Six PNNL researchers named to the list of the most highly cited in the world. The list features scientists from around the world whose citations rank in the top one percent within 22 subject areas.

This mineral helps the oil industry process petroleum. Understanding how it gets clogged up will improve its lifespan.

PNNL tools that track underground contaminants and speed carbon capture technology development are among R&D Magazine's 100 most innovative scientific breakthroughs of the year.

Nuclear power figures prominently in our country's energy portfolio and is essential to our economic and environmental security.

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.

Discovery in action. These words describe what we do at PNNL. For more than 50 years, we have advanced the frontiers of science and engineering in the service of our nation and the the world.

Scientists have made a "vitamin mimic" - a molecule that looks and acts just like a natural vitamin to bacteria - that offers a new window into the inner workings of living microbes.

Calcium carbonate found in chalk, shells and rocks is one of the most important materials on earth. New insights on how it turns into hard, strong materials will help scientists design materials needed for a low-carbon future.

On October 22, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)​​​​​​​granted Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA's) Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station a 40-year operating license for its new Unit 2 reactor. This is the first nuclear reactor to be granted an operating license by the NRC in two decades.

At PNNL, scientists have mapped the reaction that turns wind-generated electricity into fuel and the amount of energy needed for each step.

Pressurized water nuclear reactors in the United States generate about 13 percent of U.S. electricity. Though efficient, these reactors face a unique challenge with stress corrosion cracking (SCC). This type of corrosion is one of the primary life-limiting degradation mechanisms of nickel-base alloy pressure boundary components, such as instrumentation and control rod nozzles, the welds that attach these nozzles to the reactor vessel, and welds that connect feedwater piping to the reactor vessel. As interest grows in a more sustainable and efficient fleet of nuclear reactors across the world, there is increasing interest in characterizing SCC initiation response.

Dr. Morris Bullock and Dr. Monte Helm reviewed the catalysis research at the Center for Molecular Electrocatalysis, where Bullock is the director, in a recent article in Accounts of Chemical Research.

Generating power without gasoline, diesel, or coal could change our nation's energy and security landscape. However, replacing technologies that use fossil fuel with ones that require rare metals is unsustainable.