Feature Articles

Enrico Fermi’s Chicago Pile 1 experiment in 1942 launched an atomic age, an unrivaled national laboratory system, fleets of submarines, cancer treatments and the unending promise of clean nuclear energy. Argonne National Laboratory builds on its legacy.

PNNL researchers created rugged, adaptable, mass-manufacturable luminescent particle tracers for use in harsh environments.

ree early-career professionals at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory had the opportunity to connect with Nobel laureates, discuss pressing global issues, and explore historic Kyoto, Japan at the 19th annual meeting of the Science and Technology in Society (STS) forum.

Argonne’s Experimental Operations and Facilities (EOF) division works to enable a broad range of experiments at the laboratory.

The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has exclusively licensed battery electrolyte technology to Safire Technology Group. The collection of five patented technologies are designed for a drop-in additive for lithium-ion batteries that prevents explosions and fire from impact.

The marketplace debut of Idaho National Laboratory’s Colorimetric Detection of Actinides, or CoDeAc, isn’t the finish to the award-winning technology’s story. According to its inventors and now investors, it’s just the beginning of a new chapter. “CoDeAc has a bright future,” INL Researcher and CoDeAc inventor Catherine Riddle said. “As it gains interest and expands, there will be new opportunities for future colorimetric detection products and a diverse range of new technologies geared towards rapid radionuclide detection.” Riddle, along with fellow INL researcher Rick Demmer, started developing CoDeAc in 2019 to help first responders, radiation specialists and nuclear operators detect uranium and plutonium when responding to an emergency nuclear event.

With electric vehicles becoming more and more common, the risks and hazards of a cyber attack on electric vehicle charging equipment and systems also increases. Jay Johnson, an electrical engineer at Sandia National Laboratories, has been studying the varied vulnerabilities of electric vehicle charging infrastructure for the past four years.

As the United States shifts away from fossil-fuel-burning cars and trucks, scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge and Argonne national laboratories are exploring options for another form of transportation: trains. The research focuses on zero-carbon hydrogen and other low-carbon fuels as viable alternatives to diesel for the rail industry.