Oak Ridge Today

Hitson named OSTI director

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Brian Hitson

Brian A. Hitson

Brian A. Hitson has been appointed director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Scientific and Technical Information in Oak Ridge, officials said this week.

Hitson had been acting director of OSTI since January 12. OSTI’s former longtime director, Walter L. Warnick, retired January 3.

Hitson has held a number of positions at OSTI, most recently serving as associate director for administration and information services. In that position, he was responsible for international information exchanges, archival digitization and preservation, classified and sensitive information, cost-reimbursable product development, and administrative and financial management. [Read more…]

High Flux Isotope Reactor at ORNL named Nuclear Historic Landmark

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High Flux Isotope Reactor at ORNL

The High Flux Isotope Reactor vessel at Oak Ridge National Laboratory resides in a pool of water illuminated by the blue glow of the Cherenkov radiation effect. (Photo courtesy ORNL)

 

The High Flux Isotope Reactor, or HFIR, now in its 48th year of providing neutrons for research and isotope production at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been designated a Nuclear Historic Landmark by the American Nuclear Society.

“This designation from the ANS recognizes HFIR’s role in the history of the nuclear age, but it also speaks to the excellence of its design and operation,” ORNL Director Thom Mason said. “HFIR remains one of the world’s most capable reactor-based neutron science, radioisotope production, and materials irradiation facilities, and we expect that to continue for many years.”

The designation was proposed by the ANS honors and awards committee and approved on initial ballot by the board of directors.

“The ANS Nuclear Historic Landmark signifies that a nuclear facility has played an important role in nuclear science and engineering,” ANS President Michaele C. Brady Raap said. “HFIR, with its preeminent role in isotope production and neutron science, certainly meets that criteria.”

The reactor was conceived in the late 1950s as a production reactor to meet anticipated demand for transuranic isotopes (“heavy” elements such as plutonium and curium). HFIR today is a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility and one of the world’s sole sources of the radioisotope californium-252, used in industry and medicine. ORNL is a DOE lab. [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…]

ORNL scientists uncover clues to role of magnetism in iron-based superconductors

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Magnetism of Iron-based Superconductors

Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists used scanning transmission electron microscopy to measure atomic-scale magnetic behavior in several families of iron-based superconductors. (Photo courtesy ORNL)

 

New measurements of atomic-scale magnetic behavior in iron-based superconductors by researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Vanderbilt University are challenging conventional wisdom about superconductivity and magnetism.

The study published in Advanced Materials provides experimental evidence that local magnetic fluctuations can influence the performance of iron-based superconductors, which transmit electric current without resistance at relatively high temperatures.

“In the past, everyone thought that magnetism and superconductivity could not coexist,” said ORNL’s Claudia Cantoni, the study’s first author. “The whole idea of superconductors is that they expel magnetic fields. But in reality things are more complicated.”

Superconductivity is strongly suppressed by the presence of long-range magnetism—where atoms align their magnetic moments over large volumes—but the ORNL study suggests that rapid fluctuations of local magnetic moments have a different effect. Not only does localized magnetism exist, but it is also correlated with a high critical temperature, the point at which the material becomes superconducting. [Read more…]

Honors: Hispanic engineers group recognizes ORNL’s Idrobo

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Juan Carlos Idrobo

Juan Carlos Idrobo

Juan Carlos Idrobo, a researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been recognized by the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Award Corporation with the 2014 Outstanding Technical Achievement Award for groundbreaking research in scanning transmission electron microscopy of 2D materials.

Idrobo works in the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences’ Microscopy group. The Ecuador native received his bachelor’s in physics from Universidad de Los Andes, Colombia; his master’s in physics from the University of Illinois at Chicago; and doctorate in physics from the University of California, Davis. He joined the ORNL research staff in 2010.

The award is associated with Great Minds in STEM, a nonprofit organization that advocates science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers for the Hispanic community. [Read more…]

ASM International elects ORNL researchers Paranthaman, Pint fellows

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Parans Paranthaman and Bruce Pint

From left are Parans Paranthaman and Bruce Pint. (Photo courtesy ORNL)

The professional society ASM International has elected two researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to the rank of fellow. A former ORNL researcher was also elected.

The materials engineering professional society cited Mariappan Parans Paranthaman “for the development of novel epitaxial buffer layers on textured templates, enabling high critical current density superconductor films, and for developing mesoporous architectures destined for high performance energy storage applications.”

Paranthaman, a distinguished researcher in the lab’s Chemical Sciences Division, has a joint faculty appointment with the University of Tennessee’s Bredesen Center in Knoxville as a professor. He is also a distinguished UT-Battelle inventor who has authored or co-authored more than 350 publications and has been awarded 28 U.S. patents. His awards include four R&D 100 Awards and three national and two regional Federal Laboratory Consortium awards for developing high performance second-generation superconducting wires for electric-power applications.

Bruce Pint, a researcher in the Materials Science and Technology Division, was cited for “groundbreaking contributions to the fundamental knowledge of high temperature oxidation mechanisms in alloys and coatings, and for contributions to heat resistant alloy design and development through the incorporation of minor elements to control and improve high temperature stability and overall oxidation resistance.” [Read more…]

DOE-Oak Ridge Office names diversity, employee concerns manager

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Moses Madera

Moses Madera

Moses Madera, a United States Air Force veteran, was recently named manager of diversity programs and employee concerns for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office.

In this job, Madera will serve as the principal staff adviser to the Office of Science in Oak Ridge and site managers on equal employment opportunity (EEO), diversity, affirmative employment, alternative dispute resolution (ADR), environmental justice, and reasonable accommodation programs, a press release said. Madera will also manage the employee concerns program.

“We are really fortunate to have someone of Moses’ caliber join our office,” said Larry Kelly, manager of DOE-ORO. “He brings a wealth of knowledge in EEO and diversity to the table, and we’re looking forward to his guidance and expertise in his new role on our leadership team.”

Madera comes to ORO most recently from the U.S. Department of the Navy, Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Division Keyport, Washington, one of Naval Sea Systems Command’s field activities, where he had been the deputy equal employment opportunity officer since 2012. While there, he was responsible for continuous improvement of the EEO, diversity, and special emphasis programs, along with ADR and reasonable accommodation programs. [Read more…]

ORNL awarded two Energy Frontier Research Centers

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David Wesolowski and Yanwen Zhang

Pictured above are David Wesolowski, left, director of the Fluid Interface Reactions, Structures, and Transport Center; and Yanwen Zhang, director of the Energy Dissipation to Defect Evolution Center. (Photo courtesy ORNL)

Oak Ridge National Laboratory will be home to two Energy Frontier Research Centers announced this week by U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. The Department of Energy awarded a total of $100 million to 32 EFRC projects to accelerate the scientific breakthroughs needed to build the 21st-century energy economy. 

“Today, we are mobilizing some of our most talented scientists to join forces and pursue the discoveries and breakthroughs that will lay the foundation for our nation’s energy future,” Secretary Moniz said. “The funding we’re announcing today will help fuel scientific and technological innovation.”

The two ORNL EFRCs are a renewal of the Fluid Interface Reactions, Structures, and Transport (FIRST) Center, which is led by David Wesolowski, and a new award to the Energy Dissipation to Defect Evolution (EDDE) Center, led by Yanwen Zhang.

ORNL scientists also partnered on successful proposals to lay the groundwork for fundamental advances in solar energy, electrical energy storage, carbon capture and sequestration, materials and chemistry by design, biosciences, and extreme environments. Those proposals include three new projects (led by the Georgia Institute of Technology, the State University of New York–Stony Brook, and Pennsylvania State University) and three renewals (led by Washington University in St. Louis, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology). [Read more…]

The Smithsonian, ORNL partner to advance science, education

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Smithsonian Wayne Clough, Thom Mason, and Jeff Nichols

Pictured above during a Thursday signing ceremony at the Smithsonian Institution’s Castle Commons are, from left, Wayne Clough, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; ORNL Director Thom Mason; and ORNL associate lab director for computing and computational sciences Jeff Nichols. (Photo by John Gibbons/Smithsonian)

 

The Smithsonian Institution and Oak Ridge National Laboratory have announced a new partnership to support collaborative research programs and science education efforts. This is the first partnership between Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Smithsonian, which was formalized during the signing of a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, on Thursday, June 12.

The Smithsonian and Oak Ridge National Laboratory both examine many of the world’s most complex and time-sensitive scientific problems and support many research programs that complement and reinforce each other. They also support science education to impact students and teachers from elementary school through post-doctoral studies. The MOU, signed by Smithsonian Secretary Wayne Clough and ORNL Director Thom Mason, creates a framework for future collaboration between the two organizations that leverages the strengths of each.

“The Smithsonian is proud to partner with another organization that realizes that basic research is vital to the future of the nation, and that knowledge about the natural world is inherently valuable to society,” Clough said. “This agreement will help us each maximize our strengths and achieve our common goals across a broad spectrum of scientific endeavor.” [Read more…]

Novel ORNL technique enables air-stable water droplet networks

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Water Droplet

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a method to create air-stable water droplet networks that are valuable for applications in biological sensing and membrane research. (Image credit: Kyle Kuykendall)

 

A simple new technique to form interlocking beads of water in ambient conditions could prove valuable for applications in biological sensing, membrane research, and harvesting water from fog.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a method to create air-stable water droplet networks known as droplet interface bilayers. These interconnected water droplets have many roles in biological research because their interfaces simulate cell membranes. Cumbersome fabrication methods, however, have limited their use.

“The way they’ve been made since their inception is that two water droplets are formed in an oil bath then brought together while they’re submerged in oil,” said ORNL’s Pat Collier, who led the team’s study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Otherwise they would just pop like soap bubbles.”

Instead of injecting water droplets into an oil bath, the ORNL research team experimented with placing the droplets on a superhydrophobic surface infused with a coating of oil. The droplets aligned side by side without merging. [Read more…]

ORNL paper examines clues for superconductivity in an iron-based material

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FERMI Figure

A change of Hall and Seebeck effects point to large Fermi surface modification at the structural transition, preventing superconductivity at low temperatures. The change in the Fermi surface topology has been confirmed by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. (Image courtesy ORNL)

For the first time, scientists have a clearer understanding of how to control the appearance of a superconducting phase in a material, adding crucial fundamental knowledge and perhaps setting the stage for advances in the field of superconductivity.

The paper, published in Physical Review Letters, focuses on a calcium-iron-arsenide single crystal, which has structural, thermodynamic, and transport properties that can be varied through carefully controlled synthesis, similar to the application of pressure. To make this discovery, researchers focused on how these changes alter the material’s Fermi surface, which maps the specific population and arrangement of electrons in materials.

“The Fermi surface is basically the ‘genetic code’ for causing a certain property, including superconductivity, in a material,” said Athena Safa-Sefat of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which led the research team. “We can make different phases of this material in single crystal forms and measure their structure and properties, but now we have Fermi surface signatures that explain why we can’t induce superconductivity in a certain structural phase of this material.” [Read more…]

‘Double-duty’ electrolyte enables new chemistry for longer-lived batteries

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ORNL Battery Chemistry

When ORNL researchers incorporated a solid lithium thiophosphate electrolyte into a lithium-carbon fluoride battery, the device generated a 26 percent higher capacity than what would be its theoretical maximum if each component acted independently. (Image courtesy ORNL)

 

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a new and unconventional battery chemistry aimed at producing batteries that last longer than previously thought possible.

In a study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, ORNL researchers challenged a long-held assumption that a battery’s three main components—the positive cathode, negative anode, and ion-conducting electrolyte—can play only one role in the device.

The electrolyte in the team’s new battery design has dual functions: It serves not only as an ion conductor but also as a cathode supplement. This cooperative chemistry, enabled by the use of an ORNL-developed solid electrolyte, delivers an extra boost to the battery’s capacity, and extends the lifespan of the device.

“This bi-functional electrolyte revolutionizes the concept of conventional batteries and opens a new avenue for the design of batteries with unprecedented energy density,” said ORNL’s Chengdu Liang. [Read more…]