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.
Tennessee State University received Department of Energy funding to establish an academy focused on preparing students and professionals to work in an emerging field: clean energy systems. PNNL is helping with that effort and others.
In soil, microbes produce and consume methane. Using a technique called pool dilution, researchers can separate the rate of methane production and consumption from the net rate.
PNNL helps deliver efficiency-related rules and requirements that steadily improve performance of America’s buildings, saving energy and costs and reducing carbon emissions.
Mandy Mahoney, director of the DOE Building Technologies Office, visited PNNL in late November. One key agenda item involved meeting with staff for a discussion of effective equity and justice integration in buildings-related research.
Resolving how nanoparticles come together is important for industry and environmental remediation. New work predicts nanoparticle aggregation behavior across a wide range of scales for the first time.
A larger HVAC workforce with training on modern heat pump technology will be pivotal to achieving the mass-scale electrification of household HVAC systems needed to meet building decarbonization goals.
Leaders from the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy visited PNNL October 19–20 for a firsthand look at capabilities and research progress.
