Oak Ridge National Laboratory researcher A.C. Buchanan III has been elected a fellow of the American Chemical Society.
Buchanan, a member of ORNL’s Chemical Sciences Division, was recognized for his contributions to the fundamental understanding of the thermochemical transformations of fossil and renewable fuels. [Read more…]
Matt Feldman of Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been elected fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, or ASME.
He was elected for his outstanding engineering achievements, a press release said. AMSE fellows are peer-nominated and chosen by the ASME board of governors.
Feldman works in the Nuclear Security and Isotope Technology Division at ORNL.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers are learning more about the microbial processes
that convert elemental mercury into methylmercury. (Submitted image)
More forms of mercury can be converted to deadly methylmercury than previously thought, according to a study published Sunday in Nature Geoscience. The discovery provides scientists with another piece of the mercury puzzle, bringing them one step closer to understanding the challenges associated with mercury cleanup.
Earlier this year, a multidisciplinary team of researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory discovered two key genes that are essential for microbes to convert oxidized mercury to methylmercury, a neurotoxin that can penetrate skin and at high doses affect brain and muscle tissue, causing paralysis and brain damage.
The discovery of how methylmercury is formed answered a question that had stumped scientists for decades, and the findings published this week build on that breakthrough. [Read more…]
Robert Jubin
Robert Jubin of Oak Ridge National Laboratory has received the 2013 Robert E. Wilson Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, or AIChE.
The AIChE recognized Jubin’s contributions in the areas of nuclear fuel reprocessing and radioactive waste treatment, and his chemical engineering achievements in the nuclear industry.
Jubin works in ORNL’s Nuclear Security and Isotope Technology Division.
Mikhail Sokolov
Mikhail Sokolov of Oak Ridge National Laboratory has received the Award of Merit from the American Society for Testing and Materials International. The award includes the honorary title of fellow and is ASTM’s highest organizational recognition for individual offerings to standards activities.
Sokolov was honored for his contributions to successful symposia on nuclear technology and applications and for his work on transition range fracture toughness standards. [Read more…]
Stephen Croft
Stephen Croft of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been elected fellow of the Institute of Physics.
He was selected for his achievements in physics and outstanding contributions to the physics profession.
Croft works in ORNL’s Nuclear Security and Isotope Technology Division. [Read more…]
Operated by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Carbon Fiber Technology Facility is accepting proposals from companies that want to test low-cost carbon fibers manufactured at the pilot scale plant. Pictured here are textile-grade acrylic fibers entering the first of four oxidation ovens, where they gradually turn from white to yellow, auburn, brown, then black. Once fully oxidized, the fiber is ready to run through the higher-temperature furnaces, which convert the oxidized fiber to carbon fiber. (Submitted photo)
Companies interested in testing the latest in low-cost carbon fiber have a new opportunity to partner with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Carbon Fiber Technology Facility.
The CFTF, operated by Oak Ridge National Laboratory as part of the department’s Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative, opened earlier this year to find ways to reduce carbon fiber production costs and to work with the private sector to stimulate widespread use of the strong, lightweight material.
In its first months of operation, the CFTF used traditional raw materials to assure the new pilot scale manufacturing line would produce a commercial-quality product. With that goal accomplished, the facility now will use less expensive “precursor” materials that can be turned into carbon fiber more cost-effectively. [Read more…]
This CASL visualization shows the thermal distribution of neutrons in Watts Bar Unit 1 Cycle 1 reactor core at initial criticality, as calculated by the VERA program. (Image courtesy Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
The Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors this week announced that its scientists have successfully completed the first full-scale simulation of an operating nuclear reactor.
Headquartered at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, CASL is modeling nuclear reactors on supercomputers to help researchers better understand reactor performance with much higher reliability than previously available methods, with the goal of ultimately increasing power output, extending reactor life, and reducing waste.
Simulation results from the Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA) program, which was developed by CASL, were compared with actual data provided by the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Tennessee, which confirmed its accuracy. [Read more…]
The Da Vinci Fuel-in-Oil Measurement System is among the six Oak Ridge National Laboratory technologies recognized with a 2013 R&D 100 award. (Submitted photo)
Researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory have received six R&D 100 awards, presented each year by R&D Magazine in recognition of the year’s most significant technological innovations.
“My sincere congratulations to the winners of this year’s R&D 100 Awards,” said Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. “The scientists and engineers who developed these award-winning technologies at the cutting edge facilities across our national labs are keeping Americans at the forefront of the innovation community and assuring our nation’s economic competitiveness and national security.”
The six awards bring ORNL’s total of R&D 100 awards to 179 since their inception in 1963. This year, ORNL scientists and engineers received awards for the following technologies: [Read more…]
Ramamoorthy Ramesh
KNOXVILLE—Ramamoorthy Ramesh, an authority in the physics of functional materials, has been named the 12th University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge National Laboratory Governor’s Chair. He has also been appointed as deputy director for science and technology at ORNL.
Ramesh will serve as Governor’s Chair for Nanomaterials Engineering, based in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He began on June 1. [Read more…]
Ernest Moniz
Submitted
WASHINGTON—Building on President Obama’s newly announced plan to cut carbon pollution, the Energy Department this week announced four research and development projects to bring next-generation biofuels on-line faster and drive down the cost of producing gasoline, diesel, and jet fuels from biomass. The projects—located in Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, and Wisconsin—represent a $13 million Energy Department investment.
One of the projects selected for negotiation is worth up to $2.1 million and located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. [Read more…]
Lights on the Chinese Tianhe-2 supercomputer, which has a theoretical peak that is twice as fast as the Titan supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (Photo courtesy Jack Dongarra)
A Chinese supercomputer has bumped the Titan supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory from the No. 1 spot on a semiannual ranking of the world’s most powerful supercomputers.
The Tianhe-2, which was developed by China’s National University of Defense Technology, is capable of 33.86 petaflops, or more than 33,000 trillion calculations per second.
Now ranked No. 2, Titan was able to perform 17,000 trillion calculations per second, or 17.59 petaflops, according to the list published in November. [Read more…]
