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ORNL’s Dai ranked among world’s most influential scientists

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Sheng Dai

Sheng Dai (Photo by ORNL)

 

Sheng Dai of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been named to a list of the most highly cited researchers in the world.

Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researchers is an annual list that recognizes some of the world’s leading researchers in the sciences and social sciences. About 3,000 researchers were named to the 2015 list.

Dai is a UT-Battelle Corporate Fellow and serves as the group leader of the Nanomaterials Chemistry Group in ORNL’s Chemical Sciences Division. He also holds a joint appointment with the Department of Chemistry at the University of Tennessee. His research focuses on the synthesis and characterization of materials for energy-related applications. [Read more…]

ORNL technique could set new course for extracting uranium from seawater

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ORNL-TOC-Graphic

Using high-energy X-rays, researchers discovered uranium is bound by adsorbent fibers in an unanticipated fashion. (Image by ORNL)

 

An ultra-high-resolution technique used for the first time to study polymer fibers that trap uranium in seawater may cause researchers to rethink the best methods to harvest this potential fuel for nuclear reactors.

The work of a team led by Carter Abney, a Wigner Fellow at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, shows that the polymeric adsorbent materials that bind uranium behave nothing like scientists had believed. The results, gained through collaboration with the University of Chicago and detailed in a paper published in Energy and Environmental Science, highlight data made possible with X-ray Absorption Fine Structure spectroscopy performed at the Advanced Photon Source. The APS is a DOE Office of Science User Facility at Argonne National Laboratory.

“Despite the low concentration of uranium and the presence of many other metals extracted from seawater, we were able to investigate the local atomic environment around uranium and better understand how it is bound by the polymer fibers,” Abney said. [Read more…]

ORNL wins six R&D 100 awards

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BAAM-RD100-ORNL-2015

The Big Area Additive Manufacturing-CI system, developed by ORNL and Cincinnati Incorporated, was among ORNL’s six 2015 R&D 100 award winners. (Photo courtesy ORNL)

 

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have received six R&D 100 awards, increasing the lab’s total to 193 since the award’s inception in 1963.

The competition, sponsored by R&D Magazine, recognizes advances in the nation’s most impactful technologies and the scientists and engineers who led the effort. This year, ORNL researchers earned awards for the following innovations:

The Big Area Additive Manufacturing-CI system was developed by ORNL researchers and Cincinnati Incorporated. BAAM-CI also received an Editor’s Choice award from R&D Magazine. [Read more…]

New ORNL catalyst addresses engine efficiency, emissions quandary

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ORNL Catalyst Andrew Binder

Researcher Andrew Binder and colleagues discovered that by mixing three components they could create an innovative catalyst that performs well at low temperatures without the use of precious metals. (Photo courtesy ORNL)

 

A catalyst being developed by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory could overcome one of the key obstacles still preventing automobile engines from running more cleanly and efficiently.

The mixed oxide catalyst could solve the longstanding problem of inhibition, in which nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and hydrocarbons effectively clog the catalyst designed to cleanse a vehicle’s exhaust stream. This happens as these three pollutants compete for active surface sites on the catalyst. Now, however, ORNL’s low-cost catalyst composed of copper oxide, cobalt oxide, and cerium oxide shows considerable promise when tested in simulated exhaust streams.

“Our catalyst potentially fixes the inhibition problem without precious metals and could help more efficient engines meet upcoming stricter emission regulations,” said Todd Toops of ORNL’s Energy and Transportation Sciences Division. Toops noted that the unique formulation builds on previous work by colleagues Andrew Binder and Sheng Dai, who varied the composition of the three catalyst components in search of improved oxidation activity under simple conditions. [Read more…]

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…]

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