As Laboratory Director Steve Ashby pens his last monthly column, he highlights PNNL’s accomplishments with pride and gratitude.

A breakthrough at PNNL could free friction stir from current constraints—and open the door for increased use of the advanced manufacturing technique on commercial assembly lines.

This summer, PNNL hosted the inaugural “As Conductive As Copper” (AC2.0) workshop, fostering a collaborative conversation on the future of the U.S. copper supply chain.

The first direct molecular-scale evidence of the temperature-driven transformation of the coordination environment of ytterbium at geologically relevant conditions.

PNNL researchers continue to deliver high-quality, high-impact research on radioactive waste and nuclear materials management, earning “Papers of Note” and “Superior Paper” awards.

From vehicles and airplanes to solid-phase processing of metals—how Curt Lavender and his team at PNNL solve industry problems with practical ingenuity.

Researchers have developed the first coastal transport model for microplastics to understand how particles move in waterways and coastal currents.

The Low-cost Earth-abundant Na-ion Storage consortium is a major effort to create superior, no-compromise batteries that replace lithium with inexpensive, domestically abundant sodium and use few—if any—critical materials.

PNNL researchers showcased subsurface sampling and remediation expertise at the 2025 Federal Remediation Technologies Roundtable.

Experiments focus on catalysts for off-road vehicles that optimize the use of critical minerals while lasting longer and costing less.

High-resolution hydrodynamic-sediment modeling shows that inundation, suspended sediment concentration in the Amazon River, and floodplain hydrodynamics drive sediment deposition in Amazonian floodplains.

Lakes are important sentinels of climate change and contribute significantly to the emissions of the second most important greenhouse gas—methane.

This study used historical data, remote sensing, and aquatic sensors to measure how far wildfire impacts propagated through the watershed after the 2022 Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon fire, New Mexico’s largest wildfire in history.

To assess the impact of observation period and gauge location, model parameters were learned on scenarios using different chunks of streamflow observations.

PNNL scientist James Stegen and an international team of collaborators recently published a comprehensive review of variably inundated ecosystems (VIEs).

This study presents an automated method to detect and classify open- and closed-cell mesoscale cellular convection (MCC) using long-term ground-based radar observations.

PNNL researchers received an award from the Materials, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) for a publication on friction riveting.

A new study led by PNNL researcher TC Chakraborty provides some answers about how irrigated agricultural land near cities affects urban heat stress.

Ampcera has an exclusive licensing agreement with PNNL to commercially develop and license a new battery material for applications such as vehicles and personal electronics.

Jeff Burghardt is the chair of the technical program for the 59th US Rock Mechanics/Geomechanics Symposium of the American Rock Mechanics Association.