A chemistry paper on the used nuclear fuel recycling process, led by PNNL lab fellow Gregg Lumetta, ranked 18th in Scientific Reports for downloads in 2019

After years of planning, building, and calibration, researchers at the Belle II accelerator experiment in Japan have published their first physics paper.

Nuclear Process Science Initiative researchers at PNNL gain insights into the formation and rupture of high-pressure gas bubbles in nuclear fuel.

PNNL’s Nuclear Process Science Initiative (NPSI) has developed a book that examines processes used to separate nuclear materials.

PNNL and Argonne researchers developed and tested a chemical process that successfully captures radioactive byproducts from used nuclear fuel so they could be sent to advanced reactors for destruction while also producing electrical power.

B3? E4? Remember the board game Battleship? One player suggests a set of coordinates to another, hoping to find the elusive location of an unseen vessel.That is a good place to start in assessing the search for dark matter.

It’s hot in there! PNNL researchers take a close, but nonradioactive, look at metal particle formation in a nuclear fuel surrogate material. What they found will help fill knowledge gaps and could lead to better nuclear fuel designs.

Josef "Pepa" Matyas, a materials scientist in PNNL’s Nuclear Sciences Division, has been elected a fellow of the American Ceramic Society (ACerS). He will be recognized at the ACerS annual meeting on September 30, 2019, in Portland, Ore.

Xenon search successful! A new scanning transmission electron microscope helps PNNL researchers find xenon deep in a section of nuclear fuel cladding.

Researchers used novel methods to safely create and analyze plutonium samples. The approaches could prove influential in future studies of the radioactive material, benefitting research in legacy, national security and nuclear fuels.

While some of us may periodically ponder the universe, most of us don't dedicate our lives to studying its mysteries, including its birth, evolution and fate.

DOE gives go ahead for SuperCDMS — one of the world's most sensitive dark matter experiments.

Scientists detect phenomenon in lab that occurs during neutron star formation and supernovae explosions.

To study some of the tiniest particles in the universe, an international band of physicists is building a massive instrument to look for signs of particles predicted to be fundamental to the workings of the universe.

The search for dark matter called spin-dependent WIMPS is on — in an underground lab in Canada

In fast-neutron reactors, fuel is sealed in ~7 millimeter diameter steel tubes called cladding. When a high-energy "fast" neutron strikes an atom in the steel, it can knock the atom out of place, like a cue ball striking another billiard ball. This leaves two types of damage in the metal: an empty spot where the atom was, and the displaced atom wedged between other atoms. Over time, these defects typically drive undesirable rearrangement of the microstructure, potentially reducing the life of the cladding.

Here at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, much of our physics research focuses on fundamental scientific discovery and national security.