Oak Ridge Today

Ten ORNL scientists among world’s most highly cited researchers

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Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Submitted photo)

Ten scientists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory are among the world’s most highly cited researchers, according to a bibliometric analysis conducted by the scientific publication analytics firm Clarivate. 
 
The annual list identifies researchers who demonstrated significant influence in their field through the publication of multiple highly cited papers during the last decade. These researchers authored publications that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and publication year in the Web of Science citation index. 
 
“Researchers at ORNL are leading the advancement of scientific knowledge in multiple fields,” ORNL Director Thomas Zacharia said in a press release. “This recognition demonstrates that the laboratory and our scientists are engaged in cutting-edge research and development to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges.” 
 
The ORNL scientists listed are:

[Read more…]

If successful, ORNL process could play role in fighting climate change

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Rondinone_Song_hensley_r1

ORNL’s Yang Song (seated), Dale Hensley (standing left), and Adam Rondinone examine a carbon nanospike sample with a scanning electron microscope. (Photo by Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

 

In October, Oak Ridge National Laboratory announced that scientists had developed an electrochemical process that uses tiny spikes of carbon and copper to turn carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into ethanol.

This month, Oak Ridge Today asked if the process using the very small catalysts could be used on a large scale to convert carbon dioxide in the atmosphere into ethanol, and if that might be used to combat climate change.

Here is the response from researcher Adam Rondinone, lead author of a team’s study published in ChemistrySelect:

“If we are successful, then yes, this process will take us a little bit closer to the goal of mitigating climate change.  But many other technologies and changes will also be needed, because of the scale of the problem. Also, this technology is more focused on what to do with CO2 (carbon dioxide) once it has been captured. While it could feasibly be coupled to a capture mechanism for extracting CO2 from the air, it will more likely be used to intercept and recycle emissions from point sources like power plants. Ultimately, it will just be one solution out of many that we will need to implement in order to prevent serious climate changes.” [Read more…]

Miaofang Chi of ORNL named top scientist at UT-Battelle’s Awards Night

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Miaofang Chi

Miaofang Chi (Photo by ORNL)

Miaofang Chi of the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has earned the ORNL Director’s Award for Outstanding Individual Accomplishment in Science and Technology.

ORNL Director Thom Mason presented the award to Chi on Friday during the annual Awards Night event in Knoxville hosted by UT-Battelle, the management and operating contractor for ORNL.

Chi was honored for her pioneering early career research in analytical electron microscopy. Chi’s research has advanced the understanding of defect and interface chemistry and structure and how such defects control materials properties at the atomic level. Her work includes the recent development of transformative insitu microscopy methods to probe transport phenomena at the atomic scale.

Chi also earned the Early-Career Researcher Award. [Read more…]

Rubber meets the road with new ORNL carbon, battery technologies

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Recycled Tire Battery Schematics

ORNL researchers’ goal is to scale up the recovery process and demonstrate applications as anodes for lithium-ion batteries in large-format pouch cells. (Image courtesy ORNL)

 

Recycled tires could see new life in lithium-ion batteries that provide power to plug-in electric vehicles and store energy produced by wind and solar, say researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

By modifying the microstructural characteristics of carbon black, a substance recovered from discarded tires, a team led by Parans Paranthaman and Amit Naskar is developing a better anode for lithium-ion batteries. An anode is a negatively charged electrode used as a host for storing lithium during charging.

The method, outlined in a paper published in the journal RSC Advances, has numerous advantages over conventional approaches to making anodes for lithium-ion batteries.

“Using waste tires for products such as energy storage is very attractive not only from the carbon materials recovery perspective but also for controlling environmental hazards caused by waste tire stock piles,” Paranthaman said.

The ORNL technique uses a proprietary pretreatment to recover pyrolytic carbon black material, which is similar to graphite but man-made. When used in anodes of lithium-ion batteries, researchers produced a small, laboratory-scale battery with a reversible capacity that is higher than what is possible with commercial graphite materials. [Read more…]