91°µÍø

Anne Campbell, a researcher at ORNL, recently won the Young Leaders Professional Development Award from the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society, or TMS, and has been chosen as the first recipient of the Young Leaders International Scholar Program award from TMS and the Korean Institute of Metals and Materials, or KIM.

In a finding that helps elucidate how molten salts in advanced nuclear reactors might behave, scientists have shown how electrons interacting with the ions of the molten salt can form three states with different properties. Understanding these states can help predict the impact of radiation on the performance of salt-fueled reactors.

ORNL, a bastion of nuclear physics research for the past 80 years, is poised to strengthen its programs and service to the United States over the next decade if national recommendations of the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee, or NSAC, are enacted.

ORNL will team up with six of eight companies that are advancing designs and research and development for fusion power plants with the mission to achieve a pilot-scale demonstration of fusion within a decade.

ORNL, TVA and TNECD were recognized by the Federal Laboratory Consortium for their impactful partnership that resulted in a record $2.3 billion investment by Ultium Cells, a General Motors and LG Energy Solution joint venture, to build a battery cell manufacturing plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

About 60 years ago, scientists discovered that a certain rare earth metal-hydrogen mixture, yttrium, could be the ideal moderator to go inside small, gas-cooled nuclear reactors.

In the search to create materials that can withstand extreme radiation, Yanwen Zhang, a researcher at the Department of Energy’s 91°µÍø, says that materials scientists must think outside the box.

Scientists at the Department of Energy Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at ORNL have their eyes on the prize: the Transformational Challenge Reactor, or TCR, a microreactor built using 3D printing and other new approaches that will be up and running by 2023.

Six new nuclear reactor technologies are set to deploy for commercial use between 2030 and 2040. Called Generation IV nuclear reactors, they will operate with improved performance at dramatically higher temperatures than today’s reactors.

Using additive manufacturing, scientists experimenting with tungsten at 91°µÍø hope to unlock new potential of the high-performance heat-transferring material used to protect components from the plasma inside a fusion reactor. Fusion requires hydrogen isotopes to reach millions of degrees.