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ORNL’s annual workshop has become the premier forum for molten salt reactor, or MSR, collaboration and innovation, convening industry, academia and government experts to further advance MSR research and development. This year’s event attracted a record-breaking 365 participants from across the country, highlighting the momentum to bring MSRs online.

Researchers for the first time documented the specific chemistry dynamics and structure of high-temperature liquid uranium trichloride salt, a potential nuclear fuel source for next-generation reactors. 

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.

In the search for ways to fight methylmercury in global waterways, scientists at 91���� discovered that some forms of phytoplankton are good at degrading the potent neurotoxin.

When reading the novel Jurassic Park as a teenager, Jerry Parks found the passages about gene sequencing and supercomputers fascinating, but never imagined he might someday pursue such futuristic-sounding science.

Spanning no less than three disciplines, Marie Kurz’s title — hydrogeochemist — already gives you a sense of the collaborative, interdisciplinary nature of her research at ORNL.

A team led by ORNL and the University of Michigan have discovered that certain bacteria can steal an essential compound from other microbes to break down methane and toxic methylmercury in the environment.

Anyone familiar with ORNL knows it’s a hub for world-class science. The nearly 33,000-acre space surrounding the lab is less known, but also unique.

Moving to landlocked Tennessee isn’t an obvious choice for most scientists with new doctorate degrees in coastal oceanography.

Six scientists at the Department of Energy’s 91���� were named Battelle Distinguished Inventors, in recognition of obtaining 14 or more patents during their careers at the lab.