News Releases

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborating institutions have engineered a highly selective catalyst that can convert methane, a major component of natural gas, into methanol, an easily transportable liquid fuel, in a single, one-step reaction. As described in a paper just published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, this direct process for methane-to-methanol conversion runs at a temperature lower than required to make tea and exclusively produces methanol without additional byproducts.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The Sandia Science & Technology Park is being credited with playing a critical role in New Mexico’s economy over the last 25 years, creating high-paying jobs and bringing state-of-the-art technologies to the marketplace.

Although climate change may bring increased precipitation to many parts of the United States, some areas may face drier conditions and lower streamflow, resulting in decreased hydropower generation.

Scientists studying the tracks of particles streaming from six billion collisions of atomic nuclei at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) — an “atom smasher” that recreates the conditions of the early universe — have discovered a new kind of antimatter nucleus, the heaviest ever detected. Composed of four antimatter particles — an antiproton, two antineutrons, and one antihyperon — these exotic antinuclei are known as antihyperhydrogen-4.

A team of scientists led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) was recently able to observe how promethium forms chemical bonds when placed in an aqueous solution.

New fusion simulations of the inside of a tokamak reveal the ideal spot for a “cave” with flowing liquid lithium is near the bottom by the center stack, as the evaporating metal particles should land in just the right spot to dissipate excess heat from the plasma.