The science behind national security enables PNNL to help the nation identify and counter its greatest threats: the proliferation and use of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons, and explosives. Our advanced science and technology solutions are helping the United States and its allies deter, detect, delay, defeat, and mitigate our adversaries’ abilities to cause large-scale death and destruction.

PNNL brings robust measurement and materials characterization capabilities and expertise to address these threats. Research strengths include chemical and biological science, systems engineering, applied physics and mathematics, software engineering, and radiation and nuclear detection science.

Our fundamental and applied research coupled with our signature scientific facilities play a pivotal role in delivering new methods and technologies to identify and respond to weapons of mass effect and combat terrorist activities. Our advanced resources include a shallow underground laboratory, advanced computational tools, and a Category II non-reactor facility.

From sensor development and deployment, modeling and simulation, and advanced data analysis to sample collection and preparation, detection, and analytical methods for high confidence measurements—our work finds applications in border security, treaty verification, environmental monitoring, and other applications that directly support national security.