Amine functionalized graphene oxide yields laminates with an enhanced capacity to adsorb rare earth elements, improved water transport, and greater stability for effective membrane-based separation of critical minerals.

PNNL has formed a partnership with the Orlando-based firm Refinity, which has licensed a key process from PNNL that will help the company convert mixed plastic waste into valuable industrial products like chemicals, plastics, and fuels.

Replacing commercial acid with acidic waste enables researchers to improve nickel extraction efficiency, lower projected costs, and improve process economics.

Localized gradients in magnetic fields have long-range effects on the concentration of rare earth ions in solution, facilitating field-driven extraction of critical minerals.

Studying a series of rare earth element compounds revealed differences in their magnetic behavior that will be leveraged for separations.

Soil mineral preferentially incorporates rare earth elements based on size, with implications for critical mineral extraction.

In the search for rare physics events, extremely pure materials are essential. A partnership between PNNL and Ultramet has led to tungsten with low contamination from other elements.

Recycling polyolefin materials is challenging. One waste management strategy is plastic upcycling. New work demonstrates a single-step upcycling route coupling cracking and alkylation, recycling carbon and keeping valuable resources active.

Researchers designed ultra-low radiation cables to reduce background noise for highly sensitive neutrino and dark matter detectors.

PNNL’s Richard Saldanha will lead a new project to benchmark and validate models of cosmic ray exposure

PNNL is honoring its postdoctoral researchers as part of the fourteenth annual National Postdoc Appreciation Week with seven profiles of postdocs from around the Laboratory.

A PNNL innovation uses steam to recover heat from the high-temperature reactor effluent in the HTL process, substantially reducing the propensity for fouling and potentially reducing costs.

IDREAM researchers assess the potential of photon-in/photon-out XFEL techniques to explore early time reaction steps and ultimately improve nuclear waste processing strategies.