Texas
Texas
ORNL’s partners in the Lonestar State cover a range of academic institutions and high-tech innovators. The laboratory has licensed technology to NovaCentrix, producer of conductive inks for printed electronics and semiconductor manufacturing, and has conducted research on behalf of Zyvex Labs, developer of atomically precise manufacturing tools. ORNL holds cooperative research and development agreements with Hybrid Manufacturing Technologies, which develops hybrid industrial machines that combine additive manufacturing with machining, and MTPV Power Corporation, which makes semiconductor chips that convert heat directly into electricity, among others.
ORNL’s user facilities offer a diverse set of tools for experiments across a range of fields, including biology, materials and energy sciences, physics, engineering, and chemistry. Learn more about ORNL’s user facilities. Data reflects fiscal year 2020 except for scientific publications, which covers 2016–2020. Partner stories reflect work conducted from 2016 to present.
Stomach cancer kills 754,000 people globally each year, and osteoporosis, which causes weakened bones, affects over 200 million people worldwide. An international team of researchers, including researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, used ORNL’s research reactor, the High Flux Isotope Reactor, to build an atomic model of an enzyme that plays a significant role in both diseases. If scientists can better understand how the enzyme’s atoms are arranged, they can uncover how the enzyme interacts with other molecules and, in turn, help drug makers design better drugs to treat these diseases.
ORNL’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility and the laboratory’s cybersecurity science and digital manufacturing expertise will be used to accelerate protection for US manufacturers. These efforts are supported by the Cybersecurity Manufacturing Innovation Institute, a public-private partnership led by the University of Texas at San Antonio.
Learn more about national security science at ORNL.
ORNL new release: “ORNL to Apply Communications Security, Digital Manufacturing Expertise to New DOE Cybersecurity Manufacturing Innovation Institute”
Rice University in Houston receives ytterbium-171 produced at ORNL for use in research on metals and superconductors. Outcomes could lead to new technologies in computing and other areas.
ORNL provides both iron-58 and zirconium-92 to Texas A&M University in College Station for biological research.
Momentum Technologies, a Dallas-based materials science company, licensed an ORNL process for recovering cobalt and other metals from spent lithium-ion batteries. As more consumers embrace electric vehicles, developing efficient technologies to capture and reuse critical elements from spent batteries will be important to maintaining adequate supply without dependence on costly overseas mining and processing of critical materials.
Learn more about physical science at ORNL.
ORNL news release: “From Trash to Treasure: Electronic Waste Is Mined for Rare Earth Elements”
For more information, contact news@ornl.gov.
