- Number 417 |
- July 7, 2014
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Satisfying metals' thirst vital for high-capacity batteries
Imagine a cell phone battery that worked for days between charges. At DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, scientists are answering fundamental science questions that could make batteries work more efficiently. Replacing lithium, which is in the +1 oxidation state, with metals that can carry multiple charges could potentially increase battery capacity.
"Our initial efforts focused on understanding the behavior of metals that have +2 or +3 oxidation states in an aqueous solution," said Dr. Sotiris Xantheas, who led the research at PNNL. "This would double or triple the amount of charge that could be stored in a battery, but before this study, we had no insights on how the charge on the ions is either stabilized or destabilized when their local environment changes."
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For the users: SNS produces neutrons at 1.4 MW
The Spallation Neutron Source at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory broke records for sustained beam power level as well as for integrated energy and target lifetime in the month of June.
For the first time, the accelerator-based pulsed neutron source operated steadily for users at its baseline design power of 1.4 megawatts on June 26.
“Over the past year, we have implemented technical and operational improvements to provide stable operation at 1.4 MW with little operating margin,” said Kevin Jones, director of ORNL’s Research Accelerators Division. “This achievement is the result of a lot of hard work by the dedicated and talented staff of our division.” -
Scientists take first dip into water’s mysterious ‘no man’s land’
Scientists at DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have made the first structural observations of liquid water at temperatures down to minus 51 degrees Fahrenheit, within an elusive “no man’s land” where water’s strange properties are super-amplified.
The research, made possible by SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser and reported June 18 in Nature, opens a new window for exploring liquid water in these exotic conditions, and promises to improve our understanding of its unique properties at the more natural temperatures and states that are relevant to global ocean currents, climate and biology.
Scientists have known for some time that water can remain liquid at extremely cold temperatures, but they’ve never before been able to examine its molecular structure in this zone. -
ORNL launches imaging institute
DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has launched the Institute for Functional Imaging of Materials to accelerate discovery, design and deployment of new materials. The institute will meld world-class capabilities in imaging, high-performance computing, materials science and other scientific disciplines to probe materials. It supports President Obama’s Materials Genome Initiative, which aims to bring new materials to the marketplace.
“Advanced materials are essential to clean energy, national security and global competitiveness,” said ORNL Director Thom Mason. “Key energy technologies like solar cells, superconductors and batteries all have shortcomings that next-generation materials might overcome.”