http://science.energy.gov/user-facilities/highlights/The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, providing more than 40 percent of total funding for this vital area of national importance. It oversees - and is the principal federal funding agency of - the Nation's research programs in high-energy physics, nuclear physics, and fusion energy sciences.en{C0AB145B-3B67-4B29-987A-C745A176A198}http://science.energy.gov/bes/highlights/2013/bes-2013-02-b/<img src='/~/media/DCE164BCA2684EA89EDA0C6A53141472.ashx' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>Nano-porous metal oxide coatings on carbon fiber dramatically enhance the electrical storage capacity for supercapacitors.Fri, 10 May 2013 11:13:35 -0400<p>Pseudocapacitors are supercapacitors that store electrical charge both like a capacitor (with the normal electrostatic double layer of charges at the electrode-electrolyte interface) and like a battery (with multiple chemical reaction mechanisms involving charge transport across the electrode-electrolyte interface).&nbsp; Metal oxides such as cobalt or manganese oxide (C_o3O4 or MnO₂) store pseudocapacitive charge via metal ions which change oxidation state (e.g., Mn⁺³ <span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: symbol; color: #363636; font-size: 10pt;">&Ucirc;</span> Mn⁺⁴) as a result of the charge transfer.&nbsp;Researchers at the Energy Frontier Research Center on Heterogeneous Functional Materials, the &ldquo;HeteroFoaM Center,&rdquo; have discovered how the relative sizes, shapes, atomic arrangements and interfaces of the materials in psuedocapacitors control the amount of charge that can be stored and even the mechanisms of charge storage.&nbsp;In fact, the electrochemical storage properties are not limited by the properties of the materials and can be radically different if the &ldquo;heterogeneity&rdquo; of the composite material is understood and optimized. For example, as-deposited MnO₂ on conductive carbon fiber showed high specific capacitance (333 F/g) due to psuedocapacitance of the manganese ions, but conversion of the material through heat treatment to a different heterogeneous arrangement &ndash; a mixed-valence, nano-porous MnOx coating &ndash; dramatically enhanced storage capacity, achieving very high specific capacitance (~2,500 F/g) while maintaining excellent power density (~98 kW/kg at ~122.7 A/g).</p>{A1F1F429-A46A-4970-9BC3-853158E1144B}http://science.energy.gov/bes/highlights/2013/bes-2013-02-c/<img src='/~/media/214E9D85FBC64973AC4D23F2E487EF31.ashx' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>Charge-discharge chemistry for lithium ion batteries elucidated by theoretical calculations.Fri, 10 May 2013 11:13:35 -0400<p>Ethylene carbonate (EC) electrolytes and manganese spinel (Li_xMn₂O₄) positive electrodes are commonly used in lithium ion batteries.&nbsp;A comparison of the electrochemical potentials of EC and bulk Li_xMn₂O₄ suggests that decomposition of the electrolyte would not occur directly by electrons being transferred from EC to the electrode material, but the surface of a solid can have very different properties than its interior bulk.&nbsp;Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories, as part of the Nanostructures for Electrical Energy Storage (NEES) EFRC, have completed detailed coupled simulations of the molecules of the electrolyte and the surface of the positive electrode showing that the oxygen atoms on a Li_0.6Mn₂O₄ surface can deform and weakly bind the EC molecule when it is near the electrode surface. This initial interaction does not involve the transfer of electrons (i.e., oxidation) but does enable breaking of the carbon-oxygen bond and subsequent molecular rearrangements that result in two electrons and a proton being transferred to the electrode surface.&nbsp; Therefore, a predicted series of five steps breaks down the electrolyte molecule, leaving the oxidized EC fragment still bound to the now acidified electrode surface.&nbsp; Acidification of positive electrodes is widely believed to initiate corrosion of the electrode surface and possible dissolution of manganese atoms.&nbsp;The proposed acidification mechanism&nbsp;illustrates the importance of modeling the electrolyte and the electrode surface together.</p>{5E80BB5B-2DB7-4A8E-9045-1B714FBEBD64}http://science.energy.gov/bes/highlights/2012/bes-2012-11-a/<img src='/~/media/bes/images/highlights/2012/11/nano-35c-thumb.jpg' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>Unusual reaction eschews high temperatures and water to lock away climate-changing carbon dioxide.Mon, 18 Mar 2013 10:16:53 -0400 <p>Keeping power plants' emissions of carbon dioxide sequestered underground, even in the event of an earthquake or other geological upset, will be facilitated by transforming the carbon dioxide into a mineral, such as anhydrous magnesite. This reaction occurs more readily at high temperatures and requires additional water – conditions that may not be viable in an underground reservoir. Scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory discovered a reaction that forms the desired mineral at the relatively low temperature of 95&deg;F and while recycling the water it needs. The team began with highly reactive nanometer-sized particles of an abundant mineral called forsterite, MgSiO₄. They introduced water-saturated supercritical carbon dioxide to the particles. They examined the forsterite surface using scanning electron microscopy and characterized the molecules formed using four specialized spectrometers. The results show that within 3 to 4 days, the forsterite, water, and carbon dioxide form a mixture of two magnesium-based minerals: nesquehonite, which contains water, and the desired anhydrous magnesite, which does not. Water is continually used and released in the process, with the water driving the reaction. Over 14 days of reacting, the carbon dioxide was transformed into magnesite and a highly porous silica phase.</p> {093F52C4-AC9E-4AA7-9E08-68A03F1080C1}http://science.energy.gov/np/highlights/2012/np-2012-10-a/<img src='/~/media/np/images/highlights/2012/10/hall-b-thumb.jpg' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>Discovery could provide a deeper understanding of the dynamics of the three quarks enslaved inside the nucleon.Tue, 27 Nov 2012 12:45:58 -0500 <p>Modern experiments using electron beams at TJNAF and the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) detector address a precise question: how do the fundamental constituent particles of the Standard Model (quarks, antiquarks and gluons) assemble to form the composite “strongly interacting” particles observed in nature? Experimenters at TJNAF recently discovered five strongly-interacting unstable particles of a type known as “N* baryon resonances.” These composite particles, which are dominantly composed of three quarks, were predicted to exist in supercomputer studies of the theory of quarks and gluons, “Quantum Chromodynamics,” as well as by the original quark model of baryons. Since these predicted “missing resonances” had long eluded discovery, a conjecture arose that the presence of diquarks - a hypothetical strong pairing of two of the three quarks inside a baryon - might actually preclude their existence. The advanced experimental capability provided by the CLAS detector resolved the issue by finding some of these previously missing N* resonances; the crucial breakthrough was to search for the missing N*s in unusual decays that produced strange quarks. Since the previously “missing” N*s evidently do exist, this discovery eliminated the diquark conjecture regarding why these particular strongly-interacting composite particles were absent. The new particles discovered by CLAS have now been included in the Particle Data Group’s definitive 2012 Review of Particle Properties.</p> {5DB681AE-F466-4520-909F-89DB8ADBA6D3}http://science.energy.gov/np/highlights/2012/np-2012-10-c/<img src='/~/media/np/images/highlights/2012/10/nasa-chamber-a-thumb.jpg' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>Thomas Jefferson Laboratory lends expertise in cryogenics developments.Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:26:48 -0400 <p>As the U.S. sweated through its warmest summer on record outside, an enormous testing chamber at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston reached its coldest temperatures yet on the inside, cooled by one of the world's most efficient cryogenic refrigeration systems. “Chamber A” is mammoth, having a hinged door over 12 meters in diameter, a height of over 36 meters, and a diameter of almost 20 meters. Designed by members of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Jefferson Lab's Cryogenics group in Newport News, VA, the system reached its target temperature of 20 Kelvin, about -424 degrees F, for the first time in May and again during commissioning tests in late August. It reached its target temperature in just over a day and maintains a steady temperature with less than a tenth of a degree in variation over a load temperature range of 16 to 330 Kelvin, all with no loss of helium and using half the liquid nitrogen than comparable systems. But what is even more remarkable is its ability to maintain design efficiency down to a third of its maximum load. &quot;The range of load temperature and capacity while maintaining peak efficiency and temperature stability is unprecedented,&quot; said Venkatarao (Rao) Ganni, deputy Cryogenics Department head at Jefferson Lab, and a key member of the system design team. The successful cool down is great news for NASA, which will use the Space Environment Simulation Lab Chamber A to subject components of the James Webb Space Telescope to the rugged conditions it will encounter in space when it is launched in 2018. The Jefferson Lab cryogenics group has pioneered new technologies that led to improvements in the efficiencies of the laboratories' cryogenics systems, applying the concepts of its patented Floating Pressure (known as the Ganni Cycle) and other improvements to reduce the cost and improve the efficiency and stability of cryogenics operations.</p> {57A98699-A355-4857-BEC7-E276DE4DEFF7}http://science.energy.gov/fes/highlights/2012/fes-2012-10-a/<img src='/~/media/fes/images/highlights/2012/10/snowflake-thumb.jpg' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>Recent experiments have confirmed the great potential of a novel plasma-material interface concept.Tue, 27 Nov 2012 12:45:47 -0500 <p>Strong magnetic fields shape the hot plasma in the form of a donut in a magnetic fusion plasma reactor called a tokamak. Confined plasma particles move along infinite magnetic field lines inside the tokamak. Some particles and heat, however, tend to escape because of transport and magnetohydrodynamic plasma instabilities. A separate part of the vacuum vessel called a “divertor chamber” is used to divert away and collect lost heat and particles. If the plasma incident on the divertor surface is too hot, melting of the plasma-facing components and loss of coolant can occur. Under such undesirable conditions, the plasma-facing component lifetime would also be an issue, as they would tend to erode too quickly. The snowflake divertor concept was developed theoretically by Dmitri Ryutov and colleagues within the Fusion Energy Sciences Program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The experiments led by LLNL scientists on the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) and DIII-D tokamak user facilities at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and General Atomics, respectively, confirmed that all predicted magnetic properties could be realized without any additional hardware. The experiments at NSTX and DIII-D demonstrated a drastic reduction of heat load on divertor plasma-facing components and compatibility with high performance high confinement core plasma regimes. These, as well as other on-going experimental and numerical modeling efforts in USA, Switzerland, Italy and China, provide support to the snowflake divertor configuration as a viable plasma-material interface for future tokamak devices and for fusion development applications.</p> {0E8F3ECF-5330-4A99-8D3D-77954A2CE8EC}http://science.energy.gov/fes/highlights/2012/fes-2012-10-d/<img src='/~/media/fes/images/highlights/2012/10/c-mod-thumb.jpg' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>Recent experiments on Alcator C-Mod have investigated an improved confinement regime, called “I-Mode”, expanding its operational range and pointing toward its applicability on future devices.Wed, 28 Nov 2012 16:05:02 -0500 <p>I-Mode is an attractive tokamak operational regime, combining the high energy confinement and edge thermal barrier of H-mode, with the low particle confinement of L-mode, avoiding impurity accumulation and the need for ELMs to expel particles; ELM divertor heat fluxes are an issue of great concern for ITER. Alcator C-Mod experiments have  confirmed and extended prior results which found particularly robust operation in this configuration, maintaining I-mode up to the highest ICRF heating powers on C-Mod, expanding the ranges of magnetic field, and obtaining detailed information on the core and edge profiles and turbulence which should help us understand better its physical mechanisms.   Initial assessments of the potential application of I-mode to ITER were positive, indicating that I-mode may be accessible on ITER with the planned heating power, at average density of about 5 x 10¹⁹m^-3, and that Q=10 could be achievable at about 30% higher density.   An open issue was whether such a controlled density increase was achievable while maintaining the I-mode.  This motivated recent C-Mod experiments to assess density dependences and implement active density control.  Results were extremely positive.  Gas fuelling was added to an I-mode phase, increasing average density from the initial 1.5 x 10²⁰m^-3, to a final value of 2 x 10²⁰m^-3.  Plasma pressure remained nearly constant, with energy confinement following the ITER H-mode scaling, while I-mode turbulence features and edge temperature pedestal are clearly maintained. With further increases in power, from external sources, or from alphas in a burning plasma, it could well be possible to extend the I-mode operating space to even higher densities and performance.  Additional experiments, both on C-Mod, and in coordination with larger, lower field tokamaks, are urgently required to increase our confidence in the extrapolations to burning plasma conditions on ITER.</p> {CB72E74E-BDD2-4760-A131-59B125B51199}http://science.energy.gov/bes/highlights/2012/bes-2012-10-g/<img src='/~/media/6B32687020B641409FBF1A56CEF64097.ashx' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>Adding an oxide sieve, a layer containing nanocavities, to a catalyst surface makes the catalyst selective for specific reactions and increases efficiencies for chemical processes.Fri, 10 May 2013 11:21:35 -0400<p>Catalysts are compounds that enhance the speed of chemical reactions in a wide range of industrial chemistry applications. The Institute for Atom-Efficient Chemical Transformation (IACT), a DOE-supported Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC), is developing new reactions and new catalytic materials for bioenergy production by combining advanced characterization, computer simulations, and materials synthesis.&nbsp;IACT researchers at Northwestern University and Argonne National Laboratory developed a new technique to modify existing oxide catalysts with a surface film that enhances the selectivity of the catalyst. These films contain &lt;2 nm diameter &ldquo;nanocavities&rdquo; made by adding a template during the atomic layer deposition process that is used to synthesize atom-precise films of oxides, metals, and other materials. Removal of the template after synthesis results in the nanocavities in the surface that provides a sieving effect, allowing separation of the reactant molecules and limiting reactions to a single particle. Because the thickness of the sieving layer is comparable in size to the reactant molecules, diffusional limitations that plague other materials are not present here. Ultimately, adding selectivity to intrinsically non-selective oxide catalysts is expected to decrease the cost for biofuels and bio-derived chemicals by decreasing the need for challenging and costly separations and increasing the product yields.</p> <p>The research utilized the Advanced Photon Source for characterization of the structures.</p>{E9165276-CDE5-4BEE-8A57-97114FA4DC5B}http://science.energy.gov/bes/highlights/2012/bes-2012-10-a/<img src='/~/media/bes/images/highlights/2012/10/balke-thumb.jpg' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>New microscopy with nanometer-sized resolution may bring revolutionary new understanding to energy storage technologies.Mon, 18 Mar 2013 10:16:56 -0400 <p>A new scanning probe technique has led to the first measurements of the activation energy for Li-ion transport with nanometer resolution in the battery electrode material LiCoO₂. Understanding ionic transport at the level of individual grains and grain facets is of great importance in improving future energy storage (battery) energy and conversion (fuel cell) devices. Until now, activation energies for ionic transport have been actively explored by electrochemical techniques on the macroscopic and device level, allowing only average values for the activation energy to be determined. In this work, temperature-dependent electrochemical strain microscopy (ESM) is used to measure the activation energy of Li-ion transport in LiCoO₂ thin films on the nanometer scale, bridging the lengths scales of atomistic calculations and traditional macroscopic experiments. By understanding the local picture of Li-ion transport in electrode materials and its correlation with the microstructure, a better understanding of ionic flow through a battery can be developed, as is required for future improvements in battery technologies.</p> {CA0FB59C-36B2-4103-B265-64BD61B29DB7}http://science.energy.gov/bes/highlights/2012/bes-2012-10-b/<img src='/~/media/bes/images/highlights/2012/10/mpims-thumb.jpg' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>Unique analysis of the reaction of propene with oxygen atom reveals the influence of electron spin on combustion chemistry.Mon, 18 Mar 2013 10:16:55 -0400 <p>Researchers at the Combustion Research Facility, Sandia National Laboratories, have obtained detailed insights into the oxidation of hydrocarbons, the first step in combustion, by use of a new gas-phase chemistry probe that combines synchrotron-based photoionization with mass spectrometry. The simple oxygen atom is an important combustion reactant as an oxidizer of hydrocarbon fuels. But reactions of individual oxygen atoms with other molecules are challenging to understand because of the unpaired electron of oxygen. Conventional understanding says that flipping the oxygen electron’s spin in the course of a reaction is “forbidden.” Synchrotron studies of the reaction of oxygen atoms with propene, a representative unsaturated hydrocarbon, differentiated between spin-allowed versus forbidden pathways and revealed unexpectedly large amounts of spin-forbidden products. This work is providing remarkable new insights that will profoundly affect our ability to accurately simulate the complex chemistry of combustion processes.</p> {1B8A43C0-6464-4F1B-9DFE-A45240D61436}http://science.energy.gov/bes/highlights/2012/bes-2012-10-e/<img src='/~/media/bes/images/highlights/2012/10/kp-fossil-thumb.jpg' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>Supercomputers + Software + electromagnetic images yield new way to discriminate underground deposits from surrounding geology.Mon, 18 Mar 2013 10:16:54 -0400 <p>Seismic imaging methods have a long and established history in identifying the geological structures that indicate hydrocarbon-bearing reservoirs.  However, these methodologies cannot discriminate between different types of reservoir fluids, such as brines, oils and gas, with the end result that significant time and money can go for offshore drilling without finding gas or oil.  New geophysical technologies using electromagnetic signals are sensitive to these differences if electrically resistive hydrocarbons are present. However, extracting the needed information is difficult, involving a mathematically elaborate process called inverse modeling. To make the analysis easier, researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have combined advanced geophysical imaging technologies with high-performance computing algorithms to make a powerful tool for subsurface electrical resistivity mapping, EMGeo - ElectroMagnetic Geological Mapper. It exploits parallel computing power, including LBNL’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, to maximize the information that can be extracted from industrial electromagnetic surveys. The software has been licensed to several major oil and gas companies active in deep-water exploration, potentially saving billions of dollars in the detection of energy deposits. Additional research is focused on directly combining microseismic and electrical survey data for deepening the resolution of subsurface fluid maps within enhanced geothermal systems.</p> {55CEF659-B461-4369-AA05-8AB2E8BFEF23}http://science.energy.gov/ascr/highlights/2012/ascr-2012-10-a/<img src='/~/media/ascr/images/highlights/2012/10/100g-sim-thumb.jpg' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>The Advanced Networking Initiative testbed is allowing researchers to develop radical new technologies for the next generation Internet.Fri, 10 May 2013 16:35:48 -0400 <p>The 100 Gbps dark fiber testbed provides a facility for researchers to address the challenges of deploying and operating high speed optical networks. This includes research into disruptive technologies and approaches that are not ready to mingle with production traffic. “Just because the network is 10 times faster does not mean the protocols and middleware will be 10 times faster,” said Brian Tierney of the Energy Science network (ESnet). Such discrepancies could create bottlenecks that slow down the network, frustrating fulfillment of its potential.  The testbed, which is open to industry, government labs and academia, allows a user project to be the only traffic on the testbed, enabling experiments in a truly controlled environment. One of the challenges in network research is repeatability, so giving a researcher complete control of a 100 Gbps testbed allows the experiment to be re-run multiple times, enabling them to adjust the experiment if needed, leading to more exact results. For the networking research community, there is no other test environment like this that provides researchers the ability to experiment with their ideas “at scale” on a national backbone. And none of the U.S. research groups in industry or academia could afford to build an environment like this on their own. Eric Dube, Senior Product Manager of Systems at Bay Microsystems, Inc., stated  “This is the first time Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) over distance has been proven to work at full bandwidth for 40 Gbps data rates. Gaining access to a 40 Gbps wide area optical circuit is very costly and had prohibited this kind of research in the past. Using the ANI testbed, we are now able to prove these concepts in a live network environment setting the stage for deploying scalable RDMA-enabled applications over 100G networks. This is especially important as more geographically dispersed data centers and science sites will require this type of bandwidth and capability.” </p> {4C9F237A-9310-40D9-BC5F-BB7C8AAA8212}http://science.energy.gov/ascr/highlights/2012/ascr-2012-10-b/<img src='/~/media/ascr/images/highlights/2012/10/91212-supercomputer-universe-thumb.jpg' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>Simulating the evolution of the universe on the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility’s IBM Blue Gene/Q.Mon, 18 Mar 2013 10:33:10 -0400 <p>Cosmology—the science of the origin and development of the universe—is entering one of its most scientifically exciting phases. Two decades of surveying the sky have culminated in the celebrated Cosmological Standard Model. While the model describes current observations to accuracies of several percent, two of its key pillars, dark matter and dark energy—together accounting for 95% of the mass energy of the universe—remain mysterious. Scientists would love to be able to rewind the universe and watch what happened from the start. Since that's not possible, researchers must create their own mini-universes inside computers and unleash the laws of physics on them, to study their evolution. Using the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility’s IBM Blue Gene/Q, researchers have simulated the evolution of the universe through the first 13 billion years after the big bang. The simulation tracks the movement of trillions of particles as they collide and interact with each other, forming structures that transform into galaxies. This simulation is part of a project led by physicists Salman Habib and Katrin Heitmann of Illinois' Argonne National Laboratory resolving galaxy-scale mass concentrations over observational volumes representative of state-of-the-art sky surveys. This initiative targets an approximately two- to three-orders-of-magnitude improvement over currently available resources. The simulation is based on the new HACC (Hardware/Hybrid Accelerated Cosmology Code) framework aimed at exploiting emerging supercomputer architectures such as the IBM Blue Gene/Q at the ALCF. HACC is the first (and currently the only) large-scale cosmology code suite worldwide that can run at this scale and beyond on all available supercomputer architectures. To achieve this versatility, the researchers had to build the code from scratch working closely with advanced computing researchers. One of the main mysteries they hope to solve with the simulations is the origin of the dark energy that's causing the universe to accelerate in its expansion.</p> {58B28D5A-2CEB-42AC-ACEB-21738879AB51}http://science.energy.gov/ascr/highlights/2012/ascr-2012-10-c/<img src='/~/media/ascr/images/highlights/2012/10/baudry-thumb.jpg' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>Researchers use Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility to accelerate drug discovery.Fri, 15 Mar 2013 17:37:58 -0400 <p>Jerome Baudry, an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee (UT) and member of the Center for Molecular Biophysics at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and his team of computational biophysicists use supercomputers much like other scientists use microscopes. After making alterations to publicly licensed software from the Scripps Research Institute, they were able to create 3D biological simulations of compounds docking with receptors in the body and run it on one of the world’s fastest computers to screen millions of candidates in a few days. The simulations the team created are based upon the process by which molecular compounds function within the body. Pharmaceuticals work because they bind specifically to certain cellular receptors that play roles in health and disease; similar to the way a key fits a lock. When that key opens too many locks, however, side effects occur. Baudry and his collaborators want to be able to predict the specific binding of a drug to a receptor to avoid cross-reactivity. Knowing this behavior will help researchers generate drug candidates likely to survive clinical trials. Thanks to the efficient and massive computations possible using the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, Baudry and his collaborators can screen drug candidates against multiple receptors and the dynamic structural variations of those receptors. The ability to run simulations greatly reduces the sample size as poor drug candidates get eliminated and ultimately produces a more specifically binding, and therefore more efficient, drug.</p> {69410B29-B4B8-422B-9909-BD007580F9D5}http://science.energy.gov/bes/highlights/2012/bes-2012-08-a/<img src='/~/media/A7C71133E9E44C73BDB4C360EDFEF132.ashx' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>Squeezing creates new class of material built from clusters of carbon atoms.Fri, 10 May 2013 11:21:34 -0400<p>How do you dent diamond, one of the Earth&rsquo;s hardest materials? Researchers supported by the Energy Frontier Research in Extreme Environments EFRC&nbsp;created a new substance that can do just that. To make the new material, the researchers started with &lsquo;buckyballs,&rsquo; soccer-ball shaped cages composed of sixty carbons, and mixed them in a liquid solvent called xylene.&nbsp; The molecules of xylene served to &ldquo;link&rdquo; the buckyballs together in a regular, crystalline pattern like beads on a string. Finally, they squeezed the mixture in a diamond anvil cell in-situ in the synchrotron beam of the Advanced Photon Source. &nbsp; Something extraordinary happened around 320,000 times atmospheric pressure; the buckyballs collapsed and formed disordered, amorphous clusters but the xylene molecules held fast and still tethered the amorphous pieces together in a pattern like before. The resulting, never-before-seen structure was surprisingly hard; strong enough to dent the diamond anvil. The material stayed in the same structure even after the pressure had been released, which makes it potentially useful for a variety of different devices, especially future electronics. (<a href="/news/in-focus/2012/08-27-12/">Excerpt from DOE-SC's "In&nbsp;Focus"</a>)</p>{C85B942E-043A-4E98-9C4B-B09786ECD2D4}http://science.energy.gov/bes/highlights/2012/bes-2012-07-b/<img src='/~/media/34DCFCF74E5649CDA7424992D2865AA9.ashx' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>Nanoscale features in rocks enable more carbon dioxide to be trapped as a solid carbonate material underground.Fri, 10 May 2013 16:30:03 -0400<p>Advanced experiments and computations have shown that underground carbonate mineral nucleation and growth is strongly dependent on nanoscale features such as the pore structure and surface topography of permeable rocks and the interfacial energies between rock surfaces and solid carbonates. This research at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory&rsquo;s Center for Nanoscale Control of Geologic CO₂, Washington University in St. Louis, and Oregon State University provides the quantitative parameters necessary to develop advanced models that describe how nucleation and growth of carbonate occur in porous media that contain multiple minerals with different surface properties and micro- to nanoscale pores. In carbon capture and storage, CO₂ is captured from power plant exhaust and other sources and injected underground into porous rock formations where it mixes with ambient salt water and may remain for 1000&rsquo;s of years. Although it is expected that CO₂ can be transformed to carbonate minerals, it is unknown how fast this will occur and how the addition of new carbonate mineral in the rock formations will affect the short and long-term behavior of the system. This research will enable more realistic modeling of mineral formation from the injected CO₂ and thus increase the pace of deployment of this critical energy technology.</p>{827B7490-9130-45F4-9738-7AA505E6863D}http://science.energy.gov/ascr/highlights/2012/ascr-2012-06-a/<img src='/~/media/ascr/images/highlights/2012/06/gtoc-thumb.jpg' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>Researchers use NERSC to Create Carbon Dioxide-Separating Polymer.Fri, 10 May 2013 16:35:53 -0400 <p>Using supercomputers at the Department of Energy’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), researchers from Haverford College have come up with a new type of two-dimensional polymer, PG-ES1, which allows, in theory, for highly efficient separation of carbon dioxide. Based on simulations, PG-ES1 is predicted to be more than 100-times as permeable to carbon dioxide than the best existing materials, while maintaining a rejection of nitrogen and methane gases that meets or exceeds the best existing materials. This allows it to act as a molecular filter that lets the carbon dioxide to pass through easily, while preventing other gases from escaping. Haverford Assistant Professor of Chemistry Joshua Schrier authored a paper on this new material in the most recent issue of ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces. He says the key to the new process is to utilize both the preferential adsorption of carbon dioxide gas molecules on the surface and the ability to create small, nanometer-sized pores in the surface. “Nitrogen and carbon dioxide are linear molecules, and the holes are too small to allow them to enter in any way other than along their ‘skinniest’ dimensions,” says Schrier. “As it turns out, carbon dioxide is a little skinnier than nitrogen, which allows it to pass through the hole more readily. Although it is unlikely that a random molecule would have the correct orientation, the surface adsorption helps increase the local concentration of carbon dioxide and allows each carbon dioxide molecule to try several attempts at different orientations until it finds the correct one, which ‘stacks the deck’ in favor of carbon dioxide passage. Nobody has previously considered the role of surface adsorption on the barrier crossing process, but it is absolutely crucial for performing this type of separation.”</p> {A5BC3BF9-BFDA-4030-81B9-C06A32DC58E7}http://science.energy.gov/ascr/highlights/2012/ascr-2012-04-a/<img src='/~/media/ascr/images/highlights/2012/04/desal-thumb.jpg' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>NERSC helps researchers design new desalination technology.Fri, 10 May 2013 16:35:31 -0400 <p>Guided by advanced molecular modeling at the National Energy Research Supercomputing Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists are investigating how to turn atom-thick carbon layers into membranes for a new and improved desalination method in places with inadequate fresh water. “Without any actual experimental demonstration, what our calculations tell us is that the performance of the graphene membrane for water desalination would be very high,” says Jeffrey Grossman, a materials scientist who is MIT’s Carl Richard Soderberg, associate professor of power engineering and leader of the investigation. Graphene, first described in 1962 and the focus of a 2010 Nobel Prize in physics, is a chicken-wire mesh of carbon atoms that provide the underpinnings for graphite, charcoal, carbon nanotubes and buckyballs. What has sparked Grossman’s group’s interest is graphene’s phenomenal structural strength and chemical attributes that might make it ideal for filtering salt from seawater. The goal is to drill just-the-right-width, billionth-of-a-meter nanopores into graphene’s normally impenetrable surface so pressurized water alone could get through without damaging the ultrathin structure. That might make it more efficient than the reverse osmosis process that now offers the best performance of all seawater desalination options. The problem is reverse osmosis has comparatively high costs and energy use. Those faults mean that although seawater is widely available, “dramatically new technologies” are needed to make desalination “a sustainable water supply option,” Grossman and graduate student David Cohen-Tanugi reported earlier this year in the journal Nano Letters. Computer modeling is increasingly essential to modern-day chemistry and materials science because, according to Grossman “it sits in between theory and experiment,” so that “we can do actually what an experiment would have a hard time doing, which is to peel away the levels of complexity one by one.”</p> {C24B58DB-6E77-46D5-863D-9B9F4E5448BB}http://science.energy.gov/bes/highlights/2011/bes-2011-12-a/<img src='/~/media/bes/images/highlights/2011/12/cees-thackeray-sei-layer-thumb.jpg' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>A new spectroscopic “fingerprinting” technique has been developed at a DOE user facility to identify chemical degradation products deep inside a working rechargeable battery.Mon, 18 Mar 2013 10:17:00 -0400 <p>Understanding what happens inside of rechargeable batteries is critical to making them safer and last longer. For commercially important lithium-based batteries, a new tool has been developed that uses high resolution lithium and oxygen spectroscopy to study the degradation products formed in a working battery. Inelastic x-ray scattering (IXS) measures and analyzes the energy lost by x-rays when they are scattered by light elements such as lithium; the resulting spectrum is very sensitive to the bonding and chemical structure of the atoms in the material being analyzed. Unlike traditional spectroscopic probes, IXS uses high energy x-rays that can penetrate deep inside a working battery – assessing the elemental changes at the critical solid-electrolyte interface(SEI) inside the battery. Work at Argonne National Laboratory supported by the Center for Electrical Energy Storage, a DOE Energy Research Frontier Center, is using lithium and oxygen spectra of pure, known compounds to create a catalogue of spectroscopic fingerprints of the possible decomposition productions in lithium-ion batteries. Theoretical calculations agree with the measured spectra of pure compounds, providing validation that the IXS spectra can be used to probe an unknown mixture of SEI products. Ongoing studies will use the fingerprints to determine the composition of the SEI and to decouple decomposition reactions from actual discharge products for a Li-air battery. This technique is now available to the broader battery research community at Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source.</p> {FA76C0A6-7CC8-43D2-8446-28ED3F447DF3}http://science.energy.gov/bes/highlights/2011/bes-2011-12-d/<img src='/~/media/7759C2046B074D14BDFDB00567405E75.ashx' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>New insights from synchrotron-based studies are helping to assess the potential of new biofuels.Fri, 10 May 2013 11:13:34 -0400<p>Evaluation of new fuels in engines is hampered by both expense and need for large quantities of the test fuel &mdash; a problem given the limited availability for many potential biofuels. Predictive computer modeling based on quantum mechanics and chemistry promises to reduce the number of experiments needed for evaluation. To validate the fidelity of combustion chemistry models, researchers at the CEFRC conducted rigorous experimental tests of the computer predictions for combustion of butanol, an alternative fuel nearing commercialization.&nbsp;Using the Advanced Light Source, a synchrotron that generates bright beams of x-rays capable of revealing atomic and electronic structure of matter, the scientists were able to quantify the chemical species in butanol flames, including species not observable using ordinary techniques.&nbsp;While showing that the model predictions resemble the experimental data and are generally accurate, the research identified areas for improvement. Overall, the results suggest the computer modeling approach currently being developed will accelerate the evaluation of proposed fuels while reducing cost and fuel use.</p>{928E672F-9926-4038-9094-E7913094611B}http://science.energy.gov/bes/highlights/2011/bes-2011-11-a/<img src='/~/media/23AF46BE7E3F4EFFAFAB4B22463F0C11.ashx' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>Predicted by theory, and confirmed by experiments, novel materials are being discovered to improve photovoltaic efficiency.Fri, 10 May 2013 11:13:33 -0400<p>In the quest for more efficient photovoltaic technologies, scientists at the Center for Inverse Design (CID) EFRC are using an unconventional approach to discover new materials for improved transparent semiconductors for solar energy. It is relatively easy to improve positive-charge (p-type) conductivity in small-gap semiconductors, such as silicon. Small quantities of atoms, called dopants, that pull electrons from the semiconductor are added, resulting in a concentration of positively charged &ldquo;holes&rdquo;&mdash;the charge carriers for p-type conductors. However, it is difficult to combine p-type conductivity and optical transparency in the wide gap materials that are desired for PV applications; wide gap materials could enable more efficient devices due to their high temperature and voltage performance. To solve this challenge, CID uses theory to establish design rules for desired properties and to screen candidate oxides, and then synthesizes and experimentally characterizes those with the best predicted properties. Theory predicted that spinel cobalt zinc oxide (Co₂ZnO₄) with additions of magnesium or nickel would increase hole concentration and thus conductivity. Experiments demonstrated a 20-fold increase in hole density with magnesium dopants and a 100-fold increase with nickel dopants. These easily grown oxides may enhance solar panel efficiencies over currently available transparent conducting oxides.</p>{D20FD8B4-7162-4BB6-82AE-DDDC4590EEC5}http://science.energy.gov/np/highlights/2011/np-2011-04-a/<img src='/~/media/np/images/highlights/2011/04/dunlop-thumb.jpg' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>Observation of these particles in cosmic rays with space based detectors would imply large amounts of anti-matter somewhere in the universe.Tue, 27 Nov 2012 12:45:55 -0500 <p>The world we live in is made of what we call “matter,” and our current understanding of physics tells us that when matter is produced an equal amount of “antimatter” should be produced. Observations of gold ions colliding at very high energies at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory in fact show that particles are produced as matter-antimatter pairs. The STAR detector at this facility has observed the heaviest anti-nucleus ever found: anti-helium, also known as the anti-alpha particle. Finding these anti-alphas among many hundreds of particles produced in each collision was exceptionally difficult, as they are produced very rarely at the rate of only 18 being found in over 1 billion collisions of gold nuclei. This low yield of anti-alpha particles is explained well by a hypothesis where anti-neutrons and anti-protons produced in the collision of two gold nuclei are by chance close enough to combine to form the anti-alpha particle. The relatively small number of anti-alphas produced in such collisions implies that if they are observed in cosmic rays with detectors like the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer attached to the International Space Station, the result would imply large quantities of anti-matter, such as an anti-star, somewhere in the universe.</p> {EE797E5E-C632-47E2-A8E9-7E5AFEBC7157}http://science.energy.gov/bes/highlights/2011/bes-2011-02-a/<img src='/~/media/bes/images/highlights/2011/02/kp-uranium-thumb.jpg' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>Understanding the interaction of uranium in soils may lead to new ways to clean-up contaminated ground.Mon, 18 Mar 2013 10:27:23 -0400 <p>Determining how radioactive material sticks to soil and affects its movement into nearby water sources is a major challenge for cleaning up nuclear waste sites. This waste, which may include uranium, can be diffuse as well as difficult to isolate and remove. To reduce the cost and complexity of complete removal, innovative and inexpensive methods are needed to expedite clean-up efforts around the world, especially in sites with vast areas of contamination. Scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory discovered that the surface of a common soil mineral, aluminum oxide, adheres to uranium making it less mobile. The researchers assembled a detailed picture of how uranium adheres to the mineral surface using a computational model. By modeling the behavior of uranium in a complex subsurface environment, they were able to show that uranium sticks to the surface of aluminum oxide without changing it in any way and that a more acidic environment improves how well the two stick together. This cluster model approach used by the researchers allows for a straight forward comparison to be made between different sorption mechanisms and predictions can be directly related to X-ray adsorption experiment measurements. This approach can be used to model surface reactivity and be further utilized in other complex model systems.</p> {DCF5436D-B3D0-4460-B732-13A8547E32D2}http://science.energy.gov/bes/highlights/2009/bes-2009-06-a/<img src='/~/media/bes/images/highlights/2009/06/samms-final-frame-thumb.jpg' align='left' style='height:75px;width:135px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:10px;'/>Understanding ceramic chemistry leads the way to a new remediation technologyMon, 18 Mar 2013 10:17:02 -0400 <p>Basic research at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory developed a cross-disciplinary technology that coats mesoporous silica material with synthesized ligands, or binding molecules, which can serve many purposes including attracting and holding contaminants, such as mercury. This technology, called SAMMS short for Self-assembled Monolayers on Mesoporous Supports, self-assembles a single layer of ligand onto the mesporous ceramic or silica supports. Because the ceramic or silica is so porous, the high surface area creates a high density (≈1000 m2/g) of contamination binding sites. A small amount – about a tablespoon – has the equivalent surface area of a football field, with binding molecules covering the available surface. These properties add up to a product that is about 500 times faster and much less expensive than previous mercury remediation methods. Due to its structure and chemistry, SAMMS can be modified to meet broader needs. The technology is used to treat groundwater, contaminated mining impoundments, industrial process streams, and contaminated oil. SAMMS is also being used to sequester a variety of contaminants, including heavy metals like mercury and lead, anions like arsenate and selenite, and radioactive materials like radiocesium and radioiodide. Commercialized through Steward Advanced Materials, SAMMS recognitions include an R&amp;D 100 Award and Popular Science magazine‘s Grand Award winner for Green Technologies in their Best of What’s New Awards in 2009.</p>