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An Oak Ridge National Laboratory team revealed how chemical species form in a highly reactive molten salt mixture of aluminum chloride and potassium chloride by unraveling vibrational signatures and observing ion exchanges. 

Four thermometers are pictured across the top of the image with an image of a city in the bottom left, with a color block version of that city in the bottom right.

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed free data sets to estimate how much energy any building in the contiguous U.S. will use in 2100. These data sets provide planners a way to anticipate future energy needs as the climate changes.

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Researchers at ORNL and the University of Maine have designed and 3D-printed a single-piece, recyclable natural-material floor panel tested to be strong enough to replace construction materials like steel. 

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Jinghui Yuan, an R&D staff member in the Applied Research for Mobility Systems group at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been elevated to a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

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Robert Wagner, associate laboratory director for ORNL's Energy Science and Technology Directorate, has been selected to receive the George Westinghouse Gold Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, or ASME. The award recognizes his work to advance state-of-the-art clean power generation systems through research on combustion, fuel technologies and controls. 

Frontier supercomputer sets new standard in molecular simulation

When scientists pushed the world’s fastest supercomputer to its limits, they found those limits stretched beyond even their biggest expectations. In the latest milestone, a team of engineers and scientists used Frontier to simulate a system of nearly half a trillion atoms — the largest system ever modeled and more than 400 times the size of the closest competition.

ORNL researchers have teamed up with other national labs to develop a free platform called Open Energy Data Initiative Solar Systems Integration Data and Modeling to better analyze the behavior of electric grids incorporating many solar projects. Credit: Andy Sproles/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

ORNL researchers have teamed up with other national labs to develop a free platform called Open Energy Data Initiative Solar Systems Integration Data and Modeling to better analyze the behavior of electric grids incorporating many solar projects. 

Mohamad Zineddin

Mohamad Zineddin hopes to establish an interdisciplinary center of excellence for nuclear security at ORNL, combining critical infrastructure assessment and protection, risk mitigation, leadership in nuclear security, education and training, nuclear security culture and resilience strategies and techniques.

The U.S. and Poland launched the Clean Energy Training Center in Warsaw, Poland in early April. Photo Credit: U.S. Embassy Warsaw.

Four ORNL researchers traveled to Warsaw, Poland, during the first week of April to support the opening of Poland’s first Clean Energy Training Center, a regional hub dedicated to providing workforce development and training to expand new nuclear

ORNL researcher Felicia Gilliland loads experiment samples into position for the newly installed UR5E robotic arm at the BIO-SANS instrument. The industrial-grade robot changes samples automatically, reducing the need for human assistance and improving sample throughput. Credit: Jeremy Rumsey/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

The BIO-SANS instrument, located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s High Flux Isotope Reactor, is the latest neutron scattering instrument to be retrofitted with state-of-the-art robotics and custom software. The sophisticated upgrade quadruples the number of samples the instrument can measure automatically and significantly reduces the need for human assistance.