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Methane is most commonly known as a ubiquitous cleaner energy source, while also being a potent greenhouse gas. It is produced from both natural sources, such as wetlands and large bodies of water, and anthropogenic sources, such as natural-gas reservoirs and livestock. At the same time, methane is a source of many important feedstock chemicals, including blue hydrogen and methanol, which is used... Read more

Prominent battery research has made great strides in advancing next-generation rechargeable batteries, which might use lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries, rather than the traditional Li-ion batteries commonly found in electric cars and mobile phones.Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have discovered a new type of polymer that can be used as a binder in a Li-S battery... Read more

Deep beneath the surface of the Salton Sea, a shallow lake in California’s Imperial County, sits an immense reserve of critical metals that, if unlocked, could power the state’s green economy for years to come. These naturally occurring metals are dissolved in geothermal brine, a byproduct of geothermal energy production. Now the race is on to develop technology to efficiently extract one of... Read more

Kristin Persson, a senior faculty scientist in the Energy Storage & Distributed Resources Division within the Energy Technologies Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and director of the Materials Project, has been named director of the Molecular Foundry. Her new appointment is effective August 15, 2020. She will continue to hold an appointment as a professor of... Read more

Robert Kostecki, a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab), has been elected a vice president of the International Society of Electrochemistry, an organization that advances electrochemical science and technology. In his role on the executive committee, which extends from 2020 to 2022, Kostecki will focus on the society's regional sections.Kostecki is division director of... Read more

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Technology Commercialization Fund has awarded $1 million to four projects from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab) to further collaborative research with industry partners on biofuels, bioproducts, energy microgrid technology, and renewable energy technology.Two of those projects are from Berkeley Lab’s Energy Technologies Area: Expand Access to... Read more

Marca Doeff, a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab), recently won the election to become secretary of The Electrochemical Society (ECS), a member-led organization dedicated to advancing electrochemical and solid state science.Doeff has worked on materials for electrochromics, lithium and sodium polymer batteries, lithium ion batteries, solid-state lithium batteries and... Read more

A new type of device that has the potential to efficiently store vast amounts of energy has recently been effectively reconfigured and improved by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). This breakthrough could be a stepping-stone to helping our evolving power grid become more resilient.Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind are becoming increasingly... Read more

Materials Project Director Kristin Persson (Credit: Roy Kaltschmidt/Berkeley Lab)Kristin Persson is at the helm of a materials revolution.Since 2011, she has led the Materials Project, an open-access online database that virtually delivers the largest collection of materials properties to scientists from every corner of the globe who are searching for the next big thing in batteries, solar cells,... Read more

Ramamoorthy Ramesh, senior faculty scientist in the Materials Sciences Division of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and professor of physics and materials science & engineering at UC Berkeley, has been elected as a foreign member of the Royal Society for his “discoveries in complex oxides, from novel fundamental physics, through new... Read more

Berkeley Lab researchers (clockwise from top left) Kristin Persson, John Dagdelen, Gerbrand Ceder, and Amalie Trewartha led development of COVIDScholar, a text-mining tool for COVID-19-related scientific literature. (Credit: Berkeley Lab)A team of materials scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) — scientists who normally spend their time researching things like... Read more

With its high energy-to-weight ratio, hydrogen has great potential to be an efficient and clean fuel for cars, auxiliary power, stationary power generation and also as an energy storage medium. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) researchers have been working with various methods of hydrogen production to produce cleaner and more efficient hydrogen for decades. New successful... Read more

Cheap, clean power generation is becoming more of a reality, but energy storage is still one of the biggest barriers to widespread adoption. Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) are continually working to advance technologies that generate, use, or store electricity at a large scale and for long duration (more than four hours). Electrochemical energy technologies... Read more

Two new videos highlighting ongoing collaboration and innovative research advancements promoting hydrogen as a large-scale renewable energy resource have recently been completed by a consortium of National Laboratories. Research Scientists from Berkeley Lab, along with Sandia National Laboratories, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Idaho National... Read more

Lithium ion is probably the most advanced technology available for the packs of rechargeable batteries you’ll buy this holiday season. The batteries also power the vast majority of consumer devices, electric vehicles, and grid storage systems.Despite their ubiquity, lithium-ion batteries have disadvantages. Metals used in the batteries are becoming expensive and one crucial metal, cobalt, is... Read more

Following an international search, Robert Kostecki has been appointed director of the Energy Storage and Distributed Resources (ESDR) Division in the Energy Technologies Area (ETA) at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).Kostecki has extensive leadership experience and is a renowned scientist known for his pioneering research in electrochemical systems... Read more

Cutting-edge technologies from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) to detect radiation, make buildings more energy efficient, and accelerate neuroscience research were honored with R&D 100 Awards by R&D World magazine.Also recognized was Spack: A Package Manager for HPC Systems, a project led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and which includes the National Energy... Read more

Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab) have shown how chemical and structural changes improve the performance of a novel ion-conducting polymer (ionomer) membrane from 3M Company. The team included Ahmet Kusoglu, a research scientist in Berkeley Lab's Energy Conversion Group Using multiple x-ray characterization tools at the Advanced Light Source (ALS), the researchers took a... Read more

Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab) have developed a new infrared approach to probing the first few molecular layers of a liquid in contact with a graphene electrode under operating conditions.The research, conducted at the Advanced Light Source (ALS), offers a new way to study the interfaces that are key to understanding batteries, corrosion, and other bio- and... Read more

A recent CNBC video story on ocean desalination technologies, one of several options being explored to address world water shortages, featured Prakash Rao of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab). Rao, a research scientist within the Lab's Energy Technologies Area, conducts analysis of large-scale desalination, focusing on its energy implications. He has co-authored research, for example,... Read more

Six researchers in the Energy Technologies Area have been recognized in the annual Director's Awards, which applauds outstanding scientific contributions at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).Tom McKone received the Berkeley Lab Prize, a lifetime achievement award; Nihar Shah, a research scientist/engineer, received a societal impact award; and the... Read more

Adam Weber’s research team sits together in a cluster of offices, cubicles, and laboratories deep in the labyrinth of the Department of Energy’s (DOE's) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (Berkeley Lab) Buildings 62 and 70.A staff scientist/engineer who won a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2014, Weber has now collected a solid and multidisciplinary group... Read more

The National Alliance for Water Innovation, which is led by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), has been awarded a five-year, $100-million Energy-Water Desalination Hub by DOE (pending appropriations) to address water security issues in the United States. The Hub will focus on early-stage research and development for energy-efficient and... Read more

A researcher at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has been awarded a $50,000 fellowship for innovative electrochemical research in green energy technology. Nemanja Danilovic and four other selected fellows from other institutions will each receive funding to conduct research as outlined in their proposals. Danilovic studies electrochemical technologies in the... Read more

The Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant near U.S. Route 101 (the Pacific Coast Highway) in the northern portion of San Diego County; Carlsbad, California. (Credit: Art Wager/iStock)As populations boom and chronic droughts persist, coastal cities like Carlsbad in Southern California have increasingly turned to ocean desalination to supplement a dwindling fresh water supply.Now... Read more