Feature Stories

It's all part of the grind: CMI's new hard drive shredder serves up plenty of material for recycling science

CMI Research into recovery of rare-earth materials from electronic waste is getting a boost from an industrial shredder than can quickly turn obsolete hard drives into pulverized scrap.

For the sake of the planet, refrigeration tech needs an update

Refrigeration keeps our food is fresh and our offices and living rooms are temperature-controlled thanks to vapor compression technology developed over a century ago, but it's reached its theoretical limit for potential energy efficiency. A group of scientists and engineers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory are inspired by the idea that refrigeration could be radically improved—made cheaper, cleaner, and more energy-efficient—by abandoning vapor compression for something entirely new: a solid-state caloric system.

Crystallizing success: New crucible design makes materials research safer, more accurate

When traditional methods weren't producing the desired results, Ames Laboratory physicist Paul Canfield set about designing a better method to strain samples during flux growth. The result is a new, commercially available crucible system that bears Canfield's name.

Rare-earth magnet recycling wins FLC innovation award

An acid-free dissolution rare-earth magnet recycling process has earned a 2018 Notable Technology Development Award from the Federal Laboratories Consortium (FLC).

Researchers at the Critical Materials Institute (CMI) and Ames Laboratory invented a magnet recycling process in which magnets are dissolved in water-based solutions, recovering more than 99 percent purity rare earth elements. Cobalt is also recovered from cobalt-containing magnet wastes. The rare earth materials recovered have been reused in making new magnets, and the recovered cobalt shows promise for use in making battery cathodes.

Seeing the future of new energy materials

Ames Laboratory has recently received new funding to study such materials by developing and applying new techniques in solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Researchers hope to use those techniques to find out how new energy materials function in order to optimize them.

Cooler in 10

A new research consortium at Ames Laboratory called CaloriCoolⓇ launched in 2016 with the idea that refrigeration could be radically better—cheaper, cleaner, more precise and energy-efficient—by abandoning vapor compression for something entirely new: a solid-state caloric system. And this research team plans to do it—including adoption into manufactured systems and products—within a decade.

The Power of One: Single crystals provide clarity

hen it comes to creating new materials, single crystals play an important role in presenting a clearer picture of a material’s intrinsic properties. A typical material will be comprised of lots of smaller crystals and the grain boundaries between these crystals can act as impediments, affecting properties such as electrical or thermal resistance.

Ames Laboratory scientist Paul Canfield removes a sample from a flux-growth furnace.

Exploring Mysteries on the Surface: 2D Materials reveal surprising properties

wo-dimensional materials are a bit of a mind-bending concept. Humans live in a three dimensional world, after all, where everything observed in our natural world has height, width, and depth. And yet when graphene—a carbon material unique in its truly flat, one-atom-deep dimension—was first produced in 2004, the mind-bending concept became reality and an unexplored frontier in materials science.

Solid-state Processing: New paths to new materials

Creating materials in their solid state can be tricky, but offers some advantages over other methods. It typically involves subjecting the component elements to some type of mechanical force—such as stress, shear or strain—to drive a reaction.

Ball milling canisters and stainless steel milling balls