Recent News
Growing Hematite, Slowing Pollution
Understanding subsurface processes at the molecular level will play a major role in environmental cleanup and pollution prevention. To elucidate one of the influential reaction—selectron and atom exchange between aqueous Fe(II) and structural Fe(III) in minerals—researchers from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the University of Iowa, and Yale University collaborated to connect previous, separate studies on this topic. Full story
Outer Membrane Cytochromes Play Key Role in Electron Transfer
As part of a Biogeochemistry Grand Challenge sponsored by the Department of Energy's EMSL, scientists have made significant progress toward understanding electron exchange at the interface between microbes and minerals. A team from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and the University of Guelph have further improved this understanding by recently discovering that outer-membrane cytochromes MtrC and OmcA of the metal-reducing bacterium Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 are key to reducing and transforming ferrihydrite. Full story
NWChem Crosses the Petaflop Barrier
Scientists' ability to solve large scientific problems in energy, environment, and biology took a giant leap forward as EMSL's NWChem software demonstrated for the first time that it can perform at the petascale. Petascale computers are capable of performing one quadrillion–that's one million billion–operations per second. Full story
Answers to Probing Questions
Scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have used state-of-the art experimental and computational methods at EMSL to gain a deeper understanding of bonding in uranium oxides. This study, which includes the first solid-state NMR data for the uranyl ion UO22+, advances fundamental knowledge of uranium chemical interactions in specific environments–a topic with clear environmental applications in contaminant cleanup and pollution prevention. For these contributions, the team's work appeared on the February 28, 2010, cover of the Journal of Chemical Physics. Full story
New Methodology Supplies Precise Answers on Chemical Reactions
Whether developing new energy sources or investigating the fate of environmental contaminants, scientists can now obtain precise answers about the fundamental interactions controlling these processes, thanks to a predictable, robust methodology created at the Department of Energy's EMSL. The new methodology, available in NWChem, improves the accuracy of the computationally intensive coupled cluster approach in describing large-scale chemical systems under realistic finite temperature and pressure conditions. Full story
Suppression of Uranium Release to Groundwater by Phosphate and Calcium
Using resources at the Department of Energy's EMSL, scientists from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Missouri-Columbia uncovered two reactions that suppress highly mobile uranium release to groundwater from contaminated soils. At former uranium ore mining and processing sites, highly mobile uranium that was lodged within soil particles can be released into groundwater during rainstorms and snowmelt. The contaminated groundwater can subsequently flow toward rivers, lakes, and other water sources, causing environmental health concerns. Full story
