Feature Stories

Five researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory recently completed an eight-week pilot commercialization coaching program as part of Safari, a program funded by DOE’s Office of Technology Transitions, or OTT, Practices to Accelerate the Commercialization of Technologies, or PACT. 

 Energy I-Corps pairs teams of researchers, often with no business background or knowledge, with industry mentors through an immersive two-month training program where the scientists define their technology’s value propositions, conduct stakeholder discovery interviews and develop viable market pathways. Two ORNL teams participated in Cohort 18, which concluded in March, helping commercialize the fruits of their research.

What do a particle collider and a human have in common? Not much. But both have parts that need to be kept within a certain temperature range to function properly. It’s a phenomenon mechanical engineer Thea Vijaya Kumar knows well. She designs systems to keep people and machines cool — a cool job in every sense of the word. Her current focus is on meeting that goal, and how to do it efficiently, for the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC).

Argonne scientists designed a way to optimize discovery of nuclear material coatings and identified a promising new candidate along the way.

Plants are powerful factories – they can turn basic ingredients like carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight into oxygen, sugars, and plant mass. But plants don’t do all of this work on their own. Below the soil’s surface, plant roots work with tiny microbes to gain access to the nutrients they need to survive. This microbial ecosystem, known as the plant microbiome, has the power to make or break a plant’s success aboveground. 

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory led studies of the radioactive isotope beryllium-10, which existed when the solar system came into being some 4.5 to 5 billion years ago. They probed whether this isotope can be formed in sufficient quantities during the massive explosions of gigantic stars in their death throes, called supernovae.

This article features Jefferson Lab's SRF Operations Department’s cryomodule assembly technicians, a team of master craftsmen who build, test and install cryomodules in particle accelerators. Their work enables scientific discoveries at Jefferson Lab and beyond.

Substances called polyethylene glycols, or PEGs, are widely used in industry, medical, cosmetics and personal care products. The problem is, when they enter the environment and build up, they can harm ecosystems and natural resources. Existing approaches to detecting these environmentally unfriendly chemicals — such as chromatography or bulk mass spectrometry — fall short because they lack the necessary sensitivity. However, new research led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory has demonstrated an effective technique for identifying PEGs in the environment.