The useful properties of materials really depend on how you combine their component atoms and molecules. The right combination can yield remarkable properties, enabling battery electrodes with better performance, new materials to capture and store solar energy, or new materials for applications for health care and computing.

Similarly, PNNL chemists, physicists, biologists and materials scientists combine their talents, tools, and capabilities to unlock the mysteries of nanomaterial formation, interface interactions, and particle attachment. Their research benefits from access to two unique facilities located on the PNNL campus.

The Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory is a DOE scientific user facility equipped with transmission electron microscopes, nuclear magnetic spectrometers, molecular beam epitaxy capabilities, as well as scientific expertise for interpreting data from such instruments. The Radiochemical Processing Laboratory features specialized labs to analyze microgram-to-kilogram quantities of fissionable materials and other radionuclides.

Materials research at PNNL informs several key research objectives, including efforts focused on environmental sustainability, grid reliability, and national security.