2016 | U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC)

Making Catalysts Smarter

UC Riverside-led team demonstrates optimization and visualization of a catalyst used to convert carbon dioxide waste to methane gas and chemical intermediates.

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UCI-led Study Finds Soil Will Absorb Less Atmospheric Carbon Than Expected This Century

By adding highly accurate radiocarbon dating of soil to standard Earth system models, environmental scientists from the University of California, Irvine and other institutions have learned a dirty little secret: The ground will absorb far less atmospheric carbon dioxide this century than previously thought.

USU Biochemists Describe Light-Driven Conversion of CO2 to Fuel

By way of a light-driven bacterium, Utah State University biochemists are a step closer to cleanly converting harmful carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion into usable fuels.

New Approach to Determining How Atoms Are Arranged in Materials

Researchers from North Carolina State University, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have developed a novel approach to materials characterization, using Bayesian statistical methods to glean new insights into the structure of materials.

FSU Chemistry Professor Explores Outer Regions of Periodic Table

Florida State University Professor Thomas Albrecht-Schmitt captures the fundamental chemistry of the element berkelium, or Bk on the periodic table.

Sponge Creates Steam Using Ambient Sunlight

MIT engineers have invented a bubble-wrapped, sponge-like device that soaks up natural sunlight and heats water to boiling temperatures, generating steam through its pores.

Study Reveals New Physics of How Fluids Flow in Porous Media

Lab experiments carried out by an MIT and Oxford University team provide detailed information about how a liquid moves through spaces in a porous material, revealing the key role of a characteristic called wettability.

Scripps Florida Study Finds 'Missing Evolutionary Link' of a Widely Used Natural Drug Source

A study from scientists on the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has now filled in a missing piece of the evolutionary puzzle, determining a previously unknown structure of a family of proteins that are key to making these compounds.

Light and Matter Merge in Quantum Coupling

Rice University physicists probe photon-electron interactions in vacuum cavity experiments which could help advance technologies like quantum computers and communications by revealing new phenomena to those who study cavity quantum electrodynamics and condensed matter physics.

A Rare Iodine Polymer Discovery is Key to Starch-Iodine Mystery

In the pursuit of a new class of photovoltaic materials, UC Santa Barbara researchers used Raman spectroscopy to study the crystalline structure of polyiodide chains.

Targeting Neglected Diseases

Researchers at MIT have for the first time identified the structure of class I fumarate hydratase enzyme, which could be a target for drugs combatting diseases prevalent in the developing world.

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UTA Physicists to Upgrade Titan Supercomputer Software for Extreme Scale Applications Such as Biology and Materials Science Simulations

Physicists at The University of Texas at Arlington have been awarded a new $1.06 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to upgrade the software that runs on the Titan supercomputer at Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility in Tennessee to support extremely data-heavy scientific applications such as advanced biology and materials science simulations.