PNNL

Why do ants and other small creatures have such sharp bites? According to scientists from the University of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), the answer lies in their ability to uniformly add zinc atoms to their teeth.

A team of researchers is using state-of-the-art forensic techniques to solve the riddle of the origin of uranium cubes that were used as part of the Nazi effort to develop nuclear weapons during the Second World War.

There is still some work to do in bringing current redox flow battery designs up to speed in terms of both performance and sustainability, but a new approach tackles the problem on both these fronts, by drawing on a compound commonly found in candles.

To reduce high-level radioactive waste and make nuclear reactors more economical, researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are working on ways to use real-time spectroscopic monitoring to improve the recycling of spent nuclear fuel.

​It was back in 2011 that we first heard how Virgin Atlantic Airways was planning to use an eco-friendly aviation fuel made from captured steel mill waste gases. A successful test flight followed in 2016, and the fuel has now been utilized in a commercial flight for the first time.

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in association with LCW Supercritical Technologies has made a potentially important breakthrough for the nuclear industry by extracting five grams of powdered uranium, called yellowcake, from ordinary seawater.

PNNL has vitrified low-level radioactive waste taken from a tank at the decommissioned Hanford Site nuclear production complex in Washington state for the first time in a continuous process. The waste was turned into durable glass that immobilizes the radioactive and chemical compounds inside.

Amateur mechanics have long used sawdust to clean up oil spills in their garages. Now, scientists are looking to see if this low-tech solution can be adapted to protect the Arctic in case of an oil spill in its icy waters.

The US Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has found a way to potentially change the 34 billion gal (128 billion liters) of raw sewage that Americans create every day into 30 million barrels of biocrude oil per year.

Scientists at PNNL in Richland, Washington have developed a piezoelectric self-charging tracking tag that generates electricity from the fish's own movements, allowing researchers to keep tabs on them more accurately for longer periods of time.​

Learning from your mistakes is a key life lesson. After unintentionally creating nanorods, researchers realized their accidental invention behaves weirdly with water, demonstrating a 20-year old theory and potentially paving the way to low-energy water harvesting systems and sweat-removing fabrics.

Zinc-manganese batteries are back in the spotlight now that a team of researchers has made them much more reliable, with greater numbers of charging cycles than ever before. And all for around the same price as a standard lead-acid car battery.