August 14, 2026
4 MIN READ
Startup partners with ORNL to develop new manufacturing process
Skuld, Cohort 2023 of Innovation Crossroads, continues to improve upon its manufacturing process with help from ORNL's MDF.
News
-
August 14, 2026
4 MIN READ
Grid disturbance detection tool wins R&D100 Market Disruptor award
ORNL and Southern California Edison’s AWARE platform won a bronze 2026 R&D100 Market Disruptor Award for its innovative approach to grid reliability and wildfire prevention. Using AI and advanced waveform analysis, AWARE detects and classifies dangerous grid disturbances—including hard-to-detect electrical arcing—to help utilities respond faster and improve grid resilience.
August 12, 2026
1 MIN READ
Synergistic Doping Stabilizes a Tunable Kagome Family
Scientific Achievement: Established new family of magnetically tunable, cleavable kagome metals by combining chemical substitution, electron filling, and magnetic properties to develop new intermetallic phases.Significance and Impact: Introduces a new synthetic strategy for stabilizing and tuning complex quantum materials, opening new routes to discover Kagome metals with controllable magnetic and electronic properties.DOI: 10.1021/jacs.6c06163
August 11, 2026
5 MIN READ
ORNL, Kyoto Fusioneering to develop fusion technology test facility in East Tennessee
The Department of Energy has committed funding to establish UNITY-3, a fusion breeding blanket test facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in partnership with Kyoto Fusioneering. The facility will test breeding blanket technologies under fusion-like conditions and support research on tritium fuel production, high-energy neutron science and AI-accelerated digital twins.
August 10, 2026
4 MIN READ
ORNL helps East Tennessee children by filling backpacks for the new school year
ORNL employees volunteered with Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee to pack 8,000 weekend food bags for children experiencing food insecurity through the Food for Kids program. The event is part of ORNL Gives, the laboratory’s annual employee giving and volunteer campaign, and builds on a partnership with Second Harvest that has supported East Tennessee communities for more than 20 years.
August 10, 2026
5 MIN READ
Fungi enhance hydrogels for stronger, safer materials
Researchers at ORNL and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, have made a scientific advance by using a natural substance from fungi, called chitin, to create hydrogels that are both significantly stronger and tougher. This new material could lead to safer medical devices, longer-lasting coatings and other innovations that improve everyday technology and health care.
August 10, 2026
8 MIN READ
ORNL’s revived rhenium isotope generators answer call for cancer therapies
Oak Ridge National Laboratory has resumed production of W-188/Re-188 generators, which provide the radioactive isotope Re-188 for medical research. Vanderbilt researchers used an updated ORNL generator to test a Re-188-based treatment for prostate cancer in mice, with preliminary results described as promising.
August 6, 2026
4 MIN READ
AI powers self-driving science
Researchers at ORNL and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, demonstrated an AI-driven workflow that guided data collection in real time during a beamline experiment at Cornell University's CHESS facility. The approach allowed the AI to adjust measurements as data was collected, advancing autonomous scientific research and supporting DOE's Genesis Mission.
August 6, 2026
6 MIN READ
New platform speeds bacterial gene mapping for better biotech design
Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers developed a high-throughput microbial QTL mapping platform that combines synthetic biology, AI, automation and gene editing to identify the genetic basis of complex bacterial traits up to 10 times faster than previous methods. The platform enables more precise engineering of microbes for applications including specialty chemicals manufacturing, bioenergy and critical minerals recovery, and is available for licensing.
August 6, 2026
2 MIN READ
Advincula named American Chemical Society Fellow
Rigoberto "Gobet" Advincula, a Governor's Chair Professor jointly appointed at ORNL and the University of Tennessee, has been named a 2026 Fellow of the American Chemical Society's Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Division.
August 5, 2026
5 MIN READ
ORNL, Type One Energy to advance fusion fuel cycle with innovative new technologies
ORNL has licensed a suite of cryogenic pellet fueling technologies to Type One Energy, advancing a critical capability for high-performance fusion plasma operations. The agreement, signed at the Nuclear Opportunities Workshop (NOW) in Knoxville, Tennessee, outlines the use of four ORNL inventions supporting the design and operation of cryogenic pellet fueling systems.
August 4, 2026
6 MIN READ
As californium-252 demand continues to climb, ORNL is increasing production
ORNL has developed a new californium-252 processing method that reduces separation time by about a week while maintaining the same quality. As the only producer of californium-252 in the western world, ORNL is also increasing production to meet growing demand for the isotope.