From The DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory: “BIGTUNA Bioimaging Tool Helps Researchers See Small”

From The DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

3.28.23
Rebekah Orton | PNNL

Novel nano-optical technology tracks communications in living cells.

An illustration of how next-generation bioimager BIGTUNA simultaneously uses multiple approaches to significantly improve metabolic mapping. (Image by Nathan Johnson | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

Microbes may be among the smallest living things on Earth, but bioimaging to understand the chemistry that fuels these organisms could reveal important clues about the intricacies of gene function and the health of the planet. Because of this, scientists have long sought ways to eavesdrop on conversations between living microbes in their environment.

This has been exceptionally difficult, in part because microbes communicate using molecules instead of words. Deciphering conversations means identifying small, specific, and quickly changing molecules called metabolites, something even the most powerful instruments struggle to attempt. But a team of researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have spent the last decade continuously developing a next-generation bioimaging instrument that is making progress toward this goal.

The Chemical Dynamics Initiative (CDi), an internal PNNL investment, supported PNNL chemist Patrick El Khoury and his team as they developed the technology to measure phenomena in the quantum realm. Here [?] the team imaged subatomic waves of energy called phonons as they formed, beat, and dissipated in a single trillionth of a second.

“Similar technologies can be used to image phonons and metabolites in real space and real time,” said El Khoury. “The fundamental advances required in both areas comprise a challenge worthy of a national laboratory and continued investments.”

Now researchers are taking the technologies to the next level as they use bioimaging to map metabolites exchanged by live microbes.

Bioimaging to fish out whispers in a crowd

The bioimager is known as BIGTUNA, short for BioImaginG Technology Using Nano-optical Approach. The keys to BIGTUNA are its multiple optical capabilities, each providing complementary information about the position and composition of molecules in a study sample. Many laser sources focus on the tip of a very sharp nanosized needle. Researchers position the needle’s tip in the sample area they want to examine, then use the light focused on the tip of the needle to measure the sample’s physical and chemical features. Through this, researchers identify molecules and understand how they interact.

Chemical bioimaging with light has been done for a hundred years but never at this molecular scale.

“Some methods illuminate a relatively large area, but these far-field approaches are like listening in to a crowd and expecting to understand individual conversations,” said PNNL chemist Scott Lea. To overcome this challenge, researchers focused on combining a wide range of near-field techniques to capture and characterize the maximum information in an area as small as a few molecules.

“If we don’t have multiple streams of data coming from multiple techniques, we only get partial information,” said El Khoury. “And in addition to developing the techniques, we developed our understanding of optical selection rules to maximize the information we get from one sample in one set-up.”

In the most recent iteration of this project, the researchers zoomed out to a larger area, although still only a thousandth the thickness of a strand of hair. At this slightly farther distance, they identified the most promising approaches to capture information about the patterns of molecular bonds and the distribution of electrons. These new nano-optical measurements are addressing a much smaller number of molecules; therefore, the researchers must continue developing new theories that describe nanoscopic interactions of light and matter.

One of the custom-built nano-optical system precursors to the BIGTUNA bioimaging device. (Photo by Patrick El-Khoury | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

Combining these conceptual and technological developments will allow the researchers to move beyond model systems they studied using early incarnations of BIGTUNA. The chemical signals in these model systems were much stronger than chemical signals from the metabolites involved in microbial communications. In addition to having weaker signals, biological samples are also susceptible to damage by light, which is why BIGTUNA’s noninvasive approach makes it ideal to develop for bioimaging applications. Including state-of-the art data and computational techniques from PNNL data scientists Sarah Akers and Edo Aprà will help automate where and how the instrument balances exploration with the sensitivity of a living system.

Bioimaging to tune in to talking microbes

As an initial foray into biology, researchers are focusing BIGTUNA’s bioimaging power on a community of symbiotic microbes that live in deep ocean sediments. One microbe reduces sulfur, the other oxidizes methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

Image of the microbe community (purple and green) within sediment particles (yellow) that researchers are studying through bioimaging with BIGTUNA. (Image courtesy of Patrick El Khoury | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

Previous approaches to unraveling microbial interactions have mainly focused on identifying influential genes or on examining isolated enzymes and pathways. The approaches often include fixing, freezing, or combining the biological system. But these approaches lose out on time-dependent or space-specific details. And the researchers can’t look at the flow of metabolites to get a predictive understanding of how and why microbes interact.

Even so, PNNL collaborator and CalTech geologist Victoria Orphan has theories about how these symbiotic microbes share metabolites. Bioimaging with BIGTUNA could produce the first close-up view of the metabolites in action as the instrument sends light through the sample and measures what gets absorbed or scattered. Researchers use the information to identify metabolites and create a detailed record of microbial intercellular communication pathways. In turn, this knowledge could help researchers understand the degree to which microbes respond to environmental changes.

A new generation of nano-optics

“Possibilities for BIGTUNA extend far beyond the realm of bioimaging,” said Peter Sushko, CDi’s chief scientist. “Because this highly adaptable instrument can obtain detailed information describing atomic motion and electronic processes, it will be useful in seeking answers to a broad range of questions that are of interest to chemists, physicists, and materials scientists as well.”

Potential applications include quantum materials, catalysis, and human health, in addition to the current work in microbial systems. In that realm, planned future developments could incorporate environmental controls to further generalize the approach.

A portion of the blueprint for BIGTUNA was designed under PNNL’s CDi, a five-year internal investment in capabilities to better understand and predict the evolution of complex chemical systems in real-world or operational environments. The investment has also supported pioneering AI and atomic resolution microscopy, tracking radioiodine for human health and nuclear nonproliferation, perceiving quantum pathways, and developing a 3-D printing approach to produce engineered microporous polymer-containing composite structures.

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 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 DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory: “Diverse Approach Key to Carbon Removal”

From The DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

3.9.23
Brendan Bane

Meeting the world’s climate goals will take more than one form of carbon removal.

Restoring forests marks one of six approaches PNNL researchers are exploring as they seek to understand which carbon dioxide removal methods can limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. (Photo by Bergadder | Pixabay)

Diversification reduces risk. That’s the spirit of one key takeaway from a new study led by scientists at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The effective path to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of this century likely requires a mix of technologies that can pull carbon dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere and oceans.

Overreliance on any one carbon removal method may bring undue risk, the authors caution. And we’ll likely need them all to remove the necessary amount of carbon dioxide—10 gigatons annually—to secure just 1.5 degrees of warming by 2100.

The new work, published today in the journal Nature Climate Change [below], outlines the carbon-removing potential of six different methods. They range from restoring deforested lands to spreading crushed rock across landscapes, a method known as enhanced weathering.

This study marks the first attempt to incorporate all carbon dioxide removal approaches recognized in U.S. legislation into a single integrated model that projects how their interactions could measure up on a global scale. It does so while demonstrating how those methods could influence factors like water use, energy demand or available crop land.

The authors explore the potential of these carbon removal methods by modeling decarbonization scenarios: hypothetical futures that demonstrate what kind of interactions could crop up if the technologies were deployed under varying conditions. They explore pathways, for example, where no climate policy is applied (and warming rises to 3.5 degrees as a result).

Each carbon dioxide removal method brings unique benefits and tradeoffs. This image depicts the methods under study at PNNL and recognized in U.S. legislation: direct ocean capture, biochar, enhanced weathering, direct air capture with carbon storage, afforestation and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage. Floating carbon dioxide molecules hover above the landscape. (Image by Nathan Johnson | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

A second pathway demonstrates what amount of carbon would need to be removed using the technologies under an ambitious policy in which carbon emissions are constrained to decline to net-zero by mid-century and net-negative by late-century to limit end-of-century warming to below 1.5 degrees.

The third scenario follows the same emissions pathway but is paired with behavioral and technological changes, like low material consumption and rapid electrification. In this scenario, these societal changes translate to fewer overall emissions released, which helps reduce the amount of residual greenhouse gas emissions that would need to be offset with carbon removal to meet the 1.5-degree goal.

To meet that target—the original goal of the Paris Agreement—the authors find that roughly 10 gigatons of carbon dioxide must be removed per year. That amount remains the same even if countries were to strengthen efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from all sources.

“Bringing us back down to 1.5 degrees by the end of the century will require a balanced approach,” said lead author PNNL scientist Jay Fuhrman, whose work stems from the Joint Global Change Research Institute. “If one of these technologies fails to materialize or scale up, we don’t want too many eggs in that basket. If we use a globally diverse portfolio of carbon removal strategies, we can mitigate risk while mitigating emissions.”

Some of the technologies stand to contribute a great deal, with the potential to remove several gigatons of carbon dioxide per year. Others offer less, yet still stand to play an important role. Enhanced weathering, for example, could remove up to four gigatons of carbon dioxide annually by mid-century.

Under this method, finely ground rock spread over cropland converts carbon dioxide in the atmosphere into carbonate minerals on the ground. It is among the most cost-effective methods identified in the study.

In comparison, direct ocean capture with carbon storage, where carbon dioxide is stripped from seawater and stored in Earth’s subsurface, would likely remove much less carbon. On its own, the nascent technology is prohibitively expensive, according to the authors. Pairing this method with desalination plants in regions where demand for desalinated water is high, however, could drive down the cost while delivering more meaningful carbon reductions.

In addition to the removal methods mentioned above, the technologies under study include biochar; direct air capture with carbon storage; and bioenergy paired with carbon capture and storage.

Each of the technologies modeled brings unique advantages, costs and consequences. Many of those factors are tied to specific regions. The authors point out Sub-Saharan Africa as an example, where biochar, enhanced weathering and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage stand to contribute significant reductions.

Yet the authors find much work is needed to address greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide like methane and nitrous oxide. Many of these non-CO2 gases are several times more potent while simultaneously more difficult to target than carbon dioxide.

While some of the removal methods examined within the new paper are well-studied, their interactions with other, newer methods are less clearly understood. The work originates from the Joint Global Change Research Institute, a partnership between PNNL and the University of Maryland where researchers explore interactions between human, energy and environmental systems.

Their work focuses on projecting what tradeoffs may flow from a range of possible decarbonization scenarios. The authors seek to better understand how these methods interact so that policymakers may be informed in their efforts to decarbonize.

“This study underscores the need for continued research on carbon dioxide removal approaches and their potential impacts,” said corresponding author and PNNL scientist Haewon McJeon. “While each approach has its own unique benefits and costs, a diverse portfolio of carbon dioxide removal approaches is essential for effectively addressing climate change. By better understanding the potential impacts of each approach, we can develop a more comprehensive and effective strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and limiting global warming.”

In addition to Fuhrman and McJeon, PNNL authors include Candelaria Bergero and Maridee Weber. Seth Monteith and Frances M. Wang of the ClimateWorks Foundation, as well as Andres F. Clarens, Scott C. Doney and William Shobe of the University of Virginia also contributed to this work. This work was supported by the ClimateWorks Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the University of Virginia Environmental Resilience Institute.

Nature Climate Change
From the science paper

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 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 DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory: “Scientists Unveil Least Costly Carbon Capture System to Date”

From The DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

1.23.23
Brendan Bane

The need for technology that can capture, remove and repurpose carbon dioxide grows stronger with every CO2 molecule that reaches Earth’s atmosphere. To meet that need, scientists at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have cleared a new milestone in their efforts to make carbon capture more affordable and widespread. They have created a new system that efficiently captures CO2—the least costly to date [Journal of Cleaner Production (below)]—and converts it into one of the world’s most widely used chemicals: methanol.

Graphical abstract

Download : Download high-res image (311KB)
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Snaring CO2 before it floats into the atmosphere is a key component in slowing global warming. Creating incentives for the largest emitters to adopt carbon capture technology, however, is an important precursor. The high cost of commercial capture technology is a longstanding barrier to its widespread use.

PNNL scientists believe methanol can provide that incentive. It holds many uses as a fuel, solvent, and an important ingredient in plastics, paint, construction materials and car parts. Converting CO2 into useful substances like methanol offers a path for industrial entities to capture and repurpose their carbon.

A new integrated cost-effective carbon capture and conversion system.
Scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have created the most affordable carbon dioxide capture and conversion system to date, bringing the cost to capture CO2 down to $39 per metric ton. The process takes flue gas from power plants, uses a PNNL-patented solvent to strip out CO2, then converts the CO2 into industrially-useful methanol.

PNNL chemist David Heldebrant, who leads the research team behind the new technology, compares the system to recycling. Just as one can choose between single-use and recyclable materials, so too can one recycle carbon.

“That’s essentially what we’re trying to do here,” said Heldebrant. “Instead of extracting oil from the ground to make these chemicals, we’re trying to do it from CO2 captured from the atmosphere or from coal plants, so it can be reconstituted into useful things. You’re keeping carbon alive, so to speak, so it’s not just ‘pull it out of the ground, use it once, and throw it away.’ We’re trying to recycle the CO2, much like we try to recycle other things like glass, aluminum and plastics.”

As described in the journal Advanced Energy Materials [below], the new system is designed to fit into coal-, gas-, or biomass-fired power plants, as well as cement kilns and steel plants. Using a PNNL-developed capture solvent, the system snatches CO2 molecules before they’re emitted, then converts them into useful, sellable substances.

A long line of dominoes must fall before carbon can be completely removed or entirely prevented from entering Earth’s atmosphere. This effort—getting capture and conversion technology out into the world—represents some of the first few crucial tiles.

Deploying this technology will reduce emissions, said Heldebrant. But it could also help stir the development of other carbon capture technology and establish a market for CO2-containing materials. With such a market in place, carbon seized by anticipated direct air capture technologies could be better reconstituted into longer-lived materials.

The call for cheaper carbon capture

In April 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its Working Group III report focused on mitigating climate change. Among the emissions-limiting measures outlined, carbon capture and storage was named as a necessary element in achieving net zero emissions, especially in sectors that are difficult to decarbonize, like steel and chemical production.

“Reducing emissions in industry will involve using materials more efficiently, reusing and recycling products and minimizing waste,” the IPCC stated in a news release issued alongside one of the report’s 2022 installments. “In order to reach net zero CO2 emissions for the carbon needed in society (e.g., plastics, wood, aviation fuels, solvents, etc.),” the report reads, “it is important to close the use loops for carbon and carbon dioxide through increased circularity with mechanical and chemical recycling.”

Taking up only as much space as a walk-in closet, a new carbon capture and conversion system is simple and efficient at removing carbon dioxide from gas that’s rich with carbon dioxide. On the left of this walk-in fume hood, “smoke” moves through a cylindrical container where it makes contact with a carbon-capturing solvent. That solvent chemically binds to carbon dioxide and, on the right, is converted to methanol. (Photo by Eric Francavilla | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

PNNL’s research is focused on doing just that—in alignment with DOE’s Carbon Negative Shot. By using renewably sourced hydrogen in the conversion, the team can produce methanol with a lower carbon footprint than conventional methods that use natural gas as a feedstock. Methanol produced via CO2 conversion could qualify for policy and market incentives intended to drive adoption of carbon reduction technologies.

Methanol is among the most highly produced chemicals in existence by volume. Known as a “platform material,” its uses are wide ranging. In addition to methanol, the team can convert CO2 into formate (another commodity chemical), methane and other substances.

A significant amount of work remains to optimize and scale this process, and it may be several years before it is ready for commercial deployment. But, said Casie Davidson, manager for PNNL’s Carbon Management and Fossil Energy market sector, displacing conventional chemical commodities is only the beginning. “The team’s integrated approach opens up a world of new CO2 conversion chemistry. There’s a sense that we’re standing on the threshold of an entirely new field of scalable, cost-effective carbon tech. It’s a very exciting time.”

Crumbling costs

Commercial systems soak up carbon from flue gas at roughly $46 per metric ton of CO2, according to a DOE analysis. The PNNL team’s goal is to continually chip away at costs by making the capture process more efficient and economically competitive.

The team brought the cost of capture down to $47.10 per metric ton of CO2 in 2021. A new study described in the Journal of Cleaner Production [below] explores the cost of running the methanol system using different PNNL-developed capture solvents, and that figure has now dropped to just below $39 per metric ton of CO2.

Chemical engineer Yuan Jiang analyzed the operating costs of a new carbon capture and conversion system, finding it could do the job for about $39 per metric ton of carbon dioxide. (Photo by Andrea Starr | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

“We looked at three CO2-binding solvents in this new study,” said chemical engineer Yuan Jiang, who led the assessment. “We found that they capture over 90 percent of the carbon that passes through them, and they do so for roughly 75 percent of the cost of traditional capture technology.”

Different systems can be used depending on the nature of the plant or kiln. But, no matter the setup, solvents are central. In these systems, solvents wash over CO2-rich flue gas before it’s emitted, leaving behind CO2 molecules now bound within that liquid.

Creating methanol from CO2 is not new. But the ability to both capture carbon and then convert it into methanol in one continuously flowing system is. Capture and conversion has traditionally occurred as two distinct steps, separated by each process’s unique, often non-complementary chemistry.

“We’re finally making sure that one technology can do both steps and do them well,” said Heldebrant, adding that traditional conversion technology typically requires highly purified CO2. The new system is the first to create methanol from “dirty” CO2.

Dialing down tomorrow’s emissions

The process of capturing CO2 and converting it to methanol is not CO2-negative. The carbon in methanol is released when burned or sequestered when methanol is converted to substances with longer lifespans. But this technology does “set the stage,” Heldebrant said, for the important work of keeping carbon bound inside material and out of the atmosphere.

Other target materials include polyurethanes, which are found in adhesives, coatings, and foam insulation, and polyesters, which are widely used in fabrics for textiles. Once researchers finalize the chemistry behind converting CO2 into materials that keep it out of the atmosphere for climate-relevant timescales, a wide web of capture systems could be poised to run such reactions.

In lieu of today’s smokestacks, Heldebrant envisions CO2 refineries built into or alongside power plants, where CO2-containing products can be made on site. “We are at a turning point,” Heldebrant and his coauthors wrote in a recent article published in the journal Chemical Science [below], “where we can continue to use 20th century, monolithic capture and conversion infrastructure or we can begin the transition to a new 21st century paradigm of integrated solvent-based carbon capture and conversion technologies.”

This technology is available for licensing. Please contact Sara Hunt, PNNL commercialization manager, to learn more.

This work was supported by the Department of Energy’s Technology Commercialization Fund, the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, and Southern California Gas. Part of the work was performed at EMSL, the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a DOE Office of Science user facility at PNNL.

Journal of Cleaner Production
Advanced Energy Materials
Chemical Science
See the above two science papers 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”.

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

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

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 DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory: “Tiniest Ever Ancient Seawater Pockets Revealed”

From The DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

11.17.22
Karyn Hede

Pyrite crystals in the form of a framboid—derived from the French word for raspberry—because people think they look like raspberries under the microscope. Ancient seawater pockets trapped in an iron pyrite framboid, shown here, offer a new source of clues to climate change in vanished oceans and our own. (Photo courtesy of Daniel Gregory | University of Toronto; color added by Cortland Johnson | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

Findings could open up a whole new chapter in climate science and help identify subsurface locations to safely store hydrogen for carbon-free energy.

Trapped for millennia, the tiniest liquid remnants of an ancient inland sea have now been revealed. The surprising discovery of seawater sealed in what is now North America for 390 million years opens up a new avenue for understanding how oceans change and adapt with the changing climate. The method may also be useful in understanding how hydrogen can be safely stored underground and transported for use as a carbon-free fuel source.

“We discovered we can actually dig out information from these mineral features that could help inform geologic studies, such as the seawater chemistry from ancient times,” said Sandra Taylor, first author of the study and a scientist at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Taylor worked with PNNL colleagues Daniel Perea, John Cliff, and Libor Kovarik to perform the analyses in collaboration with geochemists Daniel Gregory of the University of Toronto and Timothy Lyons of the University of California, Riverside. The research team reported their discovery in the December 2022 issue of Earth and Planetary Science Letters [below].

What can ancient seawater teach us about climate change?
Ancient seawater pockets offer a new source of clues that could help us better understand how oceans are affected by climate change. A collaborative research team discovered nanoscale seawater pockets hidden in iron pyrite from upstate New York. This technique could open up a whole new chapter in climate science and potentially help identify subsurface locations to safely store hydrogen for carbon-free energy.

Ancient seas; modern tools

Many types of minerals and gems contain small pockets of trapped liquid. Indeed, some gemstones are prized for their light-catching bubbles of liquid trapped within. What’s different in this study is that scientists were able to reveal what was inside the tiniest water pockets, using advanced microscopy and chemical analyses.

The findings of the study confirmed that the water trapped inside the rock fit the chemistry profile of the ancient inland saltwater sea that once occupied upstate New York, where the rock originated. During the Middle Devonian period, this inland sea stretched from present day Michigan to Ontario, Canada. It harbored a coral reef to rival Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Sea scorpions the size of a pickup truck patrolled waters that harbored now-extinct creatures like trilobites, and the earliest examples of horseshoe crabs.

Giant sea scorpions once roamed the ancient Devonian sea 400 million years ago. Now, researchers are learning more about that world. (Image by Aunt Spray | Shutterstock.com)

But eventually the climate changed, and along with that change, most of the creatures and the sea itself disappeared, leaving behind only fossil remains embedded in sediments that eventually became the pyrite rock sample used in the current experiment.

Clues to an ancient climate and to climate change

Scientists use rock samples as evidence to piece together how the climate has changed over the long span of geologic time.

“We use mineral deposits to estimate the temperature of the ancient oceans,” said Gregory, a geologist at the University of Toronto, and one of the study leaders. But there are relatively few useful examples in the geological record.

“Salt deposits from trapped seawater [halite] are relatively rare in the rock record, so there are millions of years missing in the records and what we currently know is based on a few localities where there is halite found,” Gregory said. By contrast, pyrite is found everywhere. “Sampling with this technique could open up millions of years of the geologic record and lead to new understanding of changing climate.”

Seawater surprise

The research team was trying to understand another environmental issue—toxic arsenic leaching from rock—when they noticed the tiny defects. Scientists describe the appearance of these particular pyrite minerals as framboids—derived from the French word for raspberry—because they look like clusters of raspberry segments under the microscope.

“We looked at these samples through the electron microscope first, and we saw these kind of mini bubbles or mini features within the framboid and wondered what they were,” Taylor said.

Using the precise and sensitive detection techniques of atom probe tomography and mass spectrometry—which can detect minuscule amounts of elements or impurities in minerals—the team worked out that the bubbles indeed contained water and their salt chemistry matched that of ancient seas.

From ancient sea to modern energy storage

These types of studies also have the potential to provide interesting insights into how to safely store hydrogen or other gases underground.

Sandra Taylor, a PNNL chemist, loads a sample into an atom probe tomography instrument. (Photo by Eric Francavilla | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

“Hydrogen is being explored as a low-carbon fuel source for various energy applications. This requires being able to safely retrieve and store large-amounts of hydrogen in underground geologic reservoirs. So it’s important to understand how hydrogen interacts with rocks,” said Taylor. “Atom probe tomography is one of the few techniques where you can not only measure atoms of hydrogen, but you can actually see where it goes in the mineral. This study suggests that tiny defects in minerals might be potential traps for hydrogen. So by using this technique we could figure out what’s going on at the atomic level, which would then help in evaluating and optimizing strategies for hydrogen storage in the subsurface.”

This research was conducted at EMSL, the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a DOE Office of Science user facility at PNNL. Lyons and Gregory applied to use the facility through a competitive application process. The research was also supported by a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Science paper:
Earth and Planetary Science Letters

See the full article here.

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

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

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 DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory: “Designing Next-Generation Metals One Atom at a Time”

From The DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

11.7.22

Direct visualization of metal atoms during shear deformation has applications from batteries to lightweight vehicles.

How can studying metals manufacturing lead to longer-lasting batteries and lighter vehicles? It all comes down to physics.

Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) are investigating the effects of physical forces on metals by taking a direct look at atomic-level changes in metals undergoing shear deformation.

The forces applied during shear deformation to change a metal’s shape also rearrange its atoms, but not in the same way for every metal or alloy. Atomic arrangement can affect metal properties like strength, formability, and conductivity—so better understanding how atoms move during shear is a key part of ongoing efforts to custom design next-generation metals with specific properties from the atom up.

These visualizations form the foundation for understanding how shear deformation creates the improved characteristics observed in metals produced using Shear Assisted Processing and Extrusion (ShAPETM), a PNNL innovation in metals manufacturing. During ShAPETM manufacturing, metals are processed using shear forces to produce high-performance metal alloys for use in vehicles and other applications.

“If we understand what happens to metals on an atomic level during shear deformation, we can use that knowledge to improve countless other applications where metals experience those same forces—from improving battery life to designing metals with specific properties, like lighter, stronger alloys for more efficient vehicles,” said Chongmin Wang, PNNL Laboratory fellow and leader of the research team studying the forces of induced shear deformation.

PNNL researchers visualized how atoms are rearranged during shear deformation by taking an extreme close-up look at a gold nano-crystal. In this video, each row of atoms is moved in a specific way during shear deformation, generating specific structures that determine the material’s properties. (Animation by Sara Levine | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

Atomic mysteries

Physical forces are universal. The forces that are purposefully applied during metals manufacturing to create alloys are the same forces that can damage structures inside batteries to cause eventual failure. Researchers also know that shear deformation can fundamentally alter the microstructure of metals in ways that can actually improve the material—making metals stronger, lighter, and more flexible. But how that happens is still a mystery.

“If you were to snap a picture of a track runner at the start and end of their run, you might think they didn’t move at all,” explained Arun Devaraj, PNNL materials scientist. “But if you film the runner while they are going around the track, you’ll know just how far they traveled. It’s the same here. If we understand exactly what happens to metals on the atomic level during shear deformation, we could apply that knowledge strategically to design materials with specific properties.”

The gold standard

To watch how shear deformation rearranges metal atoms, researchers used a specialized probe inside a transmission electron microscope at PNNL, which is among only a handful of laboratories with this capability in the world. The research team used the microscope to record how individual rows of atoms within metals moved during shear deformation. They started by looking at gold—the standard because it is easiest to visualize on an atomic level.

When researchers watched gold undergoing shear, they saw that crystals of gold were divided into smaller grains. They noticed that natural defects in the arrangement of gold atoms changed how shear deformation moved the atoms. This is useful information because defects are common in metals during deformation, but don’t behave the same in all metals—which can directly affect metal properties.

“The defects in crystal, grain size and microstructure in a metal can affect the metal’s characteristics, like strength and toughness. That’s why it’s important to understand how shear deformation moves metal atoms around and affects the overall microstructure of the metal,” said Shuang Li, PNNL postdoc and the first author on three studies sharing these results.

PNNL researchers also took a closer look at how atoms in an imperfect gold crystal—one with existing defects in its atomic structure—were rearranged during shear deformation. The existing defects in the atomic structure altered how the atoms moved, resulting in different structures that could yield different material properties. (Animation by Sara Levine | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

Next, the research team looked at copper. They observed how shear deformation creates nanotwins—structural features that make metals stronger. Observing an alloy of copper and niobium, they found that shear deformation affects atoms differently inside the copper and niobium phases of the metal mixture. This is a valuable insight that can inform how to manufacture alloys with specific properties using shear deformation.

The information gained from studying how these forces affect metals during controlled manufacturing processes can be directly translated and applied wherever metal experiences the same physical forces. For example, the atomic-level visualization capability at PNNL is also useful for understanding how materials used in extreme conditions (e.g., nuclear reactors) or clean energy applications (e.g., hydrogen transmission lines and storage tanks) will respond to external stresses. Longer lasting batteries, lighter alloys for more efficient vehicles, and custom design of next-generation metals with improved strength and conductivity could all be possible by better understanding the atomic physics of metals manufacturing.

This work was supported by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development program at PNNL as part of the Solid Phase Processing Science Initiative. A portion of this research was performed using facilities at EMSL, the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a national scientific user facility sponsored by the Department of Energy, Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research program and located at PNNL. These studies appear in three research publications: In-situ TEM observation of shear induced microstructure evolution in Cu-Nb alloy in the journal Scripta Materialia [below], Nanotwin assisted reversible formation of low angle grain boundary upon reciprocating shear load in the journal Acta Materialia [below], and In-situ observation of deformation twin associated sub-grain boundary formation in copper single crystal under bending in Materials Research Letters [below].

Science papers:
Scripta Materialia
Acta Materialia
Materials Research Letters
See this science paper for instructive material with images.

See the full article here .

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

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 DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory: “Converting Carbon Dioxide to Minerals Underground”

From The DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

10.19.22
Beth Mundy

Turning carbon dioxide into solid minerals for more stable storage.

A new high-profile scientific review article in Nature Reviews Chemistry [below] discusses how carbon dioxide (CO2) converts from a gas to a solid in ultrathin films of water on underground rock surfaces. These solid minerals, known as carbonates, are both stable and common.

“As global temperatures increase, so does the urgency to find ways to store carbon,” said Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) Lab Fellow and coauthor Kevin Rosso. “By taking a critical look at our current understanding of carbon mineralization processes, we can find the essential-to-solve gaps for the next decade of work.”

Mineralization underground represents one way to keep CO2 locked away, unable to escape back into the air. But researchers first need to know how it happens before they can predict and control carbonate formation in realistic systems.

“Mitigating human emissions requires fundamentally understanding how to store carbon,” said PNNL chemist Quin Miller, co-lead author of the scientific review featured on the journal cover. “There is a pressing need to integrate simulations, theory, and experiments to explore mineral carbonation problems.”

Co-authors Quin Miller (left) and Todd Schaef in the field at the Wallula Basalt project site. (Photo by Andrea Starr | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

Below the ground and in the water

Instead of emitting CO2 into the air, one option is to pump it into the ground. Putting CO2 deep underground theoretically sequesters the carbon away. However, gas leaks remain a concern. But if that CO2 gas could be pumped into rocks rich in metals like magnesium and iron, the CO2 can be transformed into stable and common carbonate minerals. PNNL’s Basalt Pilot Project at Wallula is a field site dedicated to studying CO2 storage in carbonates.

Although these subsurface environments are generally dominated by water, the conversion of gaseous carbon dioxide to solid carbonate can also occur when injected CO2 displaces that water, creating extremely thin films of residual water in contact with rocks. But these highly confined systems behave differently than CO2 in contact with a pool of water.

In thin films, the ratio of water and CO2 controls the reaction. Small amounts of metal leach out from the rocks, reacting both in the film and on the rock surface. This leads to the creation of new carbonate materials.

Previous work led by Miller, summarized in the review, showed that magnesium behaves similarly to calcium in thin water films. The nature of the water film plays a central role in how the system reacts.

Understanding how and when these carbonates form requires a combination of laboratory experiments and theoretical modeling studies. Laboratory work allows researchers to tune the ratio of water to CO2 and watch carbonates form in real time. Teams can see what specific chemicals are present at different points in time, providing essential information about reaction pathways.

However, laboratory-based work has its limits. Researchers cannot observe individual molecules or see how they interact. Chemistry models can fill in that gap by predicting how molecules move in exquisite detail, giving conceptual backbone to experiments. They also allow researchers to study mineralization in hard to experimentally access conditions.

“There are important synergies between models and laboratory or field studies,” said MJ Qomi, a professor at the University of California, Irvine and co-lead author of the article. “Experimental data grounds models in reality, while models provide a deeper level of insight into experiments.” Qomi has collaborated with the PNNL team for three years. He recently received a Department of Energy Early Career Research Program award to study carbonate mineralization in adsorbed water films.

From fundamental science to solutions

The team outlined key questions that need answering to make this form of carbon storage practical. Researchers must develop knowledge of how minerals react under different conditions, particularly in conditions that mimic real storage sites, including in ultrathin water films. This should all be done through an integrated combination of modeling and laboratory experiments.

Mineralization has the potential to keep carbon safely stored underground. Knowing how CO2 will react with different minerals can help make sure that what gets pumped underneath the surface stays there. The fundamental science insights from mineralization work can lead to practical CO2 storage systems. The Basalt Pilot Project represents an important study site that bridges small-scale basic science and large-scale research applications.

“This work combines a focus on fundamental geochemical insights with a goal of solving crucial problems,” said Miller. “Without prioritizing decarbonization technologies, the world will continue warming to a degree humanity cannot afford.”

Miller, Rosso, and Todd Schaef were the PNNL authors of this study. This work was performed in collaboration with MJ Qomi and Siavash Zare of the University of California-Irvine as well as John Kaszuba of the University of Wyoming. The research was supported with funding from the Department of Energy’s Office of Science (Basic Energy Sciences Program) and Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (Carbon Storage and Utilization Partnership); the John and Jane Wold Centennial Chair in Energy; and the Nielson Energy Fellowship.

Science paper:
Nature Reviews Chemistry

See the full article here.

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

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

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 DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory: “Faster-developing and Wetter Hurricanes To Come”

From The DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

10.17.22
Brendan Bane

In a new study, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory find that the U.S. Atlantic Coast is becoming a breeding ground for rapidly intensifying hurricanes. Fueled by environmental conditions that beget increasingly severe storms—with climate change as a root contributor—the new research finds that hurricanes are growing wetter and strengthening faster near the already hurricane-battered coastline.

Hurricane Ian, whose wide eye is shown here, is among the strongest storms to strike the U.S. coast. New research finds that rapidly intensifying hurricanes such as Ian will develop faster and grow wetter in a future marked by continued fossil fuel reliance. (Image: NASA)

Looking at data that describe the past four decades of hurricane activity and the conditions that shaped them, researchers find the rates at which hurricanes strengthen near the U.S. Atlantic Coast have climbed since 1979. Looking into a future marked by continued fossil fuel reliance, the team finds this trend is likely to continue.

A warmer world, said climate scientist Karthik Balaguru, is poised to bring hurricanes that intensify quicker and, with them, a heightened risk of flooding to the U.S. Atlantic Coast.

“Our findings have profound implications for coastal residents, decision- and policy-makers,” said Balaguru. “And this isn’t specific only to the Atlantic. It’s happening in several prominent coastal regions across the world.”

Balaguru’s team found that a unique coastal phenomenon lies at the heart of the bustling hurricane activity. A mix of environmental conditions caused by this phenomenon ultimately makes the coastline more conducive to hurricane development.

The same mix of hurricane-favoring conditions doesn’t appear in the Gulf of Mexico, which the team explored. But they could form in many other regions, including those near the East Asian coastline and the northwest Arabian Sea.

The new study was published today, October 17, in Geophysical Research Letters [below], a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

When hurricanes rapidly intensify

Some storms, like Hurricane Ian, which dealt extensive damage and is among the strongest to approach the U.S. coast, can suddenly turn severe. Supercharged by hurricane-friendly conditions like a warmer sea surface or greater atmospheric humidity, they can rapidly intensify, jumping multiple categories sometimes in short order.

Because of the speed at which they build, such hurricanes can elude the predictions of the forecasting community’s best tools. That’s why members of that community—Balaguru among them—are working to better anticipate and understand the conditions that drive rapid hurricane intensification.

The new study reveals that such hurricane-producing conditions are growing more common along the U.S. Atlantic Coast. The key to this changing environment, said Balaguru, begins with warming.

As global temperatures rise, Earth’s surface warms. But that warming doesn’t happen uniformly. Earth’s surface, after all, isn’t made of uniform material. Rocks, dirt, water, trees—it all warms at different rates. And land, for instance, is generally warmer than the sea.

But as greenhouse gases build, said atmospheric scientist and coauthor of the new study Ruby Leung, the temperature difference between warmer land and cooler sea grows more and more divergent.

“Unlike the ocean with unlimited water supply,” said Leung, “there’s much less water in soil. That means the land can’t evaporate as much water, so it can’t get rid of the extra heat trapped by greenhouse gases as quickly as the ocean.” Indeed, global maps depicting past and future warming show the distinct pattern of land warming more than the sea. This increasingly strong difference can create stronger storms.

What’s causing these faster-developing, wetter storms?

The new study describes unique, hurricane-favoring conditions that come about from this difference in warming. Over the warmer land, air pressure is lower. Over the cooler sea, air pressure is relatively higher. The higher-pressure air blows inland toward those warmer, lower-pressure areas.

Earth’s rotation guides these winds in a cyclonic, twisting direction. This spinning strengthens something called “vorticity,” a spinning motion of air that, in this case, happens in the lowest level of Earth’s atmosphere.

This twisting motion pulls humid air near Earth’s surface up into the atmosphere. Hurricanes are often described as “heat engines,” continually sucking up warm, moist air and converting its energy into damaging winds. That energy comes in part from the condensation of water vapor.

As moist air rises inside the hurricane’s core and cools toward the top, water vapor condenses and emits heat. The heat warms nearby air causing it to ascend further. This process invigorates the storm.

Add greenhouse gases that warm the land even more, said Leung, and you strengthen this twisting motion that pulls humid air up. A warmer sea surface—also a product of climate change—adds even more humidity.

Vertical wind shear, however, can throw a wrench into the “heat engine” by injecting dry air into the storm’s core, robbing the hurricane of heat and moisture. But Balaguru’s team found that this negating force has weakened on the U.S. Atlantic Coast over the past four decades, adding to the problem.

“The nearshore environment has absolutely become more favorable for hurricanes near the Atlantic Coast,” said Balaguru, “and that’s very consistent with the rising hurricane intensification we’ve observed in the region.”

What role does climate change play?

The team wanted to identify what role climate change plays in shaping these hurricane-favoring conditions. They also wanted to explore how those conditions might change through the rest of the century.

Using models that depict what consequences would follow in a fossil-fuel-based world economy, the team found that the same conditions will increasingly favor storm development, bringing even greater chances of wetter, faster-developing storms through 2100.

Wind shear will weaken on the Atlantic coast. Potential intensity, which denotes the maximum intensity a storm can sustain under the prevailing conditions, will rise. Atmospheric humidity and nearshore vorticity will strengthen as well.

By averaging their results across multiple climate models, the team reduced the “noise” of natural variability within Earth’s climate system. After comparing across models, what primarily remained was the clear and distinct signal of climate change.

“The spatial patterns of change we’re seeing are consistent across models,” said Balaguru, “and that means that what we have seen is likely related to climate change. Natural variability does play a role, but to a lesser degree.”

These increasingly stark land-sea temperature differences could arise in other coastal areas. Though this research only focused on the northern hemisphere, one would expect the same thing to happen on coastlines of the southern hemisphere, said Balaguru. Because more storms occur in the northern hemisphere, he added, the effect would likely be more prevalent there.

The land-sea temperature differences hold other implications, too. “For example, they have been associated with increasing aridity over land and changing seasonality of precipitation in some regions,” said Leung. “Considering the land-sea warming contrast, this study adds a new and important consequence: changes to hurricane behavior in coastal regions that could affect large populations around the world.”

This work was supported in part by DOE’s Earth and Environmental Systems Modeling Program in the Office of Science. Portions of the work were carried out at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science user facility. In addition to Balaguru and Leung, PNNL data scientist Wenwei Xu is also a coauthor, along with Gregory Foltz, Dongmin Kim, Hosmay Lopez and Robert West of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Science paper:
Geophysical Research Letters
See the science paper for detailed material with images.

See the full article here.

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

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

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 DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory: “New Superconducting Qubit Testbed Benefits Quantum Information Science Development”

From The DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

9.29.22
Karyn Hede

If you’ve ever tried to carry on a conversation in a noisy room, you’ll be able to relate to the scientists and engineers trying to “hear” the signals from experimental quantum computing devices called qubits. These basic units of quantum computers are early in their development and remain temperamental, subject to all manner of interference. Stray “noise” can masquerade as a functioning qubit or even render it inoperable.

That’s why physicist Christian Boutan and his Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) colleagues were in celebration mode recently as they showed off PNNL’s first functional superconducting qubit. It’s not much to look at. Its case—the size of a pack of chewing gum–is connected to wires that transmit signals to a nearby panel of custom radiofrequency receivers. But most important, it’s nestled within a shiny gold cocoon called a dilution refrigerator and shielded from stray electrical signals. When the refrigerator is running, it is among the coldest places on Earth, so very close to absolute zero, less than 6 millikelvin (about −460 degrees F).

Physicists Christian Boutan (L) and Jihee Yang (R) make adjustments to a dilution refrigerator that controls the temperature of a superconducting qubit. (Photo by Andrea Starr | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

The extreme cold and isolation transform the sensitive superconducting device into a functional qubit and slow down the movement of atoms that would destroy the qubit state. Then, the researchers listen for a characteristic signal, a blip on their radiofrequency receivers. The blip is akin to radar signals that the military uses to detect the presence of aircraft. Just as traditional radar systems transmit radio waves and then listen for returning waves, the physicists at PNNL have used a low-temperature detection technique to “hear” the presence of a qubit by broadcasting carefully crafted signals and decoding the returning message.

“You are whispering to the qubit and listening to the resonator,” said Boutan, who assembled PNNL’s first qubit testbed. “If you hit the right frequency with a signal sent to the qubit, you will see the peak of the resonator shift. The state of the qubit changes the resonator frequency. That’s the signal shift we are listening for.”

This is not directly measuring the quantum signal, but rather looking for the trail it leaves behind. One of the many oddities of quantum computing is that scientists can’t measure the quantum state directly. Rather, they probe its impact on the strategically prepared environment around it. This is why PNNL’s expertise in radiofrequency transmission and signal detection has been essential, said Boutan. Any uncontrolled background noise can destroy the qubit coherence.

All of this special care is necessary because the quantum signals the research team is trying to detect and record can rather easily be swamped out by competing “noise” from a variety of sources, including the materials in the qubit itself.

Quantum focus

It’s early days in quantum computing. Existing prototypes such as the one operating in PNNL’s physics lab could be compared to the Macintosh personal computer when Apple founder Steve Jobs and his friends emerged from their garage. Except the investment and stakes are a lot higher at this stage in the quantum computing era.

Radiofrequency signals are collected from the experimental qubit. (Photo by Andrea Starr | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

Scientists are particularly focused on quantum computers’ potential to solve pressing problems of energy production, use, and sustainability. That’s why the U.S. government investment alone totals more than $1 billion through the National Quantum Initiative and the Department of Energy’s National Quantum Information Science (QIS) Research Centers, which are focused on pushing forward the science of quantum computing.

PNNL, which is contributing to three of the five QIS centers, is working on several aspects of quantum information sciences, including revealing and eliminating the sources of interference and noise that throw qubits out of the useful state called “coherence,” writing computer codes that take advantage of these quantum computers, and improving the material design and construction of the qubits themselves. Boutan’s research on microwave quantum sensing is supported through PNNL’s Laboratory Directed Research and Development program.

The care and feeding of qubits

Superconducting qubits are made of exotic metals that react with oxygen in the atmosphere, creating metal oxides. You’ve seen this happening when iron turns to rust.

“It’s a materials problem,” said Brent VanDevender, a PNNL physicist working on sources of interference in qubits. “We call them two-level systems. The term refers to all the defects in your material, such as the oxides, that can mimic the qubit behavior and steal energy.”

PNNL materials scientist Peter Sushko and his colleagues are working on the challenge of stopping qubit “rust” with collaborators at Princeton University through their affiliation with the C2QA QIS Center. There, a team of researchers has developed one of the most durable qubits yet reported. And yet, metal oxides quickly form on the exposed surface of these superconducting qubit devices.

Working with their Princeton collaborators, Sushko and his team have proposed a protective coating that can interfere with oxygen in the air interacting with the surface of qubits and causing them to oxidize.

“Our goal is to remove disorder and to be compatible with the underlying structure,” said Sushko. “We are looking at a protective layer that will sit on top in an orderly way and prevent oxidation, minimizing the effects of disorder.”

This research builds upon foundational research by PNNL materials scientist Marvin Warner and colleagues. They have been building a body of knowledge about how to shield sensitive superconducting metal-based devices by applying a micro-coating that effectively protects the surface from damage that can impact performance.

“Controlling surface chemistry to protect emergent quantum properties of a material is an important approach to developing more stable and robust devices,” Warner said. “It plays perfectly into the strengths of PNNL as a chemistry laboratory.”

Soon the team will construct the proposed solution in the Princeton University Quantum Device Nanofabrication Laboratory. Once built, it will undergo an array of tests. If successful, the qubit could be ready for rigorous tests of its longevity when faced with qubit-coherence-destroying bombardment by atmospheric radiation, also known as cosmic rays.

Going underground

You can count on one hand the number of places in the United States set up to study qubit fidelity in a well-shielded underground environment. Soon PNNL will be among them. Preparations are well underway to set up an underground qubit test facility within PNNL’s Shallow Underground Laboratory. Decades of research on the effects of ionizing radiation have prepared PNNL scientists to establish how well quantum devices can tolerate interference from bombardment by natural radiation sources. Here, researchers and technicians are busy setting up a dilution refrigerator similar to the one in PNNL’s physics lab.

Within an ultra-clean room with world-leading ultra-pure material synthesis and ultra-low background radiation detection, experimental qubits will be put through their paces in a custom lead shielded environment that reduces external gamma-rays by more than 99 percent.

About 40 feet below ground, shielded by a mound of concrete, rocks and soil, lies the Shallow Underground Laboratory, which is central to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s capabilities in national security and fundamental physics. (Photo by Andrea Starr | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

Within the year, PNNL will be prepared to complete the full cycle of qubit testing, from design and theory, to microfabrication, to environmental testing, to deployment with research partners.

“Fully functional quantum computers will only be useful when they become reliable,” said Warner. “With our research partners, we are preparing today to help usher in that era today.”

See the full article here .

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

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

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 DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory: “PNNL Advances Science to Convert Plastics to Fuels”

From The DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

9.26.22
Steven Ashby

Knowing that recycling is good for the planet, many of us gather up our glass, aluminum and plastic instead of putting them in the trash.

But chances are, most of us don’t think about how to get the most value from those materials or the technical challenges associated with doing so.

At the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, scientists discovered a promising approach to make it easier to turn petroleum-based plastic waste into chemicals that can be used to produce new materials and fuels.

Their method, which could make it possible to “upcycle” plastics into more valuable products, focuses on increasing the efficiency of the desired chemical conversion.

The scientists are developing novel catalysts that speed up the chemical reactions while using a smaller amount of a precious metal than other catalysts. As an added benefit, their method also generates less greenhouse gas as a byproduct.

In their experiments, researchers at PNNL determined how to efficiently break chemical bonds within plastics and facilitate a reaction that allows hydrogen to be added, resulting in a hydrocarbon that can be used as a fuel.

While the idea of exploiting this reaction is not new, the high-temperatures and expensive catalysts needed to produce fuels this way have made it cost-prohibitive for practical use.

PNNL scientists began by reducing the amount of the precious metal ruthenium in the catalyst they were studying.

Examining the process at the molecular level, they saw a change in the catalyst’s structure from orderly three-dimensional particles to particles that were less organized. And with that disorder, the catalyst is better at facilitating the desired reaction.

Their observations, inspired by PNNL’s previous work on single-atom catalysts, helped the research team understand the potential for designing and developing more effective, efficient catalysts that literally allow them to do more with less.

More specifically, results show that by lowering the amount of ruthenium, researchers could enable chemical conversions of a specific type of plastic called polypropylene that were seven times more efficient than what was reported in scientific literature.

Combined, polypropylene and another type of plastic, polyethylene, make up more than 50 percent of plastics produced—and this approach could work for upcycling of both.

As researchers at PNNL build a fundamental understanding of catalysts and how their structure determines their behavior, they are not only helping make the process more efficient, but they are also making it cleaner.

The reaction that occurs when hydrogen is added to plastics often generates large amounts of methane, which is a greenhouse gas.

By designing catalysts that break chemical bonds at certain positions, scientists could change the reaction enough to significantly reduce the methane produced as byproduct of upcycling plastics.

Future Needs

Looking ahead, researchers seek to advance industrial upcycling by learning more about how their system would be impacted by real-world conditions, including the different chemical compositions of materials found in mixed plastic recycling streams.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, less than 10 percent of the 36 million tons of plastics generated in the United States in 2018 (the most recent year reported) were recycled while 27 million tons were put into landfills.

And, while I’ve heard the saying that “pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting,” there are technical and economic challenges that make it difficult to harvest those resources from discarded plastic.

So, let’s do our part and raise our reusable water bottles in a toast to the researchers at PNNL who are helping to realize the promise of turning plastics into valuable fuels and chemicals.

See the full article here.

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

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

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 DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory And The University of Washington College of Engineering: “Simple Process Extracts Valuable Magnesium Salt from Seawater”

From The DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

And

The University of Washington College of Engineering

9.23.22
Beth Mundy

Researchers can isolate magnesium feedstocks from the ocean, important for renewable energy applications. Composite image by Cortland Johnson | PNNL.

A new flow-based method harvests a magnesium salt from Sequim seawater.

Since ancient times, humans have extracted salts, like table salt, from the ocean. While table salt is the easiest to obtain, seawater is a rich source of different minerals, and researchers are exploring which ones they can pull from the ocean. One such mineral, magnesium is abundant in the sea and increasingly useful on the land.

Magnesium has emerging sustainability-related applications including in carbon capture and low-carbon cement and potential next-generation batteries. These applications are bringing renewed attention to domestic magnesium production. Currently, magnesium is obtained in the United States through an energy-intensive process from salt lake brines, some of which are in danger due to droughts. The Department of Energy included magnesium on its recently released list of critical materials for domestic production.

A paper published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters [below] shows how researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and the University of Washington (UW) have found a simple way to isolate a pure magnesium salt, a feedstock for magnesium metal, from seawater.
______________________________________________________________

The sustainable production of critical materials from natural sources requires a paradigm shift away from currently used resource-intensive processes. We report a single-step, laminar coflow method (LCM) that leverages nonequilibrium conditions to selectively extract pure Mg(OH)2 from natural seawater. Conventional seawater-based Mg extraction involves adding individual or a combination of precipitants to obtain Mg(OH)2, but the coexistence of Ca2+ unavoidably results in CaCO3 impurities requiring additional purification steps. Here, we show that the nonequilibrium conditions in LCM achieved using a microfluidics device and by simply coinjecting a NaOH solution with seawater can result in improved selectivity for Mg(OH)2 unlike in a conventional bulk mixing method. The resulting precipitates are characterized for composition, and the process yield and purity are optimized through systematic variations of the reaction time and the concentration of NaOH. This is the first demonstration of LCM for selective separation, and as a one-step process that does not rely on novel sorbents, membranes, or external stimuli, it is easy to scale up. LCM has the potential to be broadly relevant to selective separations from complex feed streams and diverse chemistries, enabling more sustainable materials extraction and processing.
______________________________________________________________

The new method flows two solutions side-by-side in a long stream called the laminar coflow method. The process takes advantage of the fact that the flowing solutions create a constantly reacting boundary. Fresh solutions flow by, never allowing the system to reach a balance.

This method plays a new trick with an old process. In the mid-20th century, chemical companies successfully created magnesium feedstock from seawater by mixing it with sodium hydroxide, commonly known as lye. The resulting magnesium hydroxide salt, which gives the antacid milk of magnesia its name, was then processed to make magnesium metal. However, the process results in a complex mixture of magnesium and calcium salts, which are hard and costly to separate. This recent work produces pure magnesium salt, enabling more efficient processing.

“Normally, people move separations research forward by developing more complicated materials,” said PNNL chemist and UW Affiliate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Chinmayee Subban. “This work is so exciting because we’re taking a completely different approach. We found a simple process that works. When scaled, this process could help drive the renaissance of U.S. magnesium production by generating primary feedstock. We’re surrounded by a huge, blue, untapped resource.”

From Sequim water to solid salt

Subban and the team tested their new method using seawater from the PNNL-Sequim campus, allowing the researchers to take advantage of PNNL facilities across Washington State.

“As a Coastal Sciences staff member, I just called a member of our Sequim chemistry team and requested a seawater sample,” said Subban. “The next day, we had a cooler delivered to our lab in Seattle. Inside, we found cold packs and a bottle of chilled Sequim seawater.” This work represents the collaboration that can happen across PNNL’s Richland, Seattle, and Sequim campuses.

In the laminar coflow method, the researchers flow seawater alongside a solution with hydroxide. The magnesium-containing seawater quickly reacts to form a layer of solid magnesium hydroxide. This thin layer acts as a barrier to solution mixing.

“The flow process produces dramatically different results than simple solution mixing,” said PNNL postdoctoral researcher Qingpu Wang. “The initial solid magnesium hydroxide barrier prevents calcium from interacting with the hydroxide. We can selectively produce pure solid magnesium hydroxide without needing additional purification steps.”

The selectivity of this process makes it particularly powerful. Generating pure magnesium hydroxide, without any calcium contamination, allows researchers to skip energy-intensive and expensive purification steps.

Sustainability for the future

The new and gentle process has the potential to be highly sustainable. For example, the sodium hydroxide used to extract the magnesium salt can be generated on site using seawater and marine renewable energy. Removing magnesium is a necessary pre-treatment for seawater desalination. Coupling the new process with existing technologies could make it easier and cheaper to turn seawater into freshwater.

The team is particularly excited about the future of the process. Their work is the first demonstration of the laminar coflow method for selective separations. This new approach has many additional potential applications, but more work needs to be done to understand the underlying chemistry of the process. The knowledge gap offers new possibilities and research directions for powering the blue economy.

“We want to take this work from the empirical to the predictive,” said PNNL materials scientist Elias Nakouzi. “There is an exciting opportunity to develop a fundamental understanding of how this process operates while applying it to important problems like creating new energy materials and achieving selective separation of hard-to-separate ions for water treatment and resource recovery.”

The published study was supported by the PNNL Laboratory Directed Research and Development program. Elisabeth Ryan of UW was also a co-author of the study. Current development of this technology is supported by the Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Water Power Technologies Office under the Marine Energy Seedlings Program.

Science paper:
Environmental Science & Technology Letters
See the science paper for instructive images.

See the full article here.

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About The University of Washington College of Engineering

Mission, Facts, and Stats
Our mission is to develop outstanding engineers and ideas that change the world.

Faculty:
275 faculty (25.2% women)
Achievements:

128 NSF Young Investigator/Early Career Awards since 1984
32 Sloan Foundation Research Awards
2 MacArthur Foundation Fellows (2007 and 2011)

A national leader in educating engineers, each year the College turns out new discoveries, inventions and top-flight graduates, all contributing to the strength of our economy and the vitality of our community.

Engineering innovation

Engineers drive the innovation economy and are vital to solving society’s most challenging problems. The College of Engineering is a key part of a world-class research university in a thriving hub of aerospace, biotechnology, global health and information technology innovation. Over 50% of The University of Washington startups in FY18 came from the College of Engineering.

Commitment to diversity and access

The College of Engineering is committed to developing and supporting a diverse student body and faculty that reflect and elevate the populations we serve. We are a national leader in women in engineering; 25.5% of our faculty are women compared to 17.4% nationally. We offer a robust set of diversity programs for students and faculty.
Research and commercialization

The University of Washington is an engine of economic growth, today ranked third in the nation for the number of startups launched each year, with 65 companies having been started in the last five years alone by UW students and faculty, or with technology developed here. The College of Engineering is a key contributor to these innovations, and engineering faculty, students or technology are behind half of all UW startups. In FY19, UW received $1.58 billion in total research awards from federal and nonfederal sources.

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.