Oak Ridge Today

ORNL-led team demonstrates desalination with graphene membrane

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Nature Nanotech Pores

Researchers created nanopores in graphene (red, and enlarged in the circle to highlight its honeycomb structure) that are stabilized with silicon atoms (yellow) and showed their porous membrane could desalinate seawater. Orange represents a non-graphene residual polymer. (Source: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy)

 

By Dawn Levy

Less than 1 percent of Earth’s water is drinkable. Removing salt and other minerals from our biggest available source of water—seawater—may help satisfy a growing global population thirsty for fresh water for drinking, farming, transportation, heating, cooling, and industry. But desalination is an energy-intensive process, which concerns those wanting to expand its application.

Now, a team of experimentalists led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has demonstrated an energy-efficient desalination technology that uses a porous membrane made of strong, slim graphene—a carbon honeycomb one atom thick. The results are published in the March 23 advance online issue of Nature Nanotechnology.

“Our work is a proof of principle that demonstrates how you can desalinate saltwater using free-standing, porous graphene,” said Shannon Mark Mahurin of ORNL’s Chemical Sciences Division, who co-led the study with Ivan Vlassiouk in ORNL’s Energy and Transportation Science Division.

“It’s a huge advance,” said Vlassiouk, pointing out a wealth of water travels through the porous graphene membrane. “The flux through the current graphene membranes was at least an order of magnitude higher than (that through) state-of-the-art reverse osmosis polymeric membranes.” [Read more…]

Planning for national park, Park Service tours Jackson Square, K-25, ORNL, Y-12

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Vic Knox of National Park Service

Vic Knox (Photo by D. Ray Smith)

Note: This story was last updated at 12:37 p.m.

Planning for the new Manhattan Project National Historical Park has started, and federal officials this week toured Jackson Square, the former K-25 site, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Y-12 National Security Complex.

Stops included the Alexander Inn, Chapel on the Hill, the former K-25 Building site, the Graphite Reactor at ORNL, and two buildings at Y-12: Building 9731, a pilot plant, and Building 9204-3, also known as Beta 3.

“Several of those sites are just amazing,” said Vic Knox, associate director of park planning, facilities, and lands for the National Park Service in Washington, D.C. “They seem like they are just the way they were in 1943. It seems like they take you back in time.”

Oak Ridge was built as part of the Manhattan Project, a top-secret federal program to build the world’s fist atomic weapons during World War II. Besides Oak Ridge, the new national park includes Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Hanford, Washington. [Read more…]

Big day: Main Street Oak Ridge, Manhattan Project Park on Thursday’s agenda

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Main Street Oak Ridge Presentation

Pictured above during a presentation on Main Street Oak Ridge last week are Crosland Southeast partner James Downs, right; Barry James, Crosland Southeast senior vice president, center; and Houston E. Daugherty, Cannon and Cannon vice president.

 

A vote that could help Main Street Oak Ridge, the redevelopment of the former Oak Ridge Mall, is on Thursday’s agenda. So is an open house on the new Manhattan Project National Historical Park.

They are among two of the biggest projects in Oak Ridge in years, and both are considered key parts of an economic renaissance that also includes new business development along Oak Ridge Turnpike and South Illinois Avenue, a new Kroger Marketplace shopping center, the proposed multi-billion-dollar Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex, and the announcement by metal powder manufacturing company CVMR this month that it will move its operations from Toronto to Oak Ridge, investing $313 million and adding 620 jobs.

A rezoning has been requested for Main Street Oak Ridge. It will be considered by the Oak Ridge Municipal Planning Commission during a meeting that starts at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, March 26, in the Oak Ridge Municipal Building Courtroom. The Planning Commission will also consider a planned unit development, or PUD, master plan for the project. [Read more…]

Planning to preserve history of K-25, which could be part of national park

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K-25 Building Aerial View

Now demolished, the former mile-long, U-shaped K-25 Building, pictured above, was once used to enrich uranium for atomic weapons and commercial nuclear power plants. Located in west Oak Ridge, the site could become part of a new Manhattan Project National Historical Park. There is a separate effort to preserve K-25’s history; that work could be incorporated into the new park. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Department of Energy)

 

It was once the world’s largest building under one roof and part of the one of the largest industrial projects ever, a top-secret program to build the world’s first atomic weapons in World War II.

Today the building is gone—demolition was completed in December 2013—but the stories of what took place inside the former mile-long, U-shaped K-25 Building could live on in a replica equipment building, viewing tower, and history center.

And K-25 could become part of a new Manhattan Project National Historical Park approved by Congress in December and signed into law by President Barack Obama on December 19. The 14-page bill was the culmination of 15 years of work, said Colin Colverson, Manhattan Project Park lead in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office.

The law recognizes the Manhattan Project as one of the most significant events in U.S. history, with assets and history that must be preserved. It’s considered one of the top scientific achievements of the 20th century, and Oak Ridge residents still marvel at how quickly the three local sites (K-25, X-10, and Y-12) were built and began operating in all-out race to build an atomic bomb before Germany. [Read more…]

Five more spring nature walks planned on Oak Ridge Reservation

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Five more nature walks are planned this spring on the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Reservation with themes of frog calls and bat monitoring, wildflowers and forest growth, bird watching, invasive plants, reptiles, and amphibians.

The frog calls and bat monitoring walk is scheduled from 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday, April 4, and will be concentrated in the ponds around East Tennessee Technology Park. Wade Gefellers and Kitty McCracken of ORNL’s Environmental Sciences Division will demonstrate how local bat populations are monitored and methods to identify local frog populations based on calls. Participants, limited to 25 with children allowed, will meet at the ETTP visitors overlook parking lot at 7 p.m. [Read more…]

ORNL, Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics cooperate on salt-cooled reactors

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ORNL and SINAP Salt-cooled Test Reactors

Representatives from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP) met at ORNL to discuss plans for building a salt-cooled test reactor. Pictured in front of ORNL’s molten salt test loop are (from left) David Felde, ORNL; Yang Zou, SINAP; Guanyuan Wu, SINAP; Xiaohan Yu, SINAP; Naxiu Wan, SINAP; Zhimin Dai, SINAP; David Holcomb, ORNL; Kun Chen, SINAP; Kevin Robb, ORNL; Mike Laufer, University of California at Berkeley; Guimin Liu, SINAP; and Weiju Ren, ORNL. (Photo courtesy ORNL)

 

Representatives from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics met at ORNL last week as part of an agreement between the two institutions to work together on the advancement of salt-cooled nuclear reactor technologies.

At the meeting, SINAP staff members were expected to describe their plans for building the first salt-cooled test reactor, and the two sides began planning the next steps in the shared research project.

The Cooperative Research and Development Agreement, or CRADA, between ORNL and SINAP focuses on accelerating scientific understanding and technical development of salt-cooled reactors, specifically fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors, or FHRs. The project will draw on ORNL’s expertise in fuels, materials, instrumentation and controls, design concepts, and modeling and simulation for advanced reactors, as well as the lab’s experience in the design, construction and operation of the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment, the only molten salt reactor ever built. [Read more…]

Dainiak named director of REAC/TS

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Nicholas Dainiak

Nicholas Dainiak

Radiation response specialist has more than 35 years of medical expertise

Nicholas Dainiak has been named director of the Radiation Emergency Assistance Center/Training Site, or REAC/TS, at the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education.

A deployable asset of the U.S. Department of Energy, REAC/TS provides 24/7 emergency medical response for incidents involving radiation anywhere in the world, a press release said. REAC/TS also provides direct support for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Emergency Operations and the Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center, or FRMAC.

Adding to its depth of radiation response and consultation capabilities, REAC/TS is uniquely qualified to teach medical personnel, health physicists, first responders, and occupational health professionals about radiation emergency medicine, the release said. REAC/TS also operates an acytogenetic biodosimetry laboratory, one of only two in the U.S., where chromosome aberration analysis is used for ionizing radiation dose assessment. [Read more…]

ORNL’s Kalinin awarded Royal Microscopical Society medal

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Sergei Kalinin

With scanning probe microscopy, ORNL’s Sergei Kalinin explores nanoscale phenomena in new materials for energy and data storage to accelerate their discovery, design, and deployment. (Photo courtesy ORNL) 

 

Materials scientist Sergei Kalinin of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been awarded the inaugural Medal for Scanning Probe Microscopy, or SPM, by the Royal Microscopical Society, or RMS.

Kalinin is director of ORNL’s Institute for Functional Imaging of Materials, which melds capabilities in imaging, high-performance computing, and materials theory to guide the design of advanced materials for energy applications. He is also a theme leader at the  Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, a DOE Office of Science User Facility at ORNL, and an adjunct associate professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. [Read more…]

Planning for Manhattan Project Park, National Park Service, DOE to visit Oak Ridge on March 26

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Warren L. Gooch

Warren L. Gooch

It took years to win approval of a Manhattan Project National Historical Park, and now that the park bill has been signed into law, planning is starting.

As part of that process, officials from the National Park Service and U.S. Department of Energy will visit Oak Ridge next week. The visit will include a Thursday morning open house hosted by the City of Oak Ridge. The open house is scheduled from 10 to 11 a.m. Thursday, March 26, in the A/B Room at the Oak Ridge Civic Center. It’s open to the public, and reservations are not required.

The team of NPS and DOE officials are visiting Oak Ridge to begin planning for the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. The planning team is expected to include senior National Park Service representatives from Washington, D.C., the Southeastern Regional Office in Atlanta, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and Big South Fork. [Read more…]

ORAU receives $23 million contract for DOE worker screening program

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Oak Ridge Associated Universities Building MC-100

The Oak Ridge Associated Universities Building MC-100 is pictured above.

Submitted

The Department of Energy has awarded ORAU a five-year, $23 million contract to continue managing its National Supplemental Screening Program. ORAU has managed this worker health screening program for DOE since 2005. The screening programs are free for former energy workers who may have been exposed to hazardous substances at work.

“We are pleased that DOE has once again entrusted us with this significant responsibility to provide a vital service for their former workers,” said Andy Page, ORAU president and chief executive officer. “Our team, including doctors and other medical specialists, understands the importance of this project and welcomes the opportunity to continue lending their expertise to this service for the former workers.”

To provide the NSSP services, ORAU partners with Comprehensive Health Services Inc., National Jewish Health, the University of Colorado, Denver Health Sciences Center, and Axion Health. [Read more…]

Officials celebrate new bridge, road relocation, haul road for UPF at Y-12

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Bear Creek Road Extension and Bridge

Pictured above is the new Bear Creek Road extension and bridge on the west side of the Y-12 National Security Complex.

 

They called it their first major milestone: the completion of site readiness work, delivered on time and under budget. The work included the relocation of Bear Creek Road, a new bridge, and construction of a haul road.

It’s part of the project to build a Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex. UPF could replace World War II-era buildings at Y-12. The project has been capped at $6.5 billion, and it’s expected to be completed by 2025.

Federal officials and contractors celebrated the completion of the site readiness subproject in a Friday morning ceremony at Y-12. [Read more…]

Metal powder manufacturing company investing $313 million in Oak Ridge, adding 620 jobs

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Michael Hargett and Kamran Khoza of CVMR USA

CVMR President Michael Hargett, left, and Kamran Khozan, chairman and chief executive officer, joined local, state, and federal officials on Friday to announce they’re moving company headquarters from Toronto to Oak Ridge, investing $313 million and adding 620 jobs.

 

Note: This story was last updated at 12 a.m.

A company that manufactures high-purity metal powders and super alloys is moving its operations to Oak Ridge from Toronto, Canada, and investing $313 million here and creating 620 jobs, officials said Friday.

CVMR, which has operations in 18 countries, will use the former Theragenics building at Horizon Center in west Oak Ridge for its headquarters and research and development. The company closed on that building, which is on 21 acres, on Friday, but executives declined to disclose the sale price.

The first employee was hired Thursday, said Kamran Khozan, chairman and chief executive officer of CVMR (USA) Incorporated.

The company could expand that 65,000-square-foot building; infrastructure that is already in place allows it to be doubled. The company could put 218 people to work right away in its new headquarters and add 402 high-paying manufacturing jobs later, a state official said.

“I can promise you that this is the start of a wave,” said Randy Boyd, the new commissioner of Tennessee Economic and Community Development. [Read more…]