A monthly recap of studies, news, and events at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, based in Richland, Washington.
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A monthly recap of studies, news, and events at

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, based in Richland, Washington

June 2024

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National Innovator of the Year Honor Goes to PNNL Energy Storage Expert

Photo of Jason Zhang holding his inventor award with Vanessa Pena.

PNNL materials scientist Ji-Guang (Jason) Zhang won the Department of Energy's (DOE's) inaugural Innovator of the Year Award, recognizing his contributions to research and his efforts to bring the benefit of new technologies to society as quickly as possible. Zhang is at the forefront of efforts to produce an EV battery that can pack more energy and last longer. His work has had global impact in the drive toward better electric vehicle batteries. Read more about the Innovator of the Year award on PNNL's website

City Sprawl Now Large Enough to Sway Global Warming Over Land

The glowing orange Sun shines over a lightly hazy Paris, the Eifel Tower standing, just right of center-frame.

 

Once thought to cover too little of the Earth’s surface to affect climate at larger scales, a new study published in One Earth suggests that urbanization does indeed have a detectable influence on global warming over land, with more to potentially follow as cities continue growing.

 

The effect is most dramatic in some of the world’s most rapidly urbanizing areas. In the bustling Yangtze River Basin, for example, home to more than 480 million people (one third of China’s total population), urban sprawl contributed nearly 40 percent of the area’s increased warming between 2003 and 2019.

Read more about how cities impact global warming on PNNL's website

Researchers Harvest Acid From Seawater to Feed Beneficial Algae

Illustration showing marine carbon dioxide removal. Seawater on the left containing H2O and sea salt molecules enter an electrochemical device in the middle. De-acidified seawater leaves the device and goes back into the ocean. Acid containing HCl leaves the device and goes into a beaker on the right that contains seawater and microalgae. CO2 molecules form in the beaker. The microalgae eat the CO2 molecules and grow quickly.

 

How to make algae cultivation for aquaculture more carbon neutral? PNNL-Sequim researchers may have an answer: couple algae cultivation with marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR). In a new paper published in Environmental Science and Technology Letters, the team showed that the acid byproduct of an electrochemical process used to increase ocean alkalinity can be used to grow more algae, faster.

 

Not only are these results a possible boon to the aquaculture industry, but they could also address the need for a sustainable way to use the acid byproduct—a main barrier today to scaling-up some electrochemical mCDR techniques. Read more about marine carbon dioxide removal on PNNL's website

Metal Alloys that Can Take the Heat

A metal mechanical device experiencing extreme heat and flame

Research Partner: North Carolina State University

Scientists and engineers are designing metal alloys that can resist extreme environments for applications such as nuclear fusion reactors, hypersonic flights, and high-temperature jet engines. For such extreme applications, scientists are experimenting with complex combinations of many metals mixed in equal proportions in what are called multi-principal element alloys or medium- to high-entropy alloys.

 

Now, a multidisciplinary research team led by scientists at PNNL and North Carolina State University combined atomic-scale experiments with theory to create a tool to predict how such high-entropy alloys will behave under high-temperature oxidative environments. The new research was published in Nature Communications. Read more about metal alloys on PNNL's website

Staff Highlights & More

Headshot of Frederick Day-Lewis

Day-Lewis

Lab Fellow and geophysicist Frederick Day-Lewis was named the 2024 recipient of the Geological Society of America Public Service Award. The award honors outstanding contributions to public awareness of the Earth sciences and contributions to the scientific resolution of Earth-science problems of significant societal concern. Day-Lewis’s research focuses on applied and basic science in hydrogeophysics for groundwater resources, environmental remediation, climate impacts, critical minerals, and other problems.  Read more about Frederick Day-Lewis on PNNL's website

Headshot of Scott Whalen

Whalen

Scott Whalen, a chief scientist in PNNL's Applied Materials and Manufacturing group, has been named 2023 PNNL Inventor of the Year. Whalen is the primary inventor who developed intellectual property around the process, product, and tooling for PNNL’s Shear Assisted Processing and Extrusion (ShAPE™) technology. His contributions are advancing a radically different method for the way metal is extruded—uniquely mixing and deforming solid feedstocks without melting or external heat treating. Read more about Scott Whalen on PNNL's website

Explore Upcoming PNNL Events

Promotional graphic for the IEEE WIE International Leadership Summit 2024, featuring stylized illustrations of people engaged in various activities like sailing and windsurfing, set against a background of ocean waves and a clear sky, with event details for August 1-2, 2024.

Join us on our Richland campus on August 2 for the 2024 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Women in Engineering International Leadership Summit. Learn more about the summit on PNNL's website

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Pacific Northwest National Laboratory draws on its distinguishing strengths in chemistry, Earth sciences, biology and data science to advance scientific knowledge and address challenges in sustainable energy and national security. Founded in 1965, PNNL is operated by Battelle for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. DOE’s Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science. For more information about PNNL, visit PNNL's News Center. Follow PNNL on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

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