Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers demonstrated an electron microscopy technique for imaging lithium in energy storage materials, such as lithium ion batteries, at the atomic scale.

The properties of energy storage materials stem directly from their atomic structures, which are only visible using electron microscopy. Today's advanced electron microscopes are able to image heavy elements at atomic resolution. One challenge is simultaneously observing light elements including lithium, sodium and potassium, which are essential for modern batteries.

Several electrolyte and thin-film coating technologies, developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, have been licensed by BTRY, a battery technology company based in Virginia, to make batteries with increased energy density, at lower cost, and with an improved safety profile in crashes.

The enabling technologies, called Safe Impact Resistant Electrolytes, or SAFIRE, are particularly suitable for application in the electric vehicles and aerospace industries.

awrence Berkeley National Laboratory physicists Christian Bauer, Marat Freytsis and Benjamin Nachman have leveraged an IBM Q quantum computer through the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility’s Quantum Computing User Program to capture part of a calculation of two protons colliding. The calculation can show the probability that an outgoing particle will emit additional particles.

When Andrew Sutton arrived at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in late 2020, he knew the move would be significant in more ways than just a change in location. The chemist was leaving Los Alamos National Laboratory and New Mexico, his home base for the past decade, to join ORNL’s recently formed Manufacturing Science Division and lead the new Chemical Process Scale-Up Group.