From “Science Magazine” : “Treasure hunt”

From “Science Magazine”

6.1.23
Paul Voosen

The first U.S. nationwide geological survey in a generation could reveal badly needed supplies of critical minerals

The U.S. Geological Survey is funding mapping of metamorphic rocks in eastern Alaska that are likely to hold a number of critical minerals, including rare earths. Adrian Bender/U.S. Geological Survey.

From the air, Maine is a uniform sea of green: Forests cover 90% of the state. But beneath the foliage and the dirt lies an array of geological terrains that is far more diverse, built from the relics of volcanic islands that collided with North America hundreds of millions of years ago.

Two years ago, sensor-laden aircraft began to survey these geochemically rich terrains for precious minerals. Researchers spotted an anomalous signal streaming out of Pennington Mountain, 50 kilometers from the Canadian border. State geologists bushwhacked through the paper mill–bound pine forests, taking rock samples. They eventually uncovered deposits containing billions of dollars’ worth of zirconium, niobium, and other elements that are critical in electronics, defense, and renewable energy technologies.

The anomaly at Pennington Mountain is visible in the geophysical data collected in aerial surveys conducted in 2021. Sources/Usage: Public Domain.
Above mapping:

Contacts
Anjana K Shah
Research Geophysicist
Geology, Geophysics, and Geochemistry Science Center
ashah@usgs.gov
303-236-1218

Alex Demas
Public Affairs Specialist
Communications and Publishing
apdemas@usgs.gov
703-648-4421

“It was a perfect discovery,” says John Slack, an emeritus scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) who worked on the Maine find. He expects more like it. “We think there’s potential throughout the Appalachians.”

Great Appalachian Valley
Provinces/States
Newfoundland and Labrador, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Québec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama.

A remarkable feature of the belt is the longitudinal chain of broad valleys, including the Great Appalachian Valley, which in the southerly sections divides the mountain system into two unequal portions.

Few topics draw more bipartisan support in Washington, D.C., than the need for the United States to find reliable sources of “critical minerals,” a collection of 50 mined substances that now come mostly from other countries, including some that are unfriendly or unstable. The list, created by USGS at the direction of Congress, contains not only the 17 rare earth elements produced mostly in China, but also less exotic materials such as zinc, used to produce steel, and cobalt, used in electric car batteries. “These commodities are necessary for everything,” says Sarah Ryker, USGS’s associate director for energy and minerals. “They’re also a flashpoint for conflict.”

The list: Yttrium Lanthanum Cerium Praseodymium Neodymium Promethium Samarium Europium
Gadolinium Terbium Dysprosium Holmium Erbium Thulium Ytterbium Lutetium Scandium

But last decade, when lawmakers began to ask USGS about U.S. supplies, the response was unsettling: The agency didn’t even know where to look. For decades, companies had been moving mining operations abroad, in part to avoid relatively stringent U.S. environmental regulations. The basic exploration needed to identify mineral resources and spur corporate interest had languished. The last nationwide survey, a quest for uranium, ended in the 1980s. Ryker says the U.S. is “undermapped” compared with most developed countries, including Australia, Canada, and even Ireland. “We’re at an embarrassing point.”

To start filling in this knowledge void, USGS in 2019 began what it calls the Earth Mapping Resources Initiative, or Earth MRI. With a modest $10 million annual budget, the agency began working with state geological surveys to digitize data and commission fieldwork to map the most promising terrain in fine detail.

Then, in 2021, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law directed $320 million into the program—nearly one-third of the entire USGS budget—to be spent over 5 years. That spending has already enabled hundreds of survey flights, and it is opening a golden age for economic geology. It is also a boon for basic science—filling in gaps in geologic history, identifying unknown earthquake faults, and revealing geothermal systems. “We’re seeing a renaissance throughout the whole country,” says Virginia McLemore, an economic geologist at the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources. “I’ve been training all my life to get to this point.”

The discoveries could spur a rash of mining, and environmentalists are wary. If USGS spots promising ore systems, companies will have to show that they can develop them safely and with minimal environmental impact, says Melissa Barbanell, director of U.S.-international engagement at the World Resources Institute, an environmental nonprofit. “It can never be zero harm,” she says. “But how can we minimize the harm and keep it to the mine itself?”

Mining companies, meanwhile, are embracing Earth MRI. Donald Hicks, a geophysicist at global mining giant Rio Tinto, which has dozens of operations worldwide but only a few in the U.S., says he has encouraged fellow miners to collaborate and share data with the program. Rio Tinto even funded some USGS flights in Montana, in return for 1 year’s exclusive access to the data. “Having this high-quality, large-scale data in the public domain will drive new ideas and new discoveries,” Hicks says.

For most of the history of mining, the origin story of a mineral lode was beside the point. Prospectors found it and miners dug it up. But by now, most of the obvious finds are gone, says Anne McCafferty, a USGS geophysicist. “The low-hanging fruit has been picked.”

This scarcity has pushed Earth MRI into adopting a “mineral systems” approach, first pioneered in Australia, that attempts to predict where critical minerals might be found based on the processes that form them. For example, a search for rare earth minerals might begin by looking for an unusual kind of carbon-rich rock called a carbonatite, which often contains pockets of rare earths formed when it crystallized out of lava. Or geologists might seek out clay-rich rocks or sediments that can capture concentrations of the rare earths after water erodes them from a source rock. Prospectors would also look for signs that these ore rocks were preserved across the eons.

To assemble these telltale rock histories, USGS scientists need to integrate a variety of information sources. Some already exist: large-scale geological maps based on decades of fieldwork, and surveys of the deep structure of rock formations based on the reflections of seismic waves from artificial or natural earthquakes.

Earth MRI’s airborne surveys, with flights just 100 meters above the surface, will add much more detail and inform a new generation of sharper geologic maps. One tool affixed to the aircraft is a magnetometer, which detects rocks rich in iron and other magnetic minerals—often a clue that they hold critical minerals. Another is a gamma ray spectrometer, which like a Geiger counter can capture the radiation emitted by thorium, uranium, and potassium. Those elements frequent the same volcanic rocks as rare earth minerals and are often incorporated into their crystal structures. Other aircraft carry laser altimeters that can map surface relief to reveal geologic history. And a pioneering “hyperspectral” instrument developed by NASA can identify minerals exposed on the surface based on the specific wavelengths of light they absorb. In the combined data, “You can see all the geology underneath,” says Anjana Shah, the USGS geophysicist leading the agency’s East Coast airborne surveys. “It’s a very powerful way of understanding the Earth.”

In early forays, Earth MRI aircraft criss-crossed North and South Carolina, tracing the ancient roots of the landscape. Hidden beneath the states’ tobacco farms are fossilized beaches that mark shorelines left during the warm periods between past ice ages, when sea levels were higher than today. Laser altimeter maps capturing subtle relief bloom with those shorelines and the paleorivers that dissected them, says Kathleen Farrell, a geomorphologist at the North Carolina Geological Survey. “There’s a lot more coastal plain than anyone thought.”

The ancient beaches hold deposits of black sands, eroded from mountains and deposited by rivers, that are rich in heavy elements. By combining the new airborne data collected by Shah with field mapping and boreholes drilled to sample the deep sediments, Farrell and her colleagues hope to learn how the Carolina sands originated. They want to know how the coastal plains were assembled over time, why the heavy sands formed only during certain periods, and where upriver those sands came from. The answers should help guide geologists to new heavy metal deposits; similar sites in northern Florida are among the few commercial sources of titanium in the U.S.

The airborne campaigns in South Carolina will have another benefit, Shah adds: They flew over Charleston, collecting magnetic data that, by identifying shifts and offsets in subsurface rocks, reveal the hidden seismic faults that ruptured in 1886 in an earthquake as large as magnitude 7. Such a quake, if it struck again today, would cause billions of dollars in damage.

This year, an Earth MRI survey covering parts of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Illinois, and Indiana will probe another mysterious seismic zone. Buried under kilometers of sediment lurks the Reelfoot Rift, a gash in the continent’s bedrock likely created some 750 million years ago when the Rodinia supercontinent began to crack apart. In 1811 and 1812, faults tied to this rift caused the New Madrid earthquakes, the largest to ever strike the U.S. east of the Rocky Mountains. But despite the potential hazard, the fault zone remains poorly understood.

The Reelfoot and nearby bedrock deformations not only create hazards; they also create opportunities for minerals to form. The rifts provided conduits for magma to well up much later in geologic time, when Africa collided with North America to form the Appalachian Mountains [but see John McPhee “In Suspect Terrain” which posits not one but four orogenies which created what we have today]. This magma is thought to have expelled gases that flowed into limestones, chemically altering them. One result is the fluorspar district of southern Illinois, which once produced a majority of the country’s fluorite—used to smelt steel and create hydrofluoric acid.

Those magma injections could have played a role in creating Hicks Dome, which rises 1 kilometer above the Illinois countryside and is the closest thing the state has to a volcano. Jared Freiburg, critical minerals chief for the Illinois State Geological Survey, calls it “a crazy magmatic cryptovolcanic explosive structure.” It pops out as a magnetic anomaly in USGS airborne data, and cores drilled from the dome are rich in rare earth minerals. Geochemical tracers from the cores hint that deposits deeper in the dome were formed from carbonatites—the unusual volcanic rocks associated with the world’s best rare earth deposits. “It’s like a kitchen sink of critical minerals there,” McCafferty says.

The midcontinent surveys could also help geologists assess another resource: natural hydrogen, a clean-burning fuel. Currently, all hydrogen is manufactured, but some researchers believe, contrary to conventional wisdom, that Earth produces and traps vast stores of the gas. The iron-rich volcanic rocks of the Reelfoot are exactly the kind that could produce hydrogen. Yaoguo Li, a geophysicist at the Colorado School of Mines, is developing a Department of Energy (DOE) grant proposal to prospect for hydrogen source rocks with the USGS data. “We have not done anything yet,” he says. “But I can see there’s so much we can do.”

Besides identifying resources to extract, the surveys could pay other dividends. They are pinpointing the steel casings of abandoned oil and gas wells that often leak greenhouse gases. They will help identify porous rock reservoirs, bounded by faults, that could hold carbon dioxide captured from smokestacks, keeping it out of the atmosphere. And they could also map variations in the radioactive rocks that emit radon gas, a health hazard.

These days, no mineral may be more critical than the lithium, used in cellphone and electric car batteries, that moves an ever-increasing number of the world’s electrons. Yet only one lithium mine exists in the U.S., in Nevada, and its raw lithium is sent abroad for processing. The state has potential to hold much, much more, and could become an international lithium “epicenter,” says James Faulds, Nevada’s state geologist.

Lithium is often found in igneous rocks—magma that crystallized in the crust or lava that cooled on the surface. Many of the known lithium deposits are in the state’s north, in the McDermitt caldera, a volcanic crater formed 16 million years ago by the deep-Earth hot spot currently fueling Yellowstone. Rainwater falling within the caldera or hot water from below has concentrated lithium within caldera clay deposits to levels not seen elsewhere, in other eruptions of the Yellowstone hot spot. “Why did this mineralization happen?” asks Carolina Muñoz-Saez, a geologist at the University of Nevada, Reno. She and her collaborators are studying the geochemistry of the lithium and the clays to find out whether the element was formed and concentrated during the eruption itself by superheated water or whether the concentration came later, as water infiltrated the caldera’s ash-rich rocks. The answer could lead the geologists to other, equally rich deposits.

Mountain Pass in California is the only U.S. mine producing rare earth elements. The U.S. Geological Survey hopes the Earth Mapping Resources Initiative will encourage more mining.TMY350/Wikimedia Commons.

Earth MRI has already shown that lithium prospectors need not stick to calderas. Field geologists have found rocks that seem to be rich in lithium in basins bounded by tectonically uplifted blocks of crust. Nevada, famous for its “basin and range” topography, has a lot of places like that, Faulds says. Even better, the basins tend to host systems of hot brine, a potential source of geothermal power—one reason DOE is funding surveys in the state, says Jonathan Glen, a USGS geophysicist.

Just south of Nevada, DOE has similarly invested in USGS flights over California’s Salton Sea, which is being stretched apart by the movement of the Northern American and Pacific tectonic plates, leaving the crust thin and hot.

A woman walks along the shore of the Salton Sea in Southern California Robert Alexander / Getty Images

“Temperatures are really high,” Glen says. “There’s huge geothermal potential.” Beyond mapping potential lithium deposits and geothermal sites, the surveys have also found new faults at the southern end of the San Andreas, and what appear to be buried volcanoes beneath the Salton Sea. “This is brand new stuff,” Glen says. “We didn’t know any of this.”

The mineral stibnite is the ore for antimony, used in batteries.Niki Wintzer/USGS.

Those insights come from magnetometer, radiometric, and laser altimeter flights. But Earth MRI is also planning hyperspectral surveys that will scan the treeless, arid surface for pay dirt. Lithium and rare earth elements, for example, have strong spectral reflections; and other signatures can reveal the iron or clay minerals associated with lithium or other minerals. Beyond prospecting, the data will be valuable for spotting volcanic hazards. Those include rocks on the flanks of volcanoes that have been altered into soft clays by melting snow and heat, says Bernard Hubbard, a remote-sensing geologist at USGS. “Those become unstable—and then they collapse.”

Besides identifying the rock formations likely to hold mineral deposits, Earth MRI has accelerated USGS efforts to detect valuable resources left behind in tailings from defunct copper or iron mines. Last decade, Shah spotted the distinctive radioactive signatures of rare earths in such piles in Mineville, a hamlet in New York. With state geological agencies, USGS is compiling a national database of mine waste sites, along with methods for researchers to assess the waste’s mineral potential. “What’s the point of digging another hole in the ground if you can remine the rocks?” asks Darcy McPhee, Earth MRI’s program coordinator at USGS.

Those lingering tailings piles are a reminder of the environmental damage mining can do. For decades, the U.S. avoided environmental debates over mining by outsourcing it to other countries. The new consensus is that work should happen here, Ryker says. “But that means we have to deal with the conflict.” The survey will reveal new resources. But the rest is up to us, she says. “How much should we develop? That’s a much more complicated question.”

Those questions are now unfolding, state by state. In Nevada, lithium prospecting is booming, spurred by the Inflation Reduction Act’s mandate that electric cars must use some U.S.-sourced minerals for buyers to get a tax credit. But in Maine, legislators enacted a strict mining law in 2017, when the state’s largest landowner, the Canadian forestry company J.D. Irving, considered exploiting reserves of gold, silver, and copper found on its lands. Following the discovery of rare earth deposits at Pennington Mountain and lithium elsewhere in the state, lawmakers are now considering amending the law to allow some responsible mining.

Given the demands of green technology and the imperative to lower carbon emissions, many environmental groups are softening their stance on critical-mineral mining, Barbanell says. This exploitation doesn’t have to go on forever, she adds. Unlike coal, which must be mined indefinitely as it’s burned, the minerals used for batteries and wind turbines can almost always be recycled—as long as policymakers push for their reuse.

Slack would also welcome some mining. He retired to Maine for its natural splendor, but until recycling can cover society’s needs, critical mineral exploitation needs to happen somewhere. “We cannot have a low carbon future and green tech without mining,” he says. “It’s not an option. It’s a necessity. It’s essential.”

See the full article here .

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From The DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory: “Understanding the Tantalizing Benefits of Tantalum for Improved Quantum Processors”

From The DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory

5.31.23
Written by Denise Yazak

Contact:
Peter Genzer
genzer@bnl.gov
(631) 344-3174

Scientists decode the chemical profile of tantalum surface oxides to understand loss and improve qubit performance.

Tantalum oxide (TaOx) being characterized using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. BNL.

Whether it’s baking a cake, building a house, or developing a quantum device, the quality of the end product significantly depends on its ingredients or base materials. Researchers working to improve the performance of superconducting qubits, the foundation of quantum computers, have been experimenting using different base materials in an effort to increase the coherent lifetimes of qubits. The coherence time is a measure of how long a qubit retains quantum information, and thus a primary measure of performance. Recently, scientists discovered that using tantalum in superconducting qubits makes them perform better, but no one has been able to determine why—until now.

Scientists from the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) [below], the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) [below], the Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA), and Princeton University investigated the fundamental reasons that these qubits perform better by decoding the chemical profile of tantalum. The results of this work, which were recently published in the journal Advanced Science [below], will provide key knowledge for designing even better qubits in the future. CFN and NSLS-II are U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facilities at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. C2QA is a Brookhaven-led national quantum information science research center, of which Princeton University is a key partner.

Finding the right ingredient

Tantalum is a unique and versatile metal. It is dense, hard, and easy to work with. Tantalum also has a high melting point and is resistant to corrosion, making it useful in many commercial applications. In addition, tantalum is a superconductor, which means it has no electrical resistance when cooled to sufficiently low temperatures, and consequently can carry current without any energy loss.

Tantalum-based superconducting qubits have demonstrated record-long lifetimes of more than half a millisecond. That is five times longer than the lifetimes of qubits made with niobium and aluminum, which are currently deployed in large-scale quantum processors.

These properties make tantalum an excellent candidate material for building better qubits. Still, the goal of improving superconducting quantum computers has been hindered by a lack of understanding as to what is limiting qubit lifetimes, a process known as decoherence. Noise and microscopic sources of dielectric loss are generally thought to contribute; however, scientists are unsure exactly why and how.

“The work in this paper is one of two parallel studies aiming to address a grand challenge in qubit fabrication,” explained Nathalie de Leon, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Princeton University and the materials thrust leader for C2QA. “Nobody has proposed a microscopic, atomistic model for loss that explains all the observed behavior and then was able to show that their model limits a particular device. This requires measurement techniques that are precise and quantitative, as well as sophisticated data analysis.”

Surprising results

To get a better picture of the source of qubit decoherence, scientists at Princeton and CFN grew and chemically processed tantalum films on sapphire substrates. They then took these samples to the Spectroscopy Soft and Tender Beamlines (SST-1 and SST-2) at NSLS-II to study the tantalum oxide that formed on the surface using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). XPS uses x-rays to kick electrons out of the sample and provides clues about the chemical properties and electronic state of atoms near the sample surface. The scientists hypothesized that the thickness and chemical nature of this tantalum oxide layer played a role in determining the qubit coherence, as tantalum has a thinner oxide layer compared to the niobium more typically used in qubits.

“We measured these materials at the beamlines in order to better understand what was happening,” explained Andrew Walter, a lead beamline scientist in NSLS-II’s soft x-ray scattering & spectroscopy program. “There was an assumption that the tantalum oxide layer was fairly uniform, but our measurements showed that it’s not uniform at all. It’s always more interesting when you uncover an answer you don’t expect, because that’s when you learn something.”

The team found several different kinds of tantalum oxides at the surface of the tantalum, which has prompted a new set of questions on the path to creating better superconducting qubits. Can these interfaces be modified to improve overall device performance, and which modifications would provide the most benefit? What kinds of surface treatments can be used to minimize loss?

Embodying the spirit of codesign

“It was inspiring to see experts of very different backgrounds coming together to solve a common problem,” said Mingzhao Liu, a materials scientist at CFN and the materials subthrust leader in C2QA. “This was a highly collaborative effort, pooling together the facilities, resources, and expertise shared between all of our facilities. From a materials science standpoint, it was exciting to create these samples and be an integral part of this research.”

Walter said, “Work like this speaks to the way C2QA was built. The electrical engineers from Princeton University contributed a lot to device management, design, data analysis, and testing. The materials group at CFN grew and processed samples and materials. My group at NSLS-II characterized these materials and their electronic properties.”

Having these specialized groups come together not only made the study move smoothly and more efficiently, but it gave the scientists an understanding of their work in a larger context. Students and postdocs were able to get invaluable experience in several different areas and contribute to this research in meaningful ways.

“Sometimes, when materials scientists work with physicists, they’ll hand off their materials and wait to hear back regarding results,” said de Leon, “but our team was working hand-in-hand, developing new methods along the way that could be broadly used at the beamline going forward.”

Advanced Science

Figure 1.a) High angle annular dark field scanning transmission electron microscope image of the cross-section of a tantalum film on sapphire. The tantalum film has a BCC crystal structure and was grown in the (111) orientation on a c-plane sapphire substrate. An amorphous oxide layer can be seen on top of the tantalum at the tantalum air interface. b) Experimental results of the tantalum binding energy spectrum obtained from X-ray photo electron spectroscopy (XPS) performed using 760 eV incident photon energy. Each oxidation state of tantalum contributes a pair of peaks to the spectrum due tospin-orbit splitting. At the highest binding energy (26–30 eV), there is a pair of peaks corresponding to the Ta5+state. At the lowest binding energy, we see a pair of sharp asymmetric peaks corresponding to metallic tantalum (21–25 eV). c) Schematic explaining the physics behind variable energy X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (VEXPS). The red and blue dots correspond to photoelectrons excited from a surface oxidation state and bulk oxidation state of the tantalum films respectively. When low energy X-rays are incident on the film surface, photoelectrons are excited with low kinetic energy (depictedby a small tail on the dots). These low energy photoelectrons have a shorter mean free path so that only those emitted from the surface species (colored red) will exit the material and impinge on the detector. When high energy X-rays are incident on the film surface, photoelectrons with high kinetic energy are excited (depicted by a longer tail on the dots). These higher energy photoelectrons have comparatively longer mean free paths so that electrons from the bulk of the film will exit the material alongside electrons from the surface. In our experiment, the angle between the surface and the incident X-rays varies between 6°and 10°; the X-rays in this image are shown at a steeper angle for legibility.

Figure 2.Shirley background corrected XPS spectra of Ta4f binding energy obtained at three different incident photon energies. Left panel: with 760 eVX-ray photons, the Ta5+ peaks dominate over the Ta0 peaks. Middle panel: at 2200 eV photon energy, there is almost equal contribution of photoelectrons at Ta0and Ta5+. Right panel: At 5000 eV photon energy, the dominant photoelectron contribution is coming from Ta0. In all three plots there is non-zerointensity between the Ta5+ and metallic tantalum peaks, indicating minority tantalum oxidation states. The complete set of data and fits corresponding to all 17 incident X-ray energies is shown in Section S3.3 (Supporting Information). The data are fit with Gaussian profiles for the Ta5+, Ta3+, and Ta1+ species, and skewed Voigt profiles for the Ta0 and Ta0int. Included in the fit is also a Gaussian profile corresponding to the O2s peak; the amplitude ofthis peak is fixed to 5% of the measured O1s peak intensity.

See the science paper for instructive material with images.

See the full article here .

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Brookhaven Campus. Credit: BNL.

One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the The DOE Office of Science, The DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. The Laboratory’s almost 3,000 scientists, engineers, and support staff are joined each year by more than 5,000 visiting researchers from around the world. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE’s Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by Stony Brook University the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization.

Research at BNL specializes in nuclear and high energy physics, energy science and technology, environmental and bioscience, nanoscience and national security. The 5300 acre campus contains several large research facilities, including the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider [below] and National Synchrotron Light Source II [below]. Seven Nobel prizes have been awarded for work conducted at Brookhaven lab.

BNL is staffed by approximately 2,750 scientists, engineers, technicians, and support personnel, and hosts 4,000 guest investigators every year. The laboratory has its own police station, fire department, and ZIP code (11973). In total, the lab spans a 5,265-acre (21 km^2) area that is mostly coterminous with the hamlet of Upton, New York. BNL is served by a rail spur operated as-needed by the New York and Atlantic Railway. Co-located with the laboratory is the Upton, New York, forecast office of the National Weather Service.

Major programs

Although originally conceived as a nuclear research facility, Brookhaven Lab’s mission has greatly expanded. Its foci are now:

Nuclear and high-energy physics
Physics and chemistry of materials
Environmental and climate research
Nanomaterials
Energy research
Nonproliferation
Structural biology
Accelerator physics

Operation

Brookhaven National Lab was originally owned by the Atomic Energy Commission and is now owned by that agency’s successor, the United States Department of Energy (DOE). DOE subcontracts the research and operation to universities and research organizations. It is currently operated by Brookhaven Science Associates LLC, which is an equal partnership of Stony Brook University and Battelle Memorial Institute. From 1947 to 1998, it was operated by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), but AUI lost its contract in the wake of two incidents: a 1994 fire at the facility’s high-beam flux reactor that exposed several workers to radiation and reports in 1997 of a tritium leak into the groundwater of the Long Island Central Pine Barrens on which the facility sits.

Foundations

Following World War II, the US Atomic Energy Commission was created to support government-sponsored peacetime research on atomic energy. The effort to build a nuclear reactor in the American northeast was fostered largely by physicists Isidor Isaac Rabi and Norman Foster Ramsey Jr., who during the war witnessed many of their colleagues at Columbia University leave for new remote research sites following the departure of the Manhattan Project from its campus. Their effort to house this reactor near New York City was rivalled by a similar effort at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to have a facility near Boston, Massachusetts. Involvement was quickly solicited from representatives of northeastern universities to the south and west of New York City such that this city would be at their geographic center. In March 1946 a nonprofit corporation was established that consisted of representatives from nine major research universities — Columbia University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Rochester, and Yale University.

Out of 17 considered sites in the Boston-Washington corridor, Camp Upton on Long Island was eventually chosen as the most suitable in consideration of space, transportation, and availability. The camp had been a training center from the US Army during both World War I and World War II. After the latter war, Camp Upton was deemed no longer necessary and became available for reuse. A plan was conceived to convert the military camp into a research facility.

On March 21, 1947, the Camp Upton site was officially transferred from the U.S. War Department to the new U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), predecessor to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

Research and facilities

Reactor history

In 1947 construction began on the first nuclear reactor at Brookhaven, the Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor. This reactor, which opened in 1950, was the first reactor to be constructed in the United States after World War II. The High Flux Beam Reactor operated from 1965 to 1999. In 1959 Brookhaven built the first US reactor specifically tailored to medical research, the Brookhaven Medical Research Reactor, which operated until 2000.

Accelerator history

In 1952 Brookhaven began using its first particle accelerator, the Cosmotron. At the time the Cosmotron was the world’s highest energy accelerator, being the first to impart more than 1 GeV of energy to a particle.

BNL Cosmotron 1952-1966.

The Cosmotron was retired in 1966, after it was superseded in 1960 by the new Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS).

BNL Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS).

The AGS was used in research that resulted in 3 Nobel prizes, including the discovery of the muon neutrino, the charm quark, and CP violation.

In 1970 in BNL started the ISABELLE project to develop and build two proton intersecting storage rings.

The groundbreaking for the project was in October 1978. In 1981, with the tunnel for the accelerator already excavated, problems with the superconducting magnets needed for the ISABELLE accelerator brought the project to a halt, and the project was eventually cancelled in 1983.

The National Synchrotron Light Source operated from 1982 to 2014 and was involved with two Nobel Prize-winning discoveries. It has since been replaced by the National Synchrotron Light Source II. [below].

BNL National Synchrotron Light Source.

After ISABELLE’S cancellation, physicist at BNL proposed that the excavated tunnel and parts of the magnet assembly be used in another accelerator. In 1984 the first proposal for the accelerator now known as the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)[below] was put forward. The construction got funded in 1991 and RHIC has been operational since 2000. One of the world’s only two operating heavy-ion colliders, RHIC is as of 2010 the second-highest-energy collider after the Large Hadron Collider (CH). RHIC is housed in a tunnel 2.4 miles (3.9 km) long and is visible from space.

On January 9, 2020, it was announced by Paul Dabbar, undersecretary of the US Department of Energy Office of Science, that the BNL eRHIC design has been selected over the conceptual design put forward by DOE’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility [Jlab] as the future Electron–ion collider (EIC) in the United States.

Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory to be built inside the tunnel that currently houses the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider [RHIC]. Credit: BNL.

In addition to the site selection, it was announced that the BNL EIC had acquired CD-0 from the Department of Energy. BNL’s eRHIC design proposes upgrading the existing Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, which collides beams light to heavy ions including polarized protons, with a polarized electron facility, to be housed in the same tunnel.

Other discoveries

In 1958, Brookhaven scientists created one of the world’s first video games, Tennis for Two. In 1968 Brookhaven scientists patented Maglev, a transportation technology that utilizes magnetic levitation.

Major facilities

Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), which was designed to research quark–gluon plasma and the sources of proton spin. Until 2009 it was the world’s most powerful heavy ion collider. It is the only collider of spin-polarized protons.

Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN), used for the study of nanoscale materials.

BNL National Synchrotron Light Source II, Brookhaven’s newest user facility, opened in 2015 to replace the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS), which had operated for 30 years. NSLS was involved in the work that won the 2003 and 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Alternating Gradient Synchrotron, a particle accelerator that was used in three of the lab’s Nobel prizes.
Accelerator Test Facility, generates, accelerates and monitors particle beams.
Tandem Van de Graaff, once the world’s largest electrostatic accelerator.

Computational Science resources, including access to a massively parallel Blue Gene series supercomputer that is among the fastest in the world for scientific research, run jointly by Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University-SUNY.

Interdisciplinary Science Building, with unique laboratories for studying high-temperature superconductors and other materials important for addressing energy challenges.
NASA Space Radiation Laboratory, where scientists use beams of ions to simulate cosmic rays and assess the risks of space radiation to human space travelers and equipment.

Off-site contributions

It is a contributing partner to the ATLAS experiment, one of the four detectors located at the The European Organization for Nuclear Research [La Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear][Organization européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organization für Kernforschung](CH)[CERN] Large Hadron Collider(LHC). Credit: CERN.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research [La Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear][Organization européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organization für Kernforschung](CH)[CERN] map. Credit: CERN.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research [La Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear][ Organization européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organization für Kernforschung]By now iconic image of (CH)[CERN] ATLAS. Credit: CERN.

It is currently operating at The European Organization for Nuclear Research [La Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear][Organization européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organization für Kernforschung](CH) [CERN] near Geneva, Switzerland.

Brookhaven was also responsible for the design of the Spallation Neutron Source at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee.

DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory Spallation Neutron Source annotated.

Brookhaven plays a role in a range of neutrino research projects around the world, including the Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment (CN) nuclear power plant, approximately 52 kilometers northeast of Hong Kong and 45 kilometers east of Shenzhen, China.

Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment (CN) nuclear power plant, approximately 52 kilometers northeast of Hong Kong and 45 kilometers east of Shenzhen, China .

DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory DUNE LBNF from FNAL to Sanford Underground Research Facility, Lead, South Dakota.

BNL Center for Functional Nanomaterials. Credit: BNL.

DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory NSLS II. Interior. Credit: BNL.

DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory NSLS II. Credit: BNL.

DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory(US) RHIC Campus. Credit: BNL.

BNL RHIC’s newly enhanced STAR detector. The house-size STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) acts like a giant 3D digital camera to track particles emerging from particle collisions at the center of the detector.

DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory(US)/RHIC Phenix detector. Credit: BNL..

Brookhaven sPhenix Assembly. Credit: BNL.

BNL RHIC Schematic view of the proposed sPHENIX detector. Credit: BNL.

BNL RHIC inner hadronic calorimeter being installed in the sPHENIX Detector. Credit: BNL.

From The College of Science and Engineering At The University of Minnesota-Twin Cities : “Stretching metals allows researchers to create materials for quantum and electronic and spintronic applications”

From The College of Science and Engineering

At

The University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

5.22.23
University Public Relations
(612) 624-5551
unews@umn.edu

Savannah Erdman
University Public Relations
612-624-5551
erdma158@umn.edu

Professor Bharat Jalan and Ph.D. candidate Sreejith Nair. Credit: University of Minnesota.

A University of Minnesota-led team has developed a first-of-its-kind, breakthrough method that makes it easier to create high-quality metal oxide thin films out of “stubborn” metals that have historically been difficult to synthesize in an atomically precise manner. This research paves the way for scientists to develop better materials for various next-generation applications including quantum computing, microelectronics, sensors and energy catalysis.

The researchers’ paper is published in Nature Nanotechnology [below].

“This breakthrough represents a significant advancement with far-reaching implications in a broad range of fields,” said Bharat Jalan, senior author on the paper and a professor in the College of Science and Engineering. “Not only does it provide a means to achieve atomically-precise synthesis of quantum materials, but it also holds immense potential for controlling oxidation-reduction pathways in various applications including catalysis and chemical reactions occurring in batteries or fuel cells.”

“Stubborn” metals oxides, such as those based on ruthenium or iridium, play a crucial role in numerous applications in quantum information sciences and electronics. However, converting them into thin films has been a challenge for researchers due to the inherent difficulties in oxidizing metals using high-vacuum processes.

While attempting to synthesize metal oxides using conventional molecular beam epitaxy, a low-energy technique that generates single layers of material in an ultra-high vacuum chamber, the researchers stumbled upon a groundbreaking revelation. They found that incorporating a concept called “epitaxial strain”—effectively stretching the metals at the atomic level—significantly simplifies the oxidation process of these stubborn metals.

“The current synthesis approaches have limits, and we need to find new ways to push those limits further so that we can make better quality materials,” said Sreejith Nair, first author of the paper and a Ph.D. student in the College of Science and Engineering. “Our new method of stretching the material at the atomic scale is one way to improve the performance of the current technology.”

Although the research team used iridium and ruthenium as examples, their method has the potential to generate atomically-precise oxides of any hard-to-oxidize metal.

The researchers worked with collaborators at Auburn University, the University of Delaware, the DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory and fellow University of Minnesota Professor Andre Mkhoyan’s lab to verify their method.

“When we looked at these metal oxide films closely using very powerful electron microscopes, we captured the arrangements of the atoms and determined their types,” Mkhoyan explained. “Sure enough, they were nicely and periodically arranged as they should be in these crystalline films.”

This research was funded primarily by the United States Department of Energy (DOE), the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), and the University of Minnesota’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC).

Nature Nanotechnology

See the full article here .

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The College of Science and Engineering (CSE) is one of the colleges of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota. On July 1, 2010, the college was officially renamed from the Institute of Technology (IT). It was created in 1935 by bringing together the University’s programs in engineering, mining, architecture, and chemistry. Today, CSE contains 12 departments and 24 research centers that focus on engineering, the physical sciences, and mathematics.

Departments

Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics
Biomedical Engineering
Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Chemistry
Civil, Environmental, and GeoEngineering
Computer Science and Engineering
Earth Sciences (formerly called Geology and Geophysics)
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Industrial and Systems Engineering
Mathematics
Mechanical Engineering
Physics and Astronomy
Additionally, CSE pairs with other departments at the University to offer degree-granting programs in:
Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering, with CFANS (formerly two departments: Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, and Bio-based Products)
Statistics
And two other CSE units grant advanced degrees:
Technological Leadership Institute (formerly Center for the Development of Technological Leadership)
History of Science and Technology

Research centers

BioTechnology Institute
Characterization Facility
Charles Babbage Institute – CBI website
Digital Technology Center
William I. Fine Theoretical Physics Institute
Industrial Partnership for Research in Interfacial and Materials Engineering
Institute for Mathematics and its Applications
Minnesota Nano Center
NSF Engineering Research Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power
NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Center
NSF Multi-Axial Subassemblage Testing (MAST) System
NSF National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics (NCED)
The Polar Geospatial Center
Center for Transportation Studies
University of Minnesota Supercomputing Institute
GroupLens Center for Social and Human-Centered Computing

Educational centers

History of Science and Technology
School of Mathematics Center for (K-12) Educational Programs
Technological Leadership Institute
UNITE Distributed Learning

The University of Minnesota Twin Cities is a public research university in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, MN. The Twin Cities campus comprises locations in Minneapolis and St. Paul approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) apart, and the St. Paul location is in neighboring Falcon Heights. The Twin Cities campus is the oldest and largest in The University of Minnesota (US) system and has the sixth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 51,327 students in 2019-20. It is the flagship institution of the University of Minnesota System, and is organized into 19 colleges, schools, and other major academic units.

The Minnesota Territorial Legislature drafted a charter for The University of Minnesota as a territorial university in 1851, seven years before Minnesota became a state. Today, the university is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity”. The University of Minnesota is a member of The Association of American Universities (US) and is ranked 17th in research activity, with $954 million in research and development expenditures in the fiscal year 2018. In 2001, the University of Minnesota was included in a list of Public Ivy universities, which includes publicly funded universities thought to provide a quality of education comparable to that of the Ivy League.

University of Minnesota faculty, alumni, and researchers have won 26 Nobel Prizes and three Pulitzer Prizes. Among its alumni, the university counts 25 Rhodes Scholars, seven Marshall Scholars, 20 Truman Scholars, and 127 Fulbright recipients. The University of Minnesota also has Guggenheim Fellowship, Carnegie Fellowship, and MacArthur Fellowship holders, as well as past and present graduates and faculty belonging to The American Academy of Arts and Sciences , The National Academy of Sciences, The National Academy of Medicine, and The National Academy of Engineering. Notable University of Minnesota alumni include two vice presidents of the United States, Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale, and Bob Dylan, who received the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.

The Minnesota Golden Gophers compete in 21 intercollegiate sports in the NCAA Division I Big Ten Conference and have won 29 national championships. As of 2021, Minnesota’s current and former students have won a total of 76 Olympic medals.

The University of Minnesota was founded in Minneapolis in 1851 as a college preparatory school, seven years prior to Minnesota’s statehood. It struggled in its early years and relied on donations to stay open from donors including South Carolina Governor William Aiken Jr.

In 1867, the university received land grant status through the Morrill Act of 1862.

An 1876 donation from flour miller John S. Pillsbury is generally credited with saving the school. Since then, Pillsbury has become known as “The Father of the University.” Pillsbury Hall is named in his honor.

Academics

The university is organized into 19 colleges, schools, and other major academic units:

Center for Allied Health Programs
College of Biological Sciences
College of Continuing and Professional Studies
School of Dentistry
College of Design
College of Education and Human Development
College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences
Graduate School
Law School
College of Liberal Arts
Carlson School of Management
Medical School
School of Nursing
College of Pharmacy
Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs
School of Public Health
College of Science and Engineering
College of Veterinary Medicine

Institutes and centers

Six university-wide interdisciplinary centers and institutes work across collegiate lines:

Center for Cognitive Sciences
Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment, and the Life Sciences
Institute for Advanced Study, University of Minnesota
Institute for Translational Neuroscience
Institute on the Environment
Minnesota Population Center

In 2021, the University of Minnesota was ranked as 40th best university in the world by The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), which assesses academic and research performance. The same 2021 ranking by subject placed The University of Minnesota’s ecology program as 2nd best in the world, its management program as 10th best, its biotechnology program as 11th best, mechanical engineering and medical technology programs as 14th best, law and psychology programs as 19th best, and veterinary sciences program as 20th best. The Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) for 2021-22 ranked Minnesota 46th in the world and 26th in the United States. The 2021 Nature Index, which assesses the institutions that dominate high quality research output, ranked Minnesota 53rd in the world based on research publication data from 2020. U.S. News and World Report ranked Minnesota as the 47th best global university for 2021. The 2022 Times Higher Education World University Rankings placed Minnesota 86th worldwide, based primarily on teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

In 2021, The University of Minnesota was ranked as the 24th best university in the United States by The Academic Ranking of World Universities, and 20th in the United States in Washington Monthly’s 2021 National University Rankings. The University of Minnesota’s undergraduate program was ranked 68th among national universities by U.S. News and World Report for 2022, and 26th in the nation among public colleges and universities. The same publication ranked The University of Minnesota’s graduate Carlson School of Management as 28th in the nation among business schools, and 6th in the nation for its information systems graduate program. Other graduate schools ranked highly by U.S. News and World Report for 2022 include The University of Minnesota Law School at 22nd, The University of Minnesota Medical School, which was 4th for family medicine and 5th for primary care, The University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy, which ranked 3rd, The Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, which ranked 9th, The University of Minnesota College of Education and Human Development, which ranked 10th for education psychology and special education, and The University of Minnesota School of Public Health, which ranked 10th.

In 2019, The Center for Measuring University Performance ranked The University of Minnesota 16th in the nation in terms of total research, 29th in endowment assets, 22nd in annual giving, 28th in the number of National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine memberships, 18th in its number of faculty awards, and 14th in its number of National Merit Scholars. Minnesota is listed as a “Public Ivy” in 2001 Greenes’ Guides The Public Ivies: America’s Flagship Public Universities.

Media

Print

The Minnesota Daily has been published twice a week during the normal school season since the fall semester 2016. It is printed weekly during the summer. The Daily is operated by an autonomous organization run entirely by students. It was first published on May 1, 1900. Besides everyday news coverage, the paper has also published special issues, such as the Grapevine Awards, Ski-U-Mah, the Bar & Beer Guide, Sex-U-Mah, and others.

A long-defunct but fondly remembered humor magazine, Ski-U-Mah, was published from about 1930 to 1950. It launched the career of novelist and scriptwriter Max Shulman.

A relative newcomer to the university’s print media community is The Wake Student Magazine, a weekly that covers UMN-related stories and provides a forum for student expression. It was founded in November 2001 in an effort to diversify campus media and achieved student group status in February 2002. Students from many disciplines do all of the reporting, writing, editing, illustration, photography, layout, and business management for the publication. The magazine was founded by James DeLong and Chris Ruen. The Wake was named the nation’s best campus publication (2006) by The Independent Press Association.

Additionally, The Wake publishes Liminal, a literary journal begun in 2005. Liminal was created in the absence of an undergraduate literary journal and continues to bring poetry and prose to the university community.

The Wake has faced a number of challenges during its existence, due in part to the reliance on student fees funding. In April 2004, after the Student Services Fees Committee had initially declined to fund it, the needed $60,000 in funding was restored, allowing the magazine to continue publishing. It faced further challenges in 2005, when its request for additional funding to publish weekly was denied and then partially restored.

In 2005 conservatives on campus began formulating a new monthly magazine named The Minnesota Republic. The first issue was released in February 2006, and funding by student service fees started in September 2006.

Radio

The campus radio station, KUOM “Radio K,” broadcasts an eclectic variety of independent music during the day on 770 kHz AM. Its 5,000-watt signal has a range of 80 miles (130 km), but shuts down at dusk because of Federal Communications Commission regulations. In 2003, the station added a low-power (8-watt) signal on 106.5 MHz FM overnight and on weekends. In 2005, a 10-watt translator began broadcasting from Falcon Heights on 100.7 FM at all times. Radio K also streams its content at http://www.radiok.org. With roots in experimental transmissions that began before World War I, the station received the first AM broadcast license in the state on January 13, 1922, and began broadcasting as WLB, changing to the KUOM call sign about two decades later. The station had an educational format until 1993, when it merged with a smaller campus-only music station to become what is now known as Radio K. A small group of full-time employees are joined by over 20 part-time student employees who oversee the station. Most of the on-air talent consists of student volunteers.

Television

Some television programs made on campus have been broadcast on local PBS station KTCI channel 17. Several episodes of Great Conversations have been made since 2002, featuring one-on-one discussions between University faculty and experts brought in from around the world. Tech Talk was a show meant to help people who feel intimidated by modern technology, including cellular phones and computers.

From The School of Engineering and Applied Science At The University of Pennsylvania Via “Penn Today” : “Mending the unmendable – A new method for restoring fractured metals”

From The School of Engineering and Applied Science

At

The University of Pennsylvania

Via

“Penn Today”

4.27.23
Nathi Magubane

Also known as a tension test, a tensile test is a fundamental materials science and engineering test in which a sample’s strength and quality of a welded joint are evaluated by subjecting a test specimen to an increasing tensile load until it breaks. It helps identify defects that can weaken the weld and ensures the weld meets the required standards for strength and quality. (Image: iStock Photo/Funtay)

Researchers develop a new metal-healing technique that fully restores previously unrepairable metals, presenting sustainable options for manufacturers.

It is estimated that mining, refining, and processing metals commonly used in construction, referred to as structural metals, contribute around three billion tons of CO2-equivalent emissions. And, although recycling these materials has the potential to mitigate their negative environmental impact, many sustain damage, like fractures, that can preclude them from extending their lifecycles.

High-temperature techniques, such as brazing and welding, have been used for metal repair for thousands of years. However, these, too, suffer from limitations in that certain alloys—metallic substances made up of two or more elements—are prone to cracking under extreme heat. Some new complex 3D printed structures are too intricate or delicate to access with these tools.

In a paper published in the journal Advanced Materials [below], a team of researchers led by James Pikul of the School of Engineering and Applied Science presents a novel technique to restore metals’ strength and toughness. The researchers have used this “electrochemical healing” to repair fractured metals in various metallic materials, including steel, aluminum alloys, and complex 3D printed structures, under room-temperature conditions.

“Metals that are difficult to repair usually end up as waste, causing both economic and environmental problems,” says Pikul, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and applied mechanics. “Our electrochemical healing technique offers a solution to this by enabling the full recovery of the metal’s tensile strength, including ‘unweldable’ aluminum alloys used in aerospace. This opens up a whole new range of possibilities for repairing metals in a cost-effective and sustainable way.”

The lead author of the paper is Zakaria H’sain, a postdoctoral researcher in the Pikul Research Group who earned a Ph.D. from Penn. H’sain explains that brazing is similar to a dentist filling a tooth in that the cavity is sealed by inserting a filler material and funneling it into the weakened site; and welding can make two pieces of metal into one by melting them together with a high-temperature laser or spark. He says that their new metal healing technique uses a different approach to repair metals.

“We call our method electrochemical healing because it more closely resembles how our bodies repair a bone fracture,” H’sain says. “The healing matter is transported to the fracture site and strength is recovered through the growth and connection of matter from opposite fracture surfaces.”

To allow the metal to “heal,” the researchers placed it in a type of water-based solution known as electrolyte; theirs was a salty water mixture that contained nickel ions. The team then applied a negative voltage, which moved ions in the electrolyte toward the metal cracks, leading to an increase in electrons, until metal ions from the electrolyte started to steal excess electrons, a chemical reaction called a reduction. This turned the ions into solid metal atoms, and as atoms grew on the surface they healed the fracture.

“We applied a protective polymer coating to the metal to act as a barrier, so when it is exposed to the electrolyte nickel plating, or healing, it is limited to the fracture site and won’t interfere with any other parts of the metal structure,” H’sain says.

In this 3D rendering of an octet-truss lattice structure, the insets show how nickel ions can easily access the fractured internal strut, where they are reduced to nickel metal during electrochemical healing. A coating enables targeted electrochemical reduction at the fracture site. (Image: Zakaria Hsain)

Building on their previous study investigating the possibilities of electrochemical healing for repairing metals, the team developed a model to gauge the efficacy of their repairs in restoring mechanical strength based on the geometry of the fracture, the original strength of the overall structure, the strength of the nickel coating, and other process parameters.

They applied their model to three different alloys: a relatively inexpensive low-carbon steel popular in construction and machinery and two “unweldable” aluminum alloys commonly used in aircraft wings and fuselages.

In a later experiment, the team collaborated with Masoud Akbarzadeh, assistant professor of architecture in the Stuart Weitzman School of Design, and Mostafa Akbari, a graduate student in Akbarzadeh’s Polyhedral Structures Laboratory, to see if electrochemical healing could be used to repair 3D printed efficient structures.

“We’ve shown we can recover 100% of the strength for all those alloys if we follow our model,” H’sain says. “Whereas previous electrochemical techniques have relied on elaborate chemical solutions tailored to each material, we present a one-size-fits-all approach that could be applied to many.”

“We’re particularly excited about the potential for electrochemical healing to revolutionize the repair of 3D-printed metal structures with complex morphology,” Akbarzadeh says. “By enabling full restoration of tensile strength in our difficult-to-weld shellular structure, we’re paving the way for more efficient and sustainable repair processes for these increasingly popular building materials.”

In future research, the team plans to expand upon their work with the 3D printed structure by designing and fabricating components that factor repairs needed beforehand to ensure effective recovery of strength is more easily facilitated. Additionally, they are also interested in investigating methods of autonomous repair and reducing costs with alternative electrodeposited metals.

Advanced Materials

See the full article here .

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science.

The School of Engineering and Applied Science is an undergraduate and graduate school of The University of Pennsylvania. The School offers programs that emphasize hands-on study of engineering fundamentals (with an offering of approximately 300 courses) while encouraging students to leverage the educational offerings of the broader University. Engineering students can also take advantage of research opportunities through interactions with Penn’s School of Medicine, School of Arts and Sciences and the Wharton School.

Penn Engineering offers bachelors, masters and Ph.D. degree programs in contemporary fields of engineering study. The nationally ranked bioengineering department offers the School’s most popular undergraduate degree program. The Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology, offered in partnership with the Wharton School, allows students to simultaneously earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics as well as a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering. SEAS also offers several masters programs, which include: Executive Master’s in Technology Management, Master of Biotechnology, Master of Computer and Information Technology, Master of Computer and Information Science and a Master of Science in Engineering in Telecommunications and Networking.

History

The study of engineering at The University of Pennsylvania can be traced back to 1850 when the University trustees adopted a resolution providing for a professorship of “Chemistry as Applied to the Arts”. In 1852, the study of engineering was further formalized with the establishment of the School of Mines, Arts and Manufactures. The first Professor of Civil and Mining Engineering was appointed in 1852. The first graduate of the school received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1854. Since that time, the school has grown to six departments. In 1973, the school was renamed as the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

The early growth of the school benefited from the generosity of two Philadelphians: John Henry Towne and Alfred Fitler Moore. Towne, a mechanical engineer and railroad developer, bequeathed the school a gift of $500,000 upon his death in 1875. The main administration building for the school still bears his name. Moore was a successful entrepreneur who made his fortune manufacturing telegraph cable. A 1923 gift from Moore established the Moore School of Electrical Engineering, which is the birthplace of the first electronic general-purpose Turing-complete digital computer, ENIAC, in 1946.

During the latter half of the 20th century the school continued to break new ground. In 1958, Barbara G. Mandell became the first woman to enroll as an undergraduate in the School of Engineering. In 1965, the university acquired two sites that were formerly used as U.S. Army Nike Missile Base (PH 82L and PH 82R) and created the Valley Forge Research Center. In 1976, the Management and Technology Program was created. In 1990, a Bachelor of Applied Science in Biomedical Science and Bachelor of Applied Science in Environmental Science were first offered, followed by a master’s degree in Biotechnology in 1997.

The school continues to expand with the addition of the Melvin and Claire Levine Hall for computer science in 2003, Skirkanich Hall for Bioengineering in 2006, and the Krishna P. Singh Center for Nanotechnology in 2013.

Academics

Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science is organized into six departments:

Bioengineering
Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Computer and Information Science
Electrical and Systems Engineering
Materials Science and Engineering
Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics

The school’s Department of Bioengineering, originally named Biomedical Electronic Engineering, consistently garners a top-ten ranking at both the undergraduate and graduate level from U.S. News & World Report. The department also houses the George H. Stephenson Foundation Educational Laboratory & Bio-MakerSpace (aka Biomakerspace) for training undergraduate through PhD students. It is Philadelphia’s and Penn’s only Bio-MakerSpace and it is open to the Penn community, encouraging a free flow of ideas, creativity, and entrepreneurship between Bioengineering students and students throughout the university.

Founded in 1893, the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering is “America’s oldest continuously operating degree-granting program in chemical engineering.”

The Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering is recognized for its research in electroscience, systems science and network systems and telecommunications.

Originally established in 1946 as the School of Metallurgical Engineering, the Materials Science and Engineering Department “includes cutting edge programs in nanoscience and nanotechnology, biomaterials, ceramics, polymers, and metals.”

The Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics draws its roots from the Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, which was established in 1876.

Each department houses one or more degree programs. The Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics departments each house a single degree program.

Bioengineering houses two programs (both a Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree as well as a Bachelor of Applied Science degree). Electrical and Systems Engineering offers four Bachelor of Science in Engineering programs: Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, Computer Engineering, and the Networked & Social Systems Engineering, the latter two of which are co-housed with Computer and Information Science (CIS). The CIS department, like Bioengineering, offers Computer and Information Science programs under both bachelor programs. CIS also houses Digital Media Design, a program jointly operated with PennDesign.

Research

Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science is a research institution. SEAS research strives to advance science and engineering and to achieve a positive impact on society.

Academic life at University of Pennsylvania is unparalleled, with 100 countries and every U.S. state represented in one of the Ivy League’s most diverse student bodies. Consistently ranked among the top 10 universities in the country, Penn enrolls 10,000 undergraduate students and welcomes an additional 10,000 students to our world-renowned graduate and professional schools.

Penn’s award-winning educators and scholars encourage students to pursue inquiry and discovery, follow their passions, and address the world’s most challenging problems through an interdisciplinary approach.

The University of Pennsylvania is a private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The university claims a founding date of 1740 and is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered prior to the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Franklin, Penn’s founder and first president, advocated an educational program that trained leaders in commerce, government, and public service, similar to a modern liberal arts curriculum.

Penn has four undergraduate schools as well as twelve graduate and professional schools. Schools enrolling undergraduates include the College of Arts and Sciences; the School of Engineering and Applied Science; the Wharton School; and the School of Nursing. Penn’s “One University Policy” allows students to enroll in classes in any of Penn’s twelve schools. Among its highly ranked graduate and professional schools are a law school whose first professor wrote the first draft of the United States Constitution, the first school of medicine in North America (Perelman School of Medicine, 1765), and the first collegiate business school (Wharton School, 1881).

Penn is also home to the first “student union” building and organization (Houston Hall, 1896), the first Catholic student club in North America (Newman Center, 1893), the first double-decker college football stadium (Franklin Field, 1924 when second deck was constructed), and Morris Arboretum, the official arboretum of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The first general-purpose electronic computer (ENIAC) was developed at Penn and formally dedicated in 1946. In 2019, the university had an endowment of $14.65 billion, the sixth-largest endowment of all universities in the United States, as well as a research budget of $1.02 billion. The university’s athletics program, the Quakers, fields varsity teams in 33 sports as a member of the NCAA Division I Ivy League conference.

As of 2018, distinguished alumni and/or Trustees include three U.S. Supreme Court justices; 32 U.S. senators; 46 U.S. governors; 163 members of the U.S. House of Representatives; eight signers of the Declaration of Independence and seven signers of the U.S. Constitution (four of whom signed both representing two-thirds of the six people who signed both); 24 members of the Continental Congress; 14 foreign heads of state and two presidents of the United States, including Donald Trump. As of October 2019, 36 Nobel laureates; 80 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; 64 billionaires; 29 Rhodes Scholars; 15 Marshall Scholars and 16 Pulitzer Prize winners have been affiliated with the university.

History

The University of Pennsylvania considers itself the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, though this is contested by Princeton University and Columbia University. The university also considers itself as the first university in the United States with both undergraduate and graduate studies.

In 1740, a group of Philadelphians joined together to erect a great preaching hall for the traveling evangelist George Whitefield, who toured the American colonies delivering open-air sermons. The building was designed and built by Edmund Woolley and was the largest building in the city at the time, drawing thousands of people the first time it was preached in. It was initially planned to serve as a charity school as well, but a lack of funds forced plans for the chapel and school to be suspended. According to Franklin’s autobiography, it was in 1743 when he first had the idea to establish an academy, “thinking the Rev. Richard Peters a fit person to superintend such an institution”. However, Peters declined a casual inquiry from Franklin and nothing further was done for another six years. In the fall of 1749, now more eager to create a school to educate future generations, Benjamin Franklin circulated a pamphlet titled Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania, his vision for what he called a “Public Academy of Philadelphia”. Unlike the other colonial colleges that existed in 1749—Harvard University, William & Mary, Yale Unversity, and The College of New Jersey—Franklin’s new school would not focus merely on education for the clergy. He advocated an innovative concept of higher education, one which would teach both the ornamental knowledge of the arts and the practical skills necessary for making a living and doing public service. The proposed program of study could have become the nation’s first modern liberal arts curriculum, although it was never implemented because Anglican priest William Smith (1727-1803), who became the first provost, and other trustees strongly preferred the traditional curriculum.

Franklin assembled a board of trustees from among the leading citizens of Philadelphia, the first such non-sectarian board in America. At the first meeting of the 24 members of the board of trustees on November 13, 1749, the issue of where to locate the school was a prime concern. Although a lot across Sixth Street from the old Pennsylvania State House (later renamed and famously known since 1776 as “Independence Hall”), was offered without cost by James Logan, its owner, the trustees realized that the building erected in 1740, which was still vacant, would be an even better site. The original sponsors of the dormant building still owed considerable construction debts and asked Franklin’s group to assume their debts and, accordingly, their inactive trusts. On February 1, 1750, the new board took over the building and trusts of the old board. On August 13, 1751, the “Academy of Philadelphia”, using the great hall at 4th and Arch Streets, took in its first secondary students. A charity school also was chartered on July 13, 1753 by the intentions of the original “New Building” donors, although it lasted only a few years. On June 16, 1755, the “College of Philadelphia” was chartered, paving the way for the addition of undergraduate instruction. All three schools shared the same board of trustees and were considered to be part of the same institution. The first commencement exercises were held on May 17, 1757.

The institution of higher learning was known as the College of Philadelphia from 1755 to 1779. In 1779, not trusting then-provost the Reverend William Smith’s “Loyalist” tendencies, the revolutionary State Legislature created a University of the State of Pennsylvania. The result was a schism, with Smith continuing to operate an attenuated version of the College of Philadelphia. In 1791, the legislature issued a new charter, merging the two institutions into a new University of Pennsylvania with twelve men from each institution on the new board of trustees.

Penn has three claims to being the first university in the United States, according to university archives director Mark Frazier Lloyd: the 1765 founding of the first medical school in America made Penn the first institution to offer both “undergraduate” and professional education; the 1779 charter made it the first American institution of higher learning to take the name of “University”; and existing colleges were established as seminaries (although, as detailed earlier, Penn adopted a traditional seminary curriculum as well).

After being located in downtown Philadelphia for more than a century, the campus was moved across the Schuylkill River to property purchased from the Blockley Almshouse in West Philadelphia in 1872, where it has since remained in an area now known as University City. Although Penn began operating as an academy or secondary school in 1751 and obtained its collegiate charter in 1755, it initially designated 1750 as its founding date; this is the year that appears on the first iteration of the university seal. Sometime later in its early history, Penn began to consider 1749 as its founding date and this year was referenced for over a century, including at the centennial celebration in 1849. In 1899, the board of trustees voted to adjust the founding date earlier again, this time to 1740, the date of “the creation of the earliest of the many educational trusts the University has taken upon itself”. The board of trustees voted in response to a three-year campaign by Penn’s General Alumni Society to retroactively revise the university’s founding date to appear older than Princeton University, which had been chartered in 1746.

Research, innovations and discoveries

Penn is classified as an “R1” doctoral university: “Highest research activity.” Its economic impact on the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for 2015 amounted to $14.3 billion. Penn’s research expenditures in the 2018 fiscal year were $1.442 billion, the fourth largest in the U.S. In fiscal year 2019 Penn received $582.3 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health.

In line with its well-known interdisciplinary tradition, Penn’s research centers often span two or more disciplines. In the 2010–2011 academic year alone, five interdisciplinary research centers were created or substantially expanded; these include the Center for Health-care Financing; the Center for Global Women’s Health at the Nursing School; the $13 million Morris Arboretum’s Horticulture Center; the $15 million Jay H. Baker Retailing Center at Wharton; and the $13 million Translational Research Center at Penn Medicine. With these additions, Penn now counts 165 research centers hosting a research community of over 4,300 faculty and over 1,100 postdoctoral fellows, 5,500 academic support staff and graduate student trainees. To further assist the advancement of interdisciplinary research President Amy Gutmann established the “Penn Integrates Knowledge” title awarded to selected Penn professors “whose research and teaching exemplify the integration of knowledge”. These professors hold endowed professorships and joint appointments between Penn’s schools.

Penn is also among the most prolific producers of doctoral students. With 487 PhDs awarded in 2009, Penn ranks third in the Ivy League, only behind Columbia University and Cornell University (Harvard University did not report data). It also has one of the highest numbers of post-doctoral appointees (933 in number for 2004–2007), ranking third in the Ivy League (behind Harvard and Yale University) and tenth nationally.

In most disciplines Penn professors’ productivity is among the highest in the nation and first in the fields of epidemiology, business, communication studies, comparative literature, languages, information science, criminal justice and criminology, social sciences and sociology. According to the National Research Council nearly three-quarters of Penn’s 41 assessed programs were placed in ranges including the top 10 rankings in their fields, with more than half of these in ranges including the top five rankings in these fields.

Penn’s research tradition has historically been complemented by innovations that shaped higher education. In addition to establishing the first medical school; the first university teaching hospital; the first business school; and the first student union Penn was also the cradle of other significant developments. In 1852, Penn Law was the first law school in the nation to publish a law journal still in existence (then called The American Law Register, now the Penn Law Review, one of the most cited law journals in the world). Under the deanship of William Draper Lewis, the law school was also one of the first schools to emphasize legal teaching by full-time professors instead of practitioners, a system that is still followed today. The Wharton School was home to several pioneering developments in business education. It established the first research center in a business school in 1921 and the first center for entrepreneurship center in 1973 and it regularly introduced novel curricula for which BusinessWeek wrote, “Wharton is on the crest of a wave of reinvention and change in management education”.

Several major scientific discoveries have also taken place at Penn. The university is probably best known as the place where the first general-purpose electronic computer (ENIAC) was born in 1946 at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering.

ENIAC UPenn

It was here also where the world’s first spelling and grammar checkers were created, as well as the popular COBOL programming language. Penn can also boast some of the most important discoveries in the field of medicine. The dialysis machine used as an artificial replacement for lost kidney function was conceived and devised out of a pressure cooker by William Inouye while he was still a student at Penn Med; the Rubella and Hepatitis B vaccines were developed at Penn; the discovery of cancer’s link with genes; cognitive therapy; Retin-A (the cream used to treat acne), Resistin; the Philadelphia gene (linked to chronic myelogenous leukemia) and the technology behind PET Scans were all discovered by Penn Med researchers. More recent gene research has led to the discovery of the genes for fragile X syndrome, the most common form of inherited mental retardation; spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy, a disorder marked by progressive muscle wasting; and Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects the hands, feet and limbs.

Conductive polymer was also developed at Penn by Alan J. Heeger, Alan MacDiarmid and Hideki Shirakawa, an invention that earned them the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. On faculty since 1965, Ralph L. Brinster developed the scientific basis for in vitro fertilization and the transgenic mouse at Penn and was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2010. The theory of superconductivity was also partly developed at Penn, by then-faculty member John Robert Schrieffer (along with John Bardeen and Leon Cooper). The university has also contributed major advancements in the fields of economics and management. Among the many discoveries are conjoint analysis, widely used as a predictive tool especially in market research; Simon Kuznets’s method of measuring Gross National Product; the Penn effect (the observation that consumer price levels in richer countries are systematically higher than in poorer ones) and the “Wharton Model” developed by Nobel-laureate Lawrence Klein to measure and forecast economic activity. The idea behind Health Maintenance Organizations also belonged to Penn professor Robert Eilers, who put it into practice during then-President Nixon’s health reform in the 1970s.

International partnerships

Students can study abroad for a semester or a year at partner institutions such as the London School of Economics(UK), University of Barcelona [Universitat de Barcelona](ES), Paris Institute of Political Studies [Institut d’études politiques de Paris](FR), University of Queensland(AU), University College London(UK), King’s College London(UK), Hebrew University of Jerusalem(IL) and University of Warwick(UK).

From The Vienna University of Technology [Technische Universität Wien](AT) : “Better superconductors with palladium”

From The Vienna University of Technology [Technische Universität Wien](AT)

4.24.23
Prof. Karsten Held
Institute for Solid State Physics
TU Wien
Wiedner Hauptstraße 8-10, 1040 Wien
+43-1-58801-13710
karsten.held@tuwien.ac.at

A Goldilocks material that might be just right: the precious metal palladium could be used to make superconductors that remain superconducting even at relatively high temperatures, show calculations by TU Wien.

© Adobe Stock / TU Wien.

It is one of the most exciting races in modern physics: How can we produce the best superconductors that remain superconducting even at the highest possible temperatures and ambient pressure? In recent years, a new era of superconductivity has begun with the discovery of nickelates. These superconductors are based on nickel, which is why many scientists speak of the “nickel age of superconductivity research”. In many respects, nickelates are similar to cuprates, which are based on copper and were discovered in the 1980s.

But now a new class of materials is coming into play: In a cooperation between TU Wien and universities in Japan, it was possible to simulate the behaviour of various materials more precisely on the computer than before. There is a “Goldilocks zone” in which superconductivity works particularly well. And this zone is reached neither with nickel nor with copper, but with palladium. This could usher in a new “age of palladates” in superconductivity research. The results have now been published in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters [below].

The search for higher transition temperatures

At high temperatures, superconductors behave very similar to other conducting materials. But when they are cooled below a certain “critical temperature”, they change dramatically: their electrical resistance disappears completely and suddenly they can conduct electricity without any loss. This limit, at which a material changes between a superconducting and a normally conducting state, is called the “critical temperature”.

“We have now been able to calculate this “critical temperature” for a whole range of materials. With our modelling on high-performance computers, we were able to predict the phase diagram of nickelate superconductivity with a high degree of accuracy, as the experiments then showed later,” says Prof. Karsten Held from the Institute of Solid State Physics at TU Wien.

Many materials become superconducting only just above absolute zero (-273.15°C), while others retain their superconducting properties even at much higher temperatures. A superconductor that still remains superconducting at normal room temperature and normal atmospheric pressure would fundamentally revolutionize the way we generate, transport and use electricity. However, such a material has not yet been discovered. Nevertheless, high-temperature superconductors, including those from the cuprate class, play an important role in technology – for example, in the transmission of large currents or in the production of extremely strong magnetic fields.

Copper? Nickel? Or Palladium?

The search for the best possible superconducting materials is difficult: there are many different chemical elements that come into question. You can put them together in different structures, you can add tiny traces of other elements to optimize superconductivity. “To find suitable candidates, you have to understand on a quantum-physical level how the electrons interact with each other in the material,” says Prof. Karsten Held.

This showed that there is an optimum for the interaction strength of the electrons. The interaction must be strong, but also not too strong. There is a “golden zone” in between that makes it possible to achieve the highest transition temperatures.

Palladates as the optimal solution

This golden zone of medium interaction can be reached neither with cuprates nor with nickelates – but one can hit the bull’s eye with a new type of material: so-called palladates. “Palladium is directly one line below nickel in the periodic table. The properties are similar, but the electrons there are on average somewhat further away from the atomic nucleus and each other, so the electronic interaction is weaker,” says Karsten Held.

The model calculations show how to achieve optimal transition temperatures for palladium data. “The computational results are very promising,” says Karsten Held. “We hope that we can now use them to initiate experimental research. If we have a whole new, additional class of materials available with palladates to better understand superconductivity and to create even better superconductors, this could bring the entire research field forward.”

Physical Review Letters

See the full article here.

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Vienna University of Technology [Technische Universität Wien](AT) is one of the major universities in Vienna, Austria. The university finds high international and domestic recognition in teaching as well as in research, and it is a highly esteemed partner of innovation-oriented enterprises. It currently has about 28,100 students (29% women), eight faculties and about 5,000 staff members (3,800 academics).

The university’s teaching and research is focused on engineering, computer science, and natural sciences.

The Vienna University of Technology [Technische Universität Wien](AT), has been conducting research, teaching and learning under the motto “Technology for people” for over 200 years. “TU Wien” has evolved into an open academic institution where discussions can happen, opinions can be voiced and arguments will be heard. Although everyone may have different individual philosophies and approaches to life, the staff, management personnel and students at TU Wien all promote open-mindedness and tolerance.

The institution was founded in 1815 by Emperor Francis I of Austria as the k.k. Polytechnische Institut (Imperial-Royal Polytechnic Institute). The first rector was Johann Joseph von Prechtl. It was renamed the Technische Hochschule (College of Technology) in 1872. When it began granting doctoral and higher degrees in 1975, it was renamed the Technische Universität Wien (Vienna University of Technology).

As a university of technology, TU Wien covers a wide spectrum of scientific concepts from abstract pure research and the fundamental principles of science to applied technological research and partnership with industry.

TU Wien is ranked #192 by the QS World University Ranking, #406 by the Center of World University Rankings, and it is positioned among the best 401-500 higher education institutions globally by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. The computer science department has been consistently ranked among the top 100 in the world by the QS World University Ranking and The Times Higher Education World University Rankings respectively.

TU Wien has eight faculties led by deans: Architecture and Planning, Chemistry, Civil Engineering, Computer Sciences, Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Mathematics and Geoinformation, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, and Physics.

The University is led by the Rector and four Vice Rectors (responsible for Research, Academic Affairs, Finance as well as Human Resources and Gender). The Senate has 26 members. The University Council, consisting of seven members, acts as a supervisory board.

Development work in almost all areas of technology is encouraged by the interaction between basic research and the different fields of engineering sciences at TU Wien. Also, the framework of cooperative projects with other universities, research institutes and business sector partners is established by the research section of TU Wien. TU Wien has sharpened its research profile by defining competence fields and setting up interdisciplinary collaboration centres, and clearer outlines will be developed.

Research focus points of TU Wien are introduced as computational science and engineering, quantum physics and quantum technologies, materials and matter, information and communication technology and energy and environment.

The EU Research Support (EURS) provides services at TU Wien and informs both researchers and administrative staff in preparing and carrying out EU research projects.

From The Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering At The University of Toronto (CA): “University of Toronto researchers grow micro-organisms that can clean tailings ponds and recover nickel”

From The Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

At

The University of Toronto (CA)

4.20.23
Tyler Irving

A new research partnership between U of T Engineering and companies in the mining sector uses micro-organisms to recover nickel from tailings ponds, like this one in Ontario. (Photo by Patrick Diep)

Researchers from the University of Toronto – in collaboration with a group of mining firms – are using acid-loving bacteria to design new processes for recovering nickel, a critical mineral in growing demand around the world.

The research partnership with the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering includes the following companies: Vale, Glencore, Metso-Outotec, BacTech, MIRARCO and Yakum Consulting. The insights gained could enable these companies to reduce their environmental footprint while at the same time gaining access to new sources of nickel, which is used in everything from stainless steel to next-generation batteries for electric vehicles.

The project is supported by $2 million in funding through Ontario Genomics from Genome Canada. The industrial partners will also provide approximately $2 million in funding and in-kind contributions.

Radhakrishnan Mahadevan. (Photo by Sara Collaton)

“Tailings from nickel mining operations have been an environmental challenge for a very long time,” says Radhakrishnan Mahadevan, a professor in the department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry who is leading the new partnership.

“If exposed to oxygen, chemical reactions in the tailings generate acids that makes them toxic to most forms of life. But we know that there are some microbes that can thrive in these environments. The biochemical techniques they use to survive can offer us new pathways to meet our goals.”

In Canada, nickel is found in ores that are mostly composed of iron and sulphur. After most of the nickel is extracted, the iron and sulphur remain, along with trace amounts of nickel – typically less than 1 per cent by weight. Together, these substances are known as tailings, and they exit the extraction process in the form of a slurry, a suspension of tiny mineral particles in water.

If the slurry is exposed to oxygen, the sulphur remaining in the slurry can become oxidized to form sulphate, a key component of sulphuric acid. To slow this process, the tailings are typically stored under water in tailings ponds. However, over time, these ponds still become highly acidic, with a pH in the range of 1-2.

Mahadevan, University Professor Elizabeth Edwards and Professor Vladimiros Papangelakis – all in the department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry – have been studying the organisms that are able to survive in these tailings ponds.

Several years ago, the team obtained samples from a mine tailings site operated by one of their industrial partners. By analyzing DNA present in this sample, they were able to identify a new strain of an organism known as Acidithiobacillus ferridurans. In 2020, they published the full genome of this new strain, which they called Acidithiobacillus ferridurans JAGS.

Ever since, the researchers have been further enhancing the capabilities of this bacterium through a process known as adaptive evolution. Samples that grow well in the presence of low concentrations of mine tailings are gradually exposed to increasingly higher concentrations. The best of those cultures are exposed to even higher concentrations, creating new strains that are more effective at carrying out key chemical reactions.

“This bacterial strain can actually extract energy from the oxidation of both iron and sulphur in a process that we call bio-leaching,” Mahadevan says.

“In the process, they also liberate the remaining nickel, which would otherwise be very difficult to recover from a solution this dilute. What’s amazing about the bacterium is that it can carry out these reactions at ambient temperatures and low pressures. And even more exciting is the idea that, if we understand how they are doing it, we might be able to control and direct the process.”

For example, the sulphur in the tailings is in the form of sulphide. Mahadevan says that instead of oxidizing it all the way to sulphate, which forms the acid, it might be possible to alter the process to instead create elemental sulphur. In this case, the sulphur would precipitate out of solution and could be sold as a commodity chemical for other applications, such as the production of fertilizers.

Mahadevan says the team will continue enhancing the bacterium through adaptive evolution, but that they are also pursuing a genetic engineering approach by using the emerging gene editing technique known as CRISPR.

“One of the things we’ve learned from studying this strain is that it has made more copies of certain genes that are involved in the transport of metal ions within the cell.

“If we use gene editing to further enhance the expression of these kinds of genes, we might be able to help it to grow even better, or to be more effective at carrying out the kinds of chemical transformations we want it to do,” Mahadevan says.

“Partnerships between the researchers and industry are the cornerstone of Ontario’s thriving innovation community,” says Bettina Hamelin, president and CEO of Ontario Genomics.

“By supporting the development and uptake of new technologies that provide game-changing solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges, Ontario Genomics is helping to nurture healthy people, a healthy economy and a healthy planet for generations to come.”

Mahadevan estimates that it will take another three to five years before the research team has both a bacterial strain and an associated process that will be ready to be tested in the field.

“Our goal with this project is to eliminate the technical bottlenecks to the application – to de-risk sufficiently so that our partners can put in the resources it would take to fully deploy it in their operations,” he says.

“If they can do that, it could not only completely change the way they deal with mine tailings, but also provide access to new sources of nickel – which will only become more important in the years to come.”

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering is an academic division of the University of Toronto devoted to study and research in engineering. Founded in 1873 as the School of Practical Science, it is still known today by the longtime nickname of Skule. The faculty is based primarily across 16 buildings on the southern side of the university campus in Downtown Toronto, in addition to operating the Institute for Aerospace Studies facility. The faculty administers undergraduate, master’s and doctoral degree programs, as well as a dual-degree program with the Rotman School of Management.

Departments

Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry (Chem)
Department of Civil and Mineral Engineering (Civ/Min)
The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE)
Department of Materials Science & Engineering (MSE)
Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering (MIE)

Divisions

Division of Engineering Science (EngSci)
Division of Environmental Engineering & Energy Systems (DEEES)

Specialized institutes

University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS)
Institute of Biomedical Engineering (BME)

Affiliated research institutes and centres

BioZone
Centre for Advanced Coating Technologies (CACT)
Centre for Advanced Diffusion-Wave Technologies (CADIFT)
Centre for Advanced Nanotechnology Centre for Global Engineering (CGEN)
Centre for Maintenance Optimization & Reliability Engineering (C-MORE)
Centre for Management of Technology & Entrepreneurship (CMTE)
Centre for Research in Healthcare Engineering (CRHE)
Centre for the Resilience of Critical Infrastructure (RCI)
Centre for Technology & Social Development Emerging Communications Technology Institute (ECTI)
Identity, Privacy & Security Institute (IPSI)
Institute for Leadership Education in Engineering (ILead)
Institute for Multidisciplinary Design & Innovation (UT-IMDI)
Institute for Optical Sciences Institute for Robotics & Mechatronics (IRM)
Institute for Sustainable Energy (ISE)
Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Centre & Test Bed
Lassonde Institute of Mining
Pulp & Paper Centre
Southern Ontario Centre for Atmospheric Aerosol Research (SOCAAR)
Terrence Donnelly Centre for Cellular & Biomolecular Research
Ontario Centre for the Characterization of Advanced Materials (OCCAM)

The University of Toronto (CA) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen’s Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King’s College, the oldest university in the province of Ontario.

Originally controlled by the Church of England, the university assumed its present name in 1850 upon becoming a secular institution.

As a collegiate university, it comprises eleven colleges each with substantial autonomy on financial and institutional affairs and significant differences in character and history. The university also operates two satellite campuses located in Scarborough and Mississauga.

University of Toronto has evolved into Canada’s leading institution of learning, discovery and knowledge creation. We are proud to be one of the world’s top research-intensive universities, driven to invent and innovate.

Our students have the opportunity to learn from and work with preeminent thought leaders through our multidisciplinary network of teaching and research faculty, alumni and partners.

The ideas, innovations and actions of more than 560,000 graduates continue to have a positive impact on the world.

Academically, the University of Toronto is noted for movements and curricula in literary criticism and communication theory, known collectively as the Toronto School.

The university was the birthplace of insulin and stem cell research, and was the site of the first electron microscope in North America; the identification of the first black hole Cygnus X-1; multi-touch technology, and the development of the theory of NP-completeness.

The university was one of several universities involved in early research of deep learning. It receives the most annual scientific research funding of any Canadian university and is one of two members of the Association of American Universities outside the United States, the other being McGill(CA).

The Varsity Blues are the athletic teams that represent the university in intercollegiate league matches, with ties to gridiron football, rowing and ice hockey. The earliest recorded instance of gridiron football occurred at University of Toronto’s University College in November 1861.

The university’s Hart House is an early example of the North American student centre, simultaneously serving cultural, intellectual, and recreational interests within its large Gothic-revival complex.

The University of Toronto has educated three Governors General of Canada, four Prime Ministers of Canada, three foreign leaders, and fourteen Justices of the Supreme Court. As of March 2019, ten Nobel laureates, five Turing Award winners, 94 Rhodes Scholars, and one Fields Medalist have been affiliated with the university.

Early history

The founding of a colonial college had long been the desire of John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada and founder of York, the colonial capital. As an University of Oxford (UK)-educated military commander who had fought in the American Revolutionary War, Simcoe believed a college was needed to counter the spread of republicanism from the United States. The Upper Canada Executive Committee recommended in 1798 that a college be established in York.

On March 15, 1827, a royal charter was formally issued by King George IV, proclaiming “from this time one College, with the style and privileges of a University … for the education of youth in the principles of the Christian Religion, and for their instruction in the various branches of Science and Literature … to continue for ever, to be called King’s College.” The granting of the charter was largely the result of intense lobbying by John Strachan, the influential Anglican Bishop of Toronto who took office as the college’s first president. The original three-storey Greek Revival school building was built on the present site of Queen’s Park.

Under Strachan’s stewardship, King’s College was a religious institution closely aligned with the Church of England and the British colonial elite, known as the Family Compact. Reformist politicians opposed the clergy’s control over colonial institutions and fought to have the college secularized. In 1849, after a lengthy and heated debate, the newly elected responsible government of the Province of Canada voted to rename King’s College as the University of Toronto and severed the school’s ties with the church. Having anticipated this decision, the enraged Strachan had resigned a year earlier to open Trinity College as a private Anglican seminary. University College was created as the nondenominational teaching branch of the University of Toronto. During the American Civil War the threat of Union blockade on British North America prompted the creation of the University Rifle Corps which saw battle in resisting the Fenian raids on the Niagara border in 1866. The Corps was part of the Reserve Militia lead by Professor Henry Croft.

Established in 1878, the School of Practical Science was the precursor to the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering which has been nicknamed Skule since its earliest days. While the Faculty of Medicine opened in 1843 medical teaching was conducted by proprietary schools from 1853 until 1887 when the faculty absorbed the Toronto School of Medicine. Meanwhile the university continued to set examinations and confer medical degrees. The university opened the Faculty of Law in 1887, followed by the Faculty of Dentistry in 1888 when the Royal College of Dental Surgeons became an affiliate. Women were first admitted to the university in 1884.

A devastating fire in 1890 gutted the interior of University College and destroyed 33,000 volumes from the library but the university restored the building and replenished its library within two years. Over the next two decades a collegiate system took shape as the university arranged federation with several ecclesiastical colleges including Strachan’s Trinity College in 1904. The university operated the Royal Conservatory of Music from 1896 to 1991 and the Royal Ontario Museum from 1912 to 1968; both still retain close ties with the university as independent institutions. The University of Toronto Press was founded in 1901 as Canada’s first academic publishing house. The Faculty of Forestry founded in 1907 with Bernhard Fernow as dean was Canada’s first university faculty devoted to forest science. In 1910, the Faculty of Education opened its laboratory school, the University of Toronto Schools.

World wars and post-war years

The First and Second World Wars curtailed some university activities as undergraduate and graduate men eagerly enlisted. Intercollegiate athletic competitions and the Hart House Debates were suspended although exhibition and interfaculty games were still held. The David Dunlap Observatory in Richmond Hill opened in 1935 followed by the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies in 1949. The university opened satellite campuses in Scarborough in 1964 and in Mississauga in 1967. The university’s former affiliated schools at the Ontario Agricultural College and Glendon Hall became fully independent of the University of Toronto and became part of University of Guelph (CA) in 1964 and York University (CA) in 1965 respectively. Beginning in the 1980s reductions in government funding prompted more rigorous fundraising efforts.

Since 2000

In 2000 Kin-Yip Chun was reinstated as a professor of the university after he launched an unsuccessful lawsuit against the university alleging racial discrimination. In 2017 a human rights application was filed against the University by one of its students for allegedly delaying the investigation of sexual assault and being dismissive of their concerns. In 2018 the university cleared one of its professors of allegations of discrimination and antisemitism in an internal investigation after a complaint was filed by one of its students.

The University of Toronto was the first Canadian university to amass a financial endowment greater than c. $1 billion in 2007. On September 24, 2020 the university announced a $250 million gift to the Faculty of Medicine from businessman and philanthropist James C. Temerty- the largest single philanthropic donation in Canadian history. This broke the previous record for the school set in 2019 when Gerry Schwartz and Heather Reisman jointly donated $100 million for the creation of a 750,000-square foot innovation and artificial intelligence centre.

Research

Since 1926 the University of Toronto has been a member of the Association of American Universities a consortium of the leading North American research universities. The university manages by far the largest annual research budget of any university in Canada with sponsored direct-cost expenditures of $878 million in 2010. In 2018 the University of Toronto was named the top research university in Canada by Research Infosource with a sponsored research income (external sources of funding) of $1,147.584 million in 2017. In the same year the university’s faculty averaged a sponsored research income of $428,200 while graduate students averaged a sponsored research income of $63,700. The federal government was the largest source of funding with grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research; the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council; and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council amounting to about one-third of the research budget. About eight percent of research funding came from corporations- mostly in the healthcare industry.

The first practical electron microscope was built by the physics department in 1938. During World War II the university developed the G-suit- a life-saving garment worn by Allied fighter plane pilots later adopted for use by astronauts.Development of the infrared chemiluminescence technique improved analyses of energy behaviours in chemical reactions. In 1963 the asteroid 2104 Toronto was discovered in the David Dunlap Observatory (CA) in Richmond Hill and is named after the university. In 1972 studies on Cygnus X-1 led to the publication of the first observational evidence proving the existence of black holes. Toronto astronomers have also discovered the Uranian moons of Caliban and Sycorax; the dwarf galaxies of Andromeda I, II and III; and the supernova SN 1987A. A pioneer in computing technology the university designed and built UTEC- one of the world’s first operational computers- and later purchased Ferut- the second commercial computer after UNIVAC I. Multi-touch technology was developed at Toronto with applications ranging from handheld devices to collaboration walls. The AeroVelo Atlas which won the Igor I. Sikorsky Human Powered Helicopter Competition in 2013 was developed by the university’s team of students and graduates and was tested in Vaughan.

The discovery of insulin at the University of Toronto in 1921 is considered among the most significant events in the history of medicine. The stem cell was discovered at the university in 1963 forming the basis for bone marrow transplantation and all subsequent research on adult and embryonic stem cells. This was the first of many findings at Toronto relating to stem cells including the identification of pancreatic and retinal stem cells. The cancer stem cell was first identified in 1997 by Toronto researchers who have since found stem cell associations in leukemia; brain tumors; and colorectal cancer. Medical inventions developed at Toronto include the glycaemic index; the infant cereal Pablum; the use of protective hypothermia in open heart surgery; and the first artificial cardiac pacemaker. The first successful single-lung transplant was performed at Toronto in 1981 followed by the first nerve transplant in 1988; and the first double-lung transplant in 1989. Researchers identified the maturation promoting factor that regulates cell division and discovered the T-cell receptor which triggers responses of the immune system. The university is credited with isolating the genes that cause Fanconi anemia; cystic fibrosis; and early-onset Alzheimer’s disease among numerous other diseases. Between 1914 and 1972 the university operated the Connaught Medical Research Laboratories- now part of the pharmaceutical corporation Sanofi-Aventis. Among the research conducted at the laboratory was the development of gel electrophoresis.

The University of Toronto is the primary research presence that supports one of the world’s largest concentrations of biotechnology firms. More than 5,000 principal investigators reside within 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) from the university grounds in Toronto’s Discovery District conducting $1 billion of medical research annually. MaRS Discovery District is a research park that serves commercial enterprises and the university’s technology transfer ventures. In 2008, the university disclosed 159 inventions and had 114 active start-up companies. Its SciNet Consortium operates the most powerful supercomputer in Canada.

From The DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory: “X-rays Reveal Electronic Details of Nickel-based Superconductors”

From The DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory

4.17.23
Karen McNulty Walsh
kmcnulty@bnl.gov

Findings show similarities to and differences from cuprate superconductors including more complex electronic structure.

Yao Shen, a postdoctoral researcher at Brookhaven Lab and first author of two papers describing the electronic structure of a nickel-based superconductor, at the SIX beamline of the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) where the experiments were done.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have discovered new details about the electrons in a nickel-based family of superconducting materials. The research, described in two papers published in Physical Review X [below], reveals that these nickel-based materials have certain similarities with—and key differences from—copper-based superconductors. Comparing the two kinds of “high-temperature” superconductors may help scientists zero in on key features essential for these materials’ remarkable ability to carry electrical current without losing energy as heat.

“The quest to understand high-temperature superconductors is a decades-old challenge,” said Mark Dean of Brookhaven Lab’s Condensed Matter Physics & Materials Science Department, who led the research described in both papers. Ever since copper-based, or cuprate, superconductors were discovered in the 1980s, scientists have been trying to understand what makes them tick.

The interest is driven in large part by their potential for energy-saving applications. Picture power lines that deliver electricity to homes far from wind and solar farms without losing a speck of energy, and computers and other devices that function flawlessly without the need for expensive and energy-intensive cooling.

Trouble is, despite their “high-temperature” moniker, cuprate superconductors themselves must be kept extremely cold to operate—well below zero degrees Fahrenheit. Discovering what allows electrons in these materials to overcome their normal “like-charge” repulsion and flow with no resistance could perhaps point the way to superconductors that operate in closer to real-world conditions.

“These materials are also a testbed for efforts to understand other quantum materials where electrons interact very strongly,” said Steven Johnston, a theorist at the University of Tennessee and a coauthor of the paper. “You could make a reasonable argument that this is the most important open problem in the physics of materials.”

Members of the research team at the NSLS-II SIX beamline, left to right: Johnny Pelliciari (SIX beamline scientist), Yao Shen, Mark Dean, and Wei He (all of the Condensed Matter Physics & Materials Science Department).

Nickel analogs

As part of the quest to crack the case on cuprates, scientists have looked for analogs—similar superconducting compounds they could study and compare to give them clues for improving properties.

“Maybe, if you just tweak something, you can make a property such as the temperature of the transition to superconductivity higher, or you can make materials with cheaper elements for applications,” said Yao Shen, a postdoctoral researcher at Brookhaven and first author of the publications.

Nickel was a logical choice. Its proximity to copper on the periodic table implies that compounds made from these next-door-neighbor transition metals might operate in similar ways but with enough differences to point out what is essential to superconductivity.

But even before scientists at Stanford University successfully created a nickel-based superconductor in 2019 [Nature (below)], others wondered whether the nickel compounds could be considered true analogs to cuprates. Once the nickelates were synthesized, the quest to find out began.

“Seeing” electronic behavior

These studies used x-rays at Brookhaven Lab’s National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) [below], a DOE Office of Science user facility that enables research on the microscopic structure, chemistry, and other properties of all sorts of materials. The team used the Soft Inelastic X-Ray (SIX) beamline, run by study collaborators Valentina Bisogni and Jonathan Pelliciari, to compare the electronic properties of a layered nickelate superconductor (La4Ni3O8) with those of a well-known cuprate (La2−xSrxCuO4).

NSLS-II SIX beamline scientist Valentina Bisogni, a coauthor on this research, stands in front of the chamber where samples are placed for analysis by x-rays.

They wanted to know which electrons (from which elements) in each compound contribute to superconductivity and other electronic properties, including the presence of a “charge-density wave.” This ordered pattern of electrons might play a role in generating the material’s superconductivity.

“Scientists have evidence that superconductivity in cuprates is associated with very strong magnetic interactions between the copper ions,” said Michael Norman, a collaborating scientist from the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory. “So, in addition to comparing the electrons involved in superconductivity in these two materials, we also wanted to look for evidence of magnetic interactions between the nickel ions in these nickelates and understand which elements contribute electrons that form both the charge and magnetic density waves in these materials.”

The SIX beamline, with its world-leading energy resolution, allows the scientists to “see” these subatomic scale details by tuning the x-ray energy precisely to the individual elements in the sample using a technique called resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS).

“We can tune our x-ray energy to resonate with either the oxygen or nickel or other elements and then we can see the electronic properties of those specific elements,” Dean said. “We used that alongside theory calculations to get a detailed picture of how these materials work electronically.”

Key similarities and differences

The findings indicate substantial similarities between the nickelate and cuprate superconductors—and some differences.

For example, the scientists found that in both sets of materials, the transition metal (copper or nickel) and oxygen both contribute to the materials’ electronic properties, but the magnetic interactions among nickel atoms, mediated by intervening oxygens, are slightly weaker than the oxygen-mediated magnetic interactions among copper atoms in the cuprates.

This cartoon shows how x-rays (yellow zigzags) reveal information about atoms’ electronic structure in a nickel-oxide superconductor, where nickel atoms have red electron orbitals and oxygen-atom orbitals are teal. The larger the orbital, the more electrons in it. These studies are helping researchers understand similarities and difference between nickel- and copper-based superconductors. BNL.

“Cuprates have this very nice well-aligned energy between the copper and the oxygen, and that’s why they are very strongly magnetic,” Shen said. “A similar thing happens in the nickel compounds just to a slightly less perfect extent.”

The scientists found some key differences in the electronic properties that contribute to the generation of charge order—the charge density wave—in the two classes of superconductors. It turns out that the charge density wave in the nickelate is much more complex than that of the cuprate, coming from the combined interactions of all the different elements in the material.

“These findings indicate that the nickel compounds are promising to learn more about how the cuprates work, and they indicate the different ways you might want to change the nickel compounds to make them more like the cuprates—to have stronger magnetism or stronger superconductivity,” said Jennifer Sears, a postdoctoral researcher at Brookhaven.

“X-rays are really showing their power in probing these types of problems. The capabilities at NSLS-II have made it possible for us to work out this physics quite quickly in a way that wouldn’t have been the case without this new generation of RIXS instruments,” noted collaborator Matteo Mitrano of Harvard University.

Next steps include exploring the contributions of the rare-earth elements—lanthanum, strontium, and others—to the properties of these materials.

“The rare earth layer is not thought to be electronically active in the cuprates, but that’s an open question in the nickel-based materials,” Dean said.

The tools at NSLS-II will make it possible to explore that question, too.

Additional co-authors on this work included John Mitchell of Argonne National Laboratory, who together with Junjie Zhang provided the material samples that were prepared using unique high pressure crystal growth techniques, and x-ray spectroscopy specialist Gilberto Fabbris, who is also based at Argonne. The research and the facilities used were funded by the DOE Office of Science (BES).

Physical Review X
Physical Review X
Instructive material with images is available in the science papers.
Nature 2019

See the full article here .

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Brookhaven Campus. Credit: BNL.

One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the The DOE Office of Science, The DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. The Laboratory’s almost 3,000 scientists, engineers, and support staff are joined each year by more than 5,000 visiting researchers from around the world. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE’s Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by Stony Brook University the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization.

Research at BNL specializes in nuclear and high energy physics, energy science and technology, environmental and bioscience, nanoscience and national security. The 5300 acre campus contains several large research facilities, including the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider [below] and National Synchrotron Light Source II [below]. Seven Nobel prizes have been awarded for work conducted at Brookhaven lab.

BNL is staffed by approximately 2,750 scientists, engineers, technicians, and support personnel, and hosts 4,000 guest investigators every year. The laboratory has its own police station, fire department, and ZIP code (11973). In total, the lab spans a 5,265-acre (21 km^2) area that is mostly coterminous with the hamlet of Upton, New York. BNL is served by a rail spur operated as-needed by the New York and Atlantic Railway. Co-located with the laboratory is the Upton, New York, forecast office of the National Weather Service.

Major programs

Although originally conceived as a nuclear research facility, Brookhaven Lab’s mission has greatly expanded. Its foci are now:

Nuclear and high-energy physics
Physics and chemistry of materials
Environmental and climate research
Nanomaterials
Energy research
Nonproliferation
Structural biology
Accelerator physics

Operation

Brookhaven National Lab was originally owned by the Atomic Energy Commission and is now owned by that agency’s successor, the United States Department of Energy (DOE). DOE subcontracts the research and operation to universities and research organizations. It is currently operated by Brookhaven Science Associates LLC, which is an equal partnership of Stony Brook University and Battelle Memorial Institute. From 1947 to 1998, it was operated by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), but AUI lost its contract in the wake of two incidents: a 1994 fire at the facility’s high-beam flux reactor that exposed several workers to radiation and reports in 1997 of a tritium leak into the groundwater of the Long Island Central Pine Barrens on which the facility sits.

Foundations

Following World War II, the US Atomic Energy Commission was created to support government-sponsored peacetime research on atomic energy. The effort to build a nuclear reactor in the American northeast was fostered largely by physicists Isidor Isaac Rabi and Norman Foster Ramsey Jr., who during the war witnessed many of their colleagues at Columbia University leave for new remote research sites following the departure of the Manhattan Project from its campus. Their effort to house this reactor near New York City was rivalled by a similar effort at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to have a facility near Boston, Massachusetts. Involvement was quickly solicited from representatives of northeastern universities to the south and west of New York City such that this city would be at their geographic center. In March 1946 a nonprofit corporation was established that consisted of representatives from nine major research universities — Columbia University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Rochester, and Yale University.

Out of 17 considered sites in the Boston-Washington corridor, Camp Upton on Long Island was eventually chosen as the most suitable in consideration of space, transportation, and availability. The camp had been a training center from the US Army during both World War I and World War II. After the latter war, Camp Upton was deemed no longer necessary and became available for reuse. A plan was conceived to convert the military camp into a research facility.

On March 21, 1947, the Camp Upton site was officially transferred from the U.S. War Department to the new U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), predecessor to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

Research and facilities

Reactor history

In 1947 construction began on the first nuclear reactor at Brookhaven, the Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor. This reactor, which opened in 1950, was the first reactor to be constructed in the United States after World War II. The High Flux Beam Reactor operated from 1965 to 1999. In 1959 Brookhaven built the first US reactor specifically tailored to medical research, the Brookhaven Medical Research Reactor, which operated until 2000.

Accelerator history

In 1952 Brookhaven began using its first particle accelerator, the Cosmotron. At the time the Cosmotron was the world’s highest energy accelerator, being the first to impart more than 1 GeV of energy to a particle.

BNL Cosmotron 1952-1966.

The Cosmotron was retired in 1966, after it was superseded in 1960 by the new Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS).

BNL Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS).

The AGS was used in research that resulted in 3 Nobel prizes, including the discovery of the muon neutrino, the charm quark, and CP violation.

In 1970 in BNL started the ISABELLE project to develop and build two proton intersecting storage rings.

The groundbreaking for the project was in October 1978. In 1981, with the tunnel for the accelerator already excavated, problems with the superconducting magnets needed for the ISABELLE accelerator brought the project to a halt, and the project was eventually cancelled in 1983.

The National Synchrotron Light Source operated from 1982 to 2014 and was involved with two Nobel Prize-winning discoveries. It has since been replaced by the National Synchrotron Light Source II. [below].

BNL National Synchrotron Light Source.

After ISABELLE’S cancellation, physicist at BNL proposed that the excavated tunnel and parts of the magnet assembly be used in another accelerator. In 1984 the first proposal for the accelerator now known as the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)[below] was put forward. The construction got funded in 1991 and RHIC has been operational since 2000. One of the world’s only two operating heavy-ion colliders, RHIC is as of 2010 the second-highest-energy collider after the Large Hadron Collider (CH). RHIC is housed in a tunnel 2.4 miles (3.9 km) long and is visible from space.

On January 9, 2020, it was announced by Paul Dabbar, undersecretary of the US Department of Energy Office of Science, that the BNL eRHIC design has been selected over the conceptual design put forward by DOE’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility [Jlab] as the future Electron–ion collider (EIC) in the United States.

Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory to be built inside the tunnel that currently houses the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider [RHIC]. Credit: BNL.

In addition to the site selection, it was announced that the BNL EIC had acquired CD-0 from the Department of Energy. BNL’s eRHIC design proposes upgrading the existing Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, which collides beams light to heavy ions including polarized protons, with a polarized electron facility, to be housed in the same tunnel.

Other discoveries

In 1958, Brookhaven scientists created one of the world’s first video games, Tennis for Two. In 1968 Brookhaven scientists patented Maglev, a transportation technology that utilizes magnetic levitation.

Major facilities

Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), which was designed to research quark–gluon plasma and the sources of proton spin. Until 2009 it was the world’s most powerful heavy ion collider. It is the only collider of spin-polarized protons.

Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN), used for the study of nanoscale materials.

BNL National Synchrotron Light Source II, Brookhaven’s newest user facility, opened in 2015 to replace the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS), which had operated for 30 years. NSLS was involved in the work that won the 2003 and 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Alternating Gradient Synchrotron, a particle accelerator that was used in three of the lab’s Nobel prizes.
Accelerator Test Facility, generates, accelerates and monitors particle beams.
Tandem Van de Graaff, once the world’s largest electrostatic accelerator.

Computational Science resources, including access to a massively parallel Blue Gene series supercomputer that is among the fastest in the world for scientific research, run jointly by Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University-SUNY.

Interdisciplinary Science Building, with unique laboratories for studying high-temperature superconductors and other materials important for addressing energy challenges.
NASA Space Radiation Laboratory, where scientists use beams of ions to simulate cosmic rays and assess the risks of space radiation to human space travelers and equipment.

Off-site contributions

It is a contributing partner to the ATLAS experiment, one of the four detectors located at the The European Organization for Nuclear Research [La Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear][Organization européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organization für Kernforschung](CH)[CERN] Large Hadron Collider(LHC). Credit: CERN.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research [La Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear][Organization européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organization für Kernforschung](CH)[CERN] map. Credit: CERN.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research [La Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear][ Organization européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organization für Kernforschung] By now iconic image of (CH)[CERN] ATLAS. Credit: CERN.

It is currently operating at The European Organization for Nuclear Research [La Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear][Organization européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organization für Kernforschung](CH) [CERN] near Geneva, Switzerland.

Brookhaven was also responsible for the design of the Spallation Neutron Source at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee.

DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory Spallation Neutron Source annotated.

Brookhaven plays a role in a range of neutrino research projects around the world, including the Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment (CN) nuclear power plant, approximately 52 kilometers northeast of Hong Kong and 45 kilometers east of Shenzhen, China.

Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment (CN) nuclear power plant, approximately 52 kilometers northeast of Hong Kong and 45 kilometers east of Shenzhen, China .

DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory DUNE LBNF from FNAL to Sanford Underground Research Facility, Lead, South Dakota.

BNL Center for Functional Nanomaterials. Credit: BNL.

DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory NSLS II. Interior. Credit: BNL.

DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory NSLS II. Credit: BNL.

DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory(US) RHIC Campus. Credit: BNL.

BNL RHIC’s newly enhanced STAR detector. The house-size STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) acts like a giant 3D digital camera to track particles emerging from particle collisions at the center of the detector.

DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory(US)/RHIC Phenix detector. Credit: BNL..

Brookhaven sPhenix Assembly. Credit: BNL.

BNL RHIC Schematic view of the proposed sPHENIX detector. Credit: BNL.

BNL RHIC inner hadronic calorimeter being installed in the sPHENIX Detector. Credit: BNL.

From The DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory: “Recycled Aluminum Offers Energy and Emissions and Electric Vehicle Battery Range Savings”

From The DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

4.18.23
Karyn Hede | PNNL

The new manufacturing process produces high-strength aluminum vehicle parts that lower costs and are more environmentally friendly.

Scrap aluminum can now be collected and transformed directly into new vehicle parts using an innovative process being developed by the automotive industry, in particular for electric vehicles. Today, the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, in collaboration with leading mobility technology company Magna, unveils a new manufacturing process that reduces more than 50% of the embodied energy and more than 90% of the carbon dioxide emissions by eliminating the need to mine and refine the same amount of raw aluminum ore. Lightweight aluminum can also help extend EV driving range.

This patented and award-winning Shear Assisted Processing and Extrusion (“ShAPE”™) process collects scrap bits and leftover aluminum trimmings from automotive manufacturing and transforms it directly into suitable material for new vehicle parts. It is now being scaled to make lightweight aluminum parts for EVs.

The most recent advancement, described in detail in a new report and in a Manufacturing Letters research article [below], eliminates the need to add newly mined aluminum to the material before using it for new parts. By reducing the cost of recycling aluminum, manufacturers may be able to reduce the overall cost of aluminum components, better enabling them to replace steel.

Graphical abstract

“We showed that aluminum parts formed with the “ShAPE” process meet automotive industry standards for strength and energy absorption,” said Scott Whalen, a PNNL materials scientist and lead researcher. “The key is that “ShAPE” process breaks up metal impurities in the scrap without requiring an energy-intensive heat treatment step. This alone saves considerable time and introduces new efficiencies.”

Automakers’ aluminum scrap transforms into new vehicle parts with the PNNL-patented “ShAPE” manufacturing process. Heat and friction soften the aluminum and transform it from rough metal into a smooth, strong uniform product without a melting step. (Animation by Sara Levine | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

The new report and research publications mark the culmination of a four-year partnership with Magna, the largest manufacturer of auto parts in North America. Magna received funding for the collaborative research from DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Office, Lightweight Materials Consortium (LightMAT) Program.

“Sustainability is at the forefront of everything we do at Magna,” said Massimo DiCiano, Manager Materials Science at Magna. “From our manufacturing processes to the materials we use, and the “ShAPE” process is a great proof point of how we’re looking to evolve and create new sustainable solutions for our customers.”

Aluminum advantages

Besides steel, aluminum is the most used material in the auto industry. The advantageous properties of aluminum make it an attractive automotive component. Lighter and strong, aluminum is a key material in the strategy to make lightweight vehicles for improved efficiency, being it extending the range of an EV or reducing the battery capacity size. While the automotive industry currently does recycle most of its aluminum, it routinely adds newly mined primary aluminum to it before reusing it, to dilute impurities.

Metals manufacturers also rely on a century-old process of pre-heating bricks, or “billets” as they are known in the industry, to temperatures over 1,000°F (550°C) for many hours. The pre-heating step dissolves clusters of impurities such as silicon, magnesium or iron in the raw metal and distributes them uniformly in the billet through a process known as homogenization.

By contrast, the “ShAPE” process accomplishes the same homogenization step in less than a second then transforms the solid aluminum into a finished product in a matter of minutes with no pre-heating step required.

“With our partners at Magna, we have reached a critical milestone in the evolution of the “ShAPE” process,” said Whalen. “We have shown its versatility by creating square, trapezoidal and multi-cell parts that all meet quality benchmarks for strength and ductility.”

Extrusions made from AA6063 industrial scrap by “ShAPE” producing (a) circular, (b) square, (c) trapezoidal, and (d) two-cell trapezoidal profiles. (Image courtesy Scott Whalen | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

For these experiments, the research team worked with an aluminum alloy known as 6063, or architectural aluminum. This alloy is used for variety of automotive components, such as engine cradles, bumper assemblies, frame rails and exterior trim. The PNNL research team examined the extruded shapes using scanning electron microscopy and electron backscatter diffraction, which creates an image of the placement and microstructure of each metal particle within the finished product. The results showed that the “ShAPE” products are uniformly strong and lack manufacturing defects that could cause parts failure. In particular, the products had no signs of the large clusters of metal—impurities that can cause material deterioration and that have hampered efforts to use secondary recycled aluminum to make new products.

The research team is now examining even higher strength aluminum alloys typically used in battery enclosures for electric vehicles.

“This innovation is only the first step toward creating a circular economy for recycled aluminum in manufacturing,” said Whalen. “We are now working on including post-consumer waste streams, which could create a whole new market for secondary aluminum scrap.”

In addition to Whalen, the PNNL research team included Nicole Overman, Brandon Scott Taysom, Md. Reza-E-Rabby, Mark Bowden and Timothy Skszek. In addition to DiCiano, Magna contributors included Vanni Garbin, Michael Miranda, Thomas Richter, Cangji Shi and Jay Mellis. This work was supported by DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Office, LightMAT Program.

The patented “ShAPE” technology is available for licensing for other applications.

Manufacturing Letters
See the science paper for instructive material with images.

See the full article here.

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

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The DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is one of the United States Department of Energy National Laboratories, managed by the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. The main campus of the laboratory is in Richland, Washington.

PNNL scientists conduct basic and applied research and development to strengthen U.S. scientific foundations for fundamental research and innovation; prevent and counter acts of terrorism through applied research in information analysis, cyber security, and the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction; increase the U.S. energy capacity and reduce dependence on imported oil; and reduce the effects of human activity on the environment. PNNL has been operated by Battelle Memorial Institute since 1965.

From The College of Engineering At The University of Wisconsin-Madison : “New atomic-scale understanding of catalysis could unlock massive energy savings”

From The College of Engineering

At

The University of Wisconsin-Madison

4.6.23
Jason Daley
jgdaley@wisc.edu

Catalyst materials are critical for refining petroleum products and for manufacturing pharmaceuticals, plastics, food additives, fertilizers, green fuels, industrial chemicals and much more. iStock photo.

In an advance they consider a breakthrough in computational chemistry research, University of Wisconsin–Madison chemical engineers have developed a model of how catalytic reactions work at the atomic scale. This understanding could allow engineers and chemists to develop more efficient catalysts and tune industrial processes — potentially with enormous energy savings, given that 90% of the products we encounter in our lives are produced, at least partially, via catalysis.

Catalyst materials accelerate chemical reactions without undergoing changes themselves. They are critical for refining petroleum products and for manufacturing pharmaceuticals, plastics, food additives, fertilizers, green fuels, industrial chemicals and much more.

Scientists and engineers have spent decades fine-tuning catalytic reactions — yet because it is currently impossible to directly observe those reactions at the extreme temperatures and pressures often involved in industrial-scale catalysis, they haven’t known exactly what is taking place on the nano and atomic scales. This new research helps unravel that mystery with potentially major ramifications for industry.

Just three catalytic reactions — steam-methane reforming to produce hydrogen, ammonia synthesis to produce fertilizer, and methanol synthesis — use close to 10% of the world’s energy.

“If you decrease the temperatures at which you have to run these reactions by only a few degrees, there will be an enormous decrease in the energy demand that we face as humanity today,” says Manos Mavrikakis, a professor of chemical and biological engineering at UW–Madison who led the research.

Manos Mavrikakis.

“By decreasing the energy needs to run all these processes, you are also decreasing their environmental footprint.”

Mavrikakis and postdoctoral researchers Lang Xu and Konstantinos G. Papanikolaou along with graduate student Lisa Je published news of their advance in the April 7, 2023 issue of the journal Science [below].

In their research, the UW–Madison engineers develop and use powerful modeling techniques to simulate catalytic reactions at the atomic scale. For this study, they looked at reactions involving transition metal catalysts in nanoparticle form, which include elements like platinum, palladium, rhodium, copper, nickel, and others important in industry and green energy.

According to the current rigid-surface model of catalysis, the tightly packed atoms of transition metal catalysts provide a 2D surface that chemical reactants adhere to and participate in reactions. When enough pressure and heat or electricity is applied, the bonds between atoms in the chemical reactants break, allowing the fragments to recombine into new chemical products.

“The prevailing assumption is that these metal atoms are strongly bonded to each other and simply provide ‘landing spots’ for reactants. What everybody has assumed is that metal-metal bonds remain intact during the reactions they catalyze,” says Mavrikakis. “So here, for the first time, we asked the question, ‘Could the energy to break bonds in reactants be of similar amounts to the energy needed to disrupt bonds within the catalyst?’”

According to Mavrikakis’s modeling, the answer is yes. The energy provided for many catalytic processes to take place is enough to break bonds and allow single metal atoms (known as adatoms) to pop loose and start traveling on the surface of the catalyst. These adatoms combine into clusters, which serve as sites on the catalyst where chemical reactions can take place much easier than the original rigid surface of the catalyst.

Using a set of special calculations, the team looked at industrially important interactions of eight transition metal catalysts and 18 reactants, identifying energy levels and temperatures likely to form such small metal clusters, as well as the number of atoms in each cluster, which can also dramatically affect reaction rates.

Their experimental collaborators at the University of California-Berkeley, used atomically-resolved scanning tunneling microscopy to look at carbon monoxide adsorption on nickel (111), a stable, crystalline form of nickel useful in catalysis. Their experiments confirmed models that showed various defects in the structure of the catalyst can also influence how single metal atoms pop loose, as well as how reaction sites form.

Mavrikakis says the new framework is challenging the foundation of how researchers understand catalysis and how it takes place. It may apply to other non-metal catalysts as well, which he will investigate in future work. It is also relevant to understanding other important phenomena, including corrosion and tribology, or the interaction of surfaces in motion.

“We’re revisiting some very well-established assumptions in understanding how catalysts work and, more generally, how molecules interact with solids,” Mavrikakis says.

Science

Other authors include Barbara A.J. Lechner of the Technical University of Munich, and Gabor A. Somorjai and Miquel Salmeron of the DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California-Berkeley.

Part of the computational work was carried out using supercomputing resources at the Center for Nanoscale Materials, a DOE Office of Science User Facility located at the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory.

The team also used facilities at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy.

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The College of Engineering is a thriving, top-ranked college in Madison, Wisconsin—one of the most fantastic cities in the country. We think boldly and act confidently, not only as engineers, but as engaged citizens. As an engineering community, we value unique perspectives, we foster respect and inclusivity, and we work together to bring new ideas to life. Building on a heritage of impact, we develop the leaders, knowledge and technologies that improve lives now and create a better future. Underlying all of our efforts is the strength of one of the top research universities in the world.

Our engineering disciplines reflect not only our history, but also a tremendous opportunity: Where others see obstacles, we see the potential for innovation and an ability to make a difference with solutions that matter.

The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin. Founded when Wisconsin achieved statehood in 1848, UW–Madison is the official state university of Wisconsin and the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It was the first public university established in Wisconsin and remains the oldest and largest public university in the state. It became a land-grant institution in 1866. The 933-acre (378 ha) main campus, located on the shores of Lake Mendota, includes four National Historic Landmarks. The university also owns and operates the 1,200-acre (486 ha) University of Wisconsin–Madison Arboretum, located 4 miles (6.4 km) south of the main campus, which is also a National Historic Landmark.

UW–Madison is organized into 20 schools and colleges, which enrolled 33,506 undergraduate, 9,772 graduate, 1,968 special, and 2,686 professional students in 2021. Its academic programs include 136 undergraduate majors, 148 master’s degree programs, and 120 doctoral programs. A major contributor to Wisconsin’s economy, the university is the largest employer in the state, with over 24,232 faculty and staff.

Wisconsin is one of the twelve founding members of the Association of American Universities, a selective group of major research universities in North America. It is considered a Public Ivy, and is classified as an R1 University, meaning that it engages in a very high level of research activity. In 2018, it had research and development expenditures of $1.2 billion, the eighth-highest among universities in the U.S. As of March 2023, 20 Nobel laureates, 41 Pulitzer Prize winners, 2 Fields medalists and 1 Turing Award winner have been associated with UW–Madison as alumni, faculty, or researchers. Additionally, as of November 2018, the current CEOs of 14 Fortune 500 companies have attended UW–Madison, the most of any university in the United States.

Among the scientific advances made at UW–Madison are the single-grain experiment, the discovery of vitamins A and B by Elmer McCollum and Marguerite Davis, the development of the anticoagulant medication warfarin by Karl Paul Link, the first chemical synthesis of a gene by Har Gobind Khorana, the discovery of the retroviral enzyme reverse transcriptase by Howard Temin, and the first synthesis of human embryonic stem cells by James Thomson. UW–Madison was also the home of both the prominent “Wisconsin School” of economics and of diplomatic history. UW–Madison professor Aldo Leopold played an important role in the development of modern environmental science and conservationism, while UW–Madison professor Gloria Ladson-Billings formulated the framework of culturally relevant pedagogy.

The Wisconsin Badgers compete in 25 intercollegiate sports in the NCAA Division I Big Ten Conference and have won 31 national championships. Wisconsin students and alumni have won 50 Olympic medals (including 13 gold medals).

Research, teaching, and service at the UW is influenced by a tradition known as “the Wisconsin Idea“, first articulated by UW–Madison President Charles Van Hise in 1904, when he declared “I shall never be content until the beneficent influence of the University reaches every home in the state.” The Wisconsin Idea holds that the boundaries of the university should be the boundaries of the state, and that the research conducted at UW–Madison should be applied to solve problems and improve health, quality of life, the environment, and agriculture for all citizens of the state. The Wisconsin Idea permeates the university’s work and helps forge close working relationships among university faculty and students, and the state’s industries and government. Based in Wisconsin’s populist history, the Wisconsin Idea continues to inspire the work of the faculty, staff, and students who aim to solve real-world problems by working together across disciplines and demographics.

The University of Wisconsin–Madison, the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System, is a large, four-year research university comprising twenty associated colleges and schools. In addition to undergraduate and graduate divisions in agriculture and life sciences, business, education, engineering, human ecology, journalism and mass communication, letters and science, music, nursing, pharmacy, and social welfare, the university also maintains graduate and professional schools in environmental studies, law, library and information studies, medicine and public health (School of Medicine and Public Health), public affairs, and veterinary medicine.

The four year, full-time undergraduate instructional program is classified by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as “arts and science plus professions” with a high graduate coexistence. The largest university college, the College of Letters and Science, enrolls approximately half of the undergraduate student body and is made up of 38 departments and five professional schools that instruct students and carry out research in a wide variety of fields, such as astronomy, economics, geography, history, linguistics, and zoology. The graduate instructional program is classified by Carnegie as “comprehensive with medical/veterinary.” In 2008, it granted the third largest number of doctorates in the nation.

In the 2021 QS World University Rankings, UW–Madison was ranked 65th in the world. The 2021 Times Higher Education World University Rankings placed UW–Madison 58th worldwide, based primarily on surveys administered to students, faculty, and recruiters. For 2021, UW–Madison was ranked tied for 41st by U.S. News & World Report among global universities. UW–Madison was ranked 31st among world universities in 2021 by the Academic Ranking of World Universities, which assesses academic and research performance.

UW–Madison’s undergraduate program was ranked tied for 38th among national universities by U.S. News & World Report for 2022 and tied for 10th among public colleges and universities. The same publication ranked UW’s graduate Wisconsin School of Business tied for 42nd. Other graduate schools ranked by USNWR for 2022 include the School of Medicine and Public Health, which was 33rd in research and 12th in primary care, the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education tied for fourth, the University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Engineering tied for 26th, the University of Wisconsin Law School tied for 29th, and the Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs tied for 25th.

The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings 2021 ranked UW–Madison 65th among 801 U.S. colleges and universities based upon 15 individual performance indicators. UW–Madison was ranked fourth in the nation by the Washington Monthly 2021 National University Rankings.

In 2022, Money.com positioned the University of Wisconsin–Madison 17th out of 600 four-year colleges universities in their Best Colleges in America list.

UW–Madison was a founding member of the Association of American Universities. In fiscal year 2018 the school received $1.206 billion in research and development (R&D) funding, placing it eighth in the U.S. among institutions of higher education. Its research programs were fourth in the number of patents issued in 2010.

The University of Wisconsin–Madison is one of 33 sea grant colleges in the United States. These colleges are involved in scientific research, education, training, and extension projects geared toward the conservation and practical use of U.S. coasts, the Great Lakes and other marine areas.

The university maintains almost 100 research centers and programs, ranging from agriculture to arts, from education to engineering. It has been considered a major academic center for embryonic stem cell research ever since UW–Madison professor James Thomson became the first scientist to isolate human embryonic stem cells. This has brought significant attention and respect for the university’s research programs from around the world. The university continues to be a leader in stem cell research, helped in part by the funding of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and promotion of WiCell.

Its center for research on internal combustion engines, called the Engine Research Center, has a five-year collaboration agreement with General Motors. It has also been the recipient of multimillion-dollar funding from the federal government.

In June 2013, it is reported that the United States National Institutes of Health would fund an $18.13 million study at the University of Wisconsin. The study will research lethal qualities of viruses such as Ebola, West Nile and influenza. The goal of the study is to help find new drugs to fight off the most lethal pathogens.

In 2012, UW–Madison experiments on cats came under fire from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals who claimed the animals were abused. In 2013, the NIH briefly suspended the research’s funding pending an agency investigation. The following year the university was fined more than $35,000 for several violations of the Animal Welfare Act. Bill Maher, James Cromwell and others spoke out against the experiments that ended in 2014. The university defended the research and the care the animals received claiming that PETA’s objections were merely a “stunt” by the organization.

From The University of Chicago: “University of Chicago scientists discover easy way to make atomically thin metal layers for new technology”

From The University of Chicago

3.23.23
Louise Lerner

Economic method to create MXene material could enable new electronics or energy storage methods

A scanning electron microscopy image reveals the beautiful shapes of tiny structures known as MXenes, which are of interest to scientists for new devices and electronics but were previously hard to create. These were grown with a new easier and less toxic method invented by chemists with the University of Chicago. For reference, the diameter of a human hair is about 50 µm. Image by Di Wang.

The secret to a perfect croissant is the layers—as many as possible, each one interspersed with butter. Similarly, a new material with promise for new applications is made of many extremely thin layers of metal, between which scientists can slip different ions for various purposes. This makes them potentially very useful for future high-tech electronics or energy storage.

Until recently, these materials—known as MXenes, pronounced “max-eens”—were as labor-intensive as good croissants made in a French bakery.

But a new breakthrough by scientists with the University of Chicago shows how to make these MXenes far more quickly and easily, with fewer toxic byproducts.

Researchers hope the discovery, published March 24 in Science [below], will spur new innovation and pave the way towards using MXenes in everyday electronics and devices.

Atom economy

When they were discovered in 2011, MXenes made a lot of scientists very excited. Usually, when you shave a metal like gold or titanium to create atomic-thin sheets, it stops behaving like a metal. But unusually strong chemical bonds in MXenes allow them to retain the special abilities of metal, like conducting electricity strongly.

They’re also easily customizable: “You can put ions between the layers to use them to store energy, for example,” said chemistry graduate student Di Wang, co-first author of the paper along with postdoctoral scholar Chenkun Zhou.

A transmission electron microscopy cross-section shows how thin these layers of metal are; each one is thinner than a strand of DNA. Image by Francisco Lagunas.

All of these advantages could make MXenes extremely useful for building new devices—for example, to store electricity or to block electromagnetic wave interference.

However, the only way we knew to make MXenes involved several intensive chemical engineering steps, including heating the mixture at 3,000°F followed by a bath in hydrofluoric acid.

“This is fine if you’re making a few grams for experiments in the laboratory, but if you wanted to make large amounts to use in commercial products, it would become a major corrosive waste disposal issue,” explained Dmitri Talapin, the Ernest DeWitt Burton Distinguished Service Professor of Chemistry at the University of Chicago, joint appointee at the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory and the corresponding author on the paper.

To design a more efficient and less toxic method, the team used the principles of chemistry—in particular “atom economy,” which seeks to minimize the number of wasted atoms during a reaction.

The UChicago team discovered new chemical reactions that allow scientists to make MXenes from simple and inexpensive precursors, without the use of hydrofluoric acid. It consists of just one step: mixing several chemicals with whichever metal you wish to make layers of, then heating the mixture at 1,700°F. “Then you open it up and there they are,” said Wang.

The easier, less toxic method opens up new avenues for scientists to create and explore new varieties of MXenes for different applications—such as different metal alloys or different ion flavorings. The team tested the method with titanium and zirconium metals, but they think the technique can also be used for many other different combinations.

“These new MXenes are also visually beautiful,” Wang added. “They stand up like flowers—which may even make them better for reactions, because the edges are exposed and accessible for ions and molecules to move in between the metal layers.”

Graduate student Wooje Cho was also a co-author on the paper. The exploration was made possible by help from UChicago colleagues across departments, including theoretical chemist Suri Vaikuntanathan, X-ray research facility director Alexander Filatov, and electrochemists Chong Liu and Mingzhan Wang of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. Electron microscopy was performed by Robert Klie and Francisco Lagunas with the University of Illinois Chicago.

Part of the research was conducted via the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Materials for Energy-Water Systems, an Energy Frontier Research Center; the University of Chicago Materials Research Science and Engineering Center; and at the Center for Nanoscale Materials at the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory.

Science

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The University of Chicago is an urban research university that has driven new ways of thinking since 1890. Our commitment to free and open inquiry draws inspired scholars to our global campuses, where ideas are born that challenge and change the world.

We empower individuals to challenge conventional thinking in pursuit of original ideas. Students in the College develop critical, analytic, and writing skills in our rigorous, interdisciplinary core curriculum. Through graduate programs, students test their ideas with University of Chicago scholars, and become the next generation of leaders in academia, industry, nonprofits, and government.

University of Chicago research has led to such breakthroughs as discovering the link between cancer and genetics, establishing revolutionary theories of economics, and developing tools to produce reliably excellent urban schooling. We generate new insights for the benefit of present and future generations with our national and affiliated laboratories: The DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory, The DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
The University of Chicago is enriched by the city we call home. In partnership with our neighbors, we invest in Chicago’s mid-South Side across such areas as health, education, economic growth, and the arts. Together with our medical center, we are the largest private employer on the South Side.

In all we do, we are driven to dig deeper, push further, and ask bigger questions—and to leverage our knowledge to enrich all human life. Our diverse and creative students and alumni drive innovation, lead international conversations, and make masterpieces. Alumni and faculty, lecturers and postdocs go on to become Nobel laureates, CEOs, university presidents, attorneys general, literary giants, and astronauts. The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1890, its main campus is located in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood. It enrolled 16,445 students in Fall 2019, including 6,286 undergraduates and 10,159 graduate students. The University of Chicago is ranked among the top universities in the world by major education publications, and it is among the most selective in the United States.

The university is composed of one undergraduate college and five graduate research divisions, which contain all of the university’s graduate programs and interdisciplinary committees. Chicago has eight professional schools: the Law School, the Booth School of Business, the Pritzker School of Medicine, the School of Social Service Administration, the Harris School of Public Policy, the Divinity School, the Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies, and the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. The university has additional campuses and centers in London, Paris, Beijing, Delhi, and Hong Kong, as well as in downtown Chicago.

University of Chicago scholars have played a major role in the development of many academic disciplines, including economics, law, literary criticism, mathematics, religion, sociology, and the behavioralism school of political science, establishing the Chicago schools in various fields. Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory produced the world’s first man-made, self-sustaining nuclear reaction in Chicago Pile-1 beneath the viewing stands of the university’s Stagg Field. Advances in chemistry led to the “radiocarbon revolution” in the carbon-14 dating of ancient life and objects. The university research efforts include administration of The DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and The DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory, as well as the U Chicago Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts (MBL). The university is also home to the University of Chicago Press, the largest university press in the United States. The Barack Obama Presidential Center is expected to be housed at the university and will include both the Obama presidential library and offices of the Obama Foundation.

The University of Chicago’s students, faculty, and staff have included 100 Nobel laureates as of 2020, giving it the fourth-most affiliated Nobel laureates of any university in the world. The university’s faculty members and alumni also include 10 Fields Medalists, 4 Turing Award winners, 52 MacArthur Fellows, 26 Marshall Scholars, 27 Pulitzer Prize winners, 20 National Humanities Medalists, 29 living billionaire graduates, and have won eight Olympic medals.

The University of Chicago is enriched by the city we call home. In partnership with our neighbors, we invest in Chicago’s mid-South Side across such areas as health, education, economic growth, and the arts. Together with our medical center, we are the largest private employer on the South Side.

Research

According to the National Science Foundation, University of Chicago spent $423.9 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 60th in the nation. It is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity” and is a founding member of The Association of American Universities and was a member of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation from 1946 through June 29, 2016, when the group’s name was changed to the Big Ten Academic Alliance. The University of Chicago is not a member of the rebranded consortium, but will continue to be a collaborator.

The university operates more than 140 research centers and institutes on campus. Among these are the Oriental Institute—a museum and research center for Near Eastern studies owned and operated by the university—and a number of National Resource Centers, including the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Chicago also operates or is affiliated with several research institutions apart from the university proper. The university manages The DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory, part of the United States Department of Energy’s national laboratory system, and co-manages The DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, a nearby particle physics laboratory, as well as a stake in the Apache Point Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico.
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SDSS Telescope at Apache Point Observatory, near Sunspot NM, USA, Altitude 2,788 meters (9,147 ft).

Apache Point Observatory, near Sunspot, New Mexico Altitude 2,788 meters (9,147 ft).
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Faculty and students at the adjacent Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago collaborate with the university. In 2013, the university formed an affiliation with the formerly independent Marine Biological Laboratoryin Woods Hole, Mass. Although formally unrelated, the National Opinion Research Center is located on Chicago’s campus.