R&D Magazine has presented seven R&D 100 Awards to researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) of the Department of Energy. Some of the awards were given for advancements in material technologies.
ORNL researchers received an award for developing mesoporous carbon for capacitive deionization electrodes for efficient desalination of large volumes of water. In this method, the desalinization tool used can capture salt ions by passing salty water via mesoporous carbon. This technology eliminates the need of membrane or thermal separation that is expensive and uses significant amounts of energy.
Another award was given for development of a NextAire packaged gas heat pump, which uses fuel such as natural gas to cool or heat medium and small sized buildings. This gas heat pump technology decreases transmission and conversion losses, which in turn decrease the emissions of greenhouse gases.
The ORNL scientists also earned an award for an advanced cladding technology called CermaClad, which fuses several materials onto metal substrates at 10-100 times quicker and 25%-50% cheaper than existing technology. The CermaClad uses a high-density infrared heating lamp with a scalability range between 50 kW and 1 MW to swiftly fuse substances onto the external and internal surfaces of steel tubes, bars, sheets, plates and pipes in strong, thin cladding layers. The casings produced by this technology can withstand high pressure and chemical corrosion resistance.
The ORNL's Materials Science and Technology Division researchers, James Thompson, Claudia Cantoni, Junsoo Shin and Amit Goyal, received another award for their self-assembled, ferromagnetic-insulator nanocomposites for applications in ultrahigh-density information storage.
The researchers developed a technology to produce the self-assembled, ferromagnetic-insulator nanocomposites at reduced cost for ultrahigh density data storage nearing or surpassing 1 TB per square inch. It manipulates strain-stimulated self-assembly during a deposition method to attain the defined magnetic nanostructures that can attain high storage densities. This research work was sponsored by the ORNL Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program.
The R&D Magazine also presented an award to a new stainless steel alloy tooling for high-temperature presses for production of military and commercial aircraft components. The new patented alloy demonstrates superior strength and is resistant to oxidation. It is amenable to weld repair. These performance properties make it suitable for producing tools with extended operating life than existing products. The castings made from this alloy can retain their structural integrity and tolerate higher temperatures compared to competitive products.