ORNL Wins 14 R&D 100 Research Awards

In an impressive showcase of cutting-edge innovation and scientific prowess, Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been recognized as a beacon of technological excellence, receiving 14 R&D 100 Awards, announced this week by R&D World magazine.

This year’s winners represent not only a pinnacle of research but also embody ORNL’s relentless pursuit of innovation that drives progress across industries.

“ORNL researchers push the edge of innovation,” said ORNL director Stephen Streiffer. “The R&D 100 Awards showcase the far-reaching and impactful work they do to address national challenges through science and technology.”

R&D World magazine announced the winners from a selection of 141 finalists representing 16 countries and regions. ORNL either led or played a role in 24 of the projects named as finalists. The winners will be recognized at the organization’s award ceremony November 21, 2024, in Palm Desert, CA.

Often referred to as “The Oscars of Innovation” and the “Nobel Prize of Engineering,” the R&D 100 Awards has for the last 60-plus years honored science and technology research and development leading to new commercial products, technologies and materials that are available for sale or license.

ORNL’s R&D 100 Award winning technologies and their developers are:

• Polyphase Electromagnetic Couplers for Extreme Fast Wireless Charging of Electric Vehicles: Polyphase electromagnetic wireless charging includes the most compact and lightweight coils possible to achieve the highest-power transfer levels to electric vehicles, or EVs. This process is similar to the wireless charging of small consumer devices, but the unique geometry and design of the polyphase coils enable the transfer of extremely high-power levels using rotating magnetic fields generated by the coil phase windings to boost the power. ORNL’s research team demonstrated a 100-kilowatt wireless power transfer to a Hyundai Kona EV and a 270-kW wireless power transfer to a Porsche Taycan EV – both world records for light-duty passenger vehicles.

• High-Efficiency Micro Combined Heat and Power Device: ORNL and Enginuity Power Systems developed a high-efficiency 8-kilowatt micro-CHP, or combined heat and power device, powered by an opposed-piston engine to simultaneously generate electricity and provide heat to residential or light commercial buildings. The micro-CHP can run on natural gas, renewable biogas and hydrogen, enabling the transition from conventional fossil fuels to zero-carbon fuels. 

Contributing to the technology were Zhiming Gao, Kashif Nawaz, Ahmad Abuheiba and Brian Fricke of ORNL; and Philip Zoldak, Jacques Beaudry-Losique, Jonathan Mansinger and Maysam Molana from Enginuity Power Systems.

• InertiaMeter: Cost-Effective Real-Time Power System Inertia Monitor: Hydropower is a renewable energy source directly connected to the grid, providing inertia as water spins large turbines. Pumped storage hydropower, or PSH, draws electricity from the grid to pump water in times of low power demand to create an energy storage bank. In times of high demand, PSH generates electricity as water is used from the reservoir to turn the turbines.

• APEX CDR – Amino Acid Process for EXtreme Carbon Dioxide Removal: An ORNL team developed a direct air capture, or DAC, process developed as a possible solution to global warming. Called APEX CDR, it employs environmentally benign amino acid-based solvents for DAC of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

• High Lithium Capacity Sorbents for Direct Lithium Extraction Toward Increased Domestic Critical Mineral Supply Chain: Lithium demand is increasing and better ways extracting lithium are needed. This technology, lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide recovered from brines, clay minerals and recycled lithium-ion batteries, can improve the economics of lithium extraction for energy storage applications. The ORNL team has demonstrated that lanthanum manganese oxide and aluminum oxide are effective sorbents for selective extraction of lithium chloride or lithium sulfate from brines and recycled battery leachates, offering the possibility of effective application of lithium salts in lithium-ion batteries and leading to a fundamental shift in the lithium supply chain. The main goal of this technology is to develop materials and processing technologies that enable significant new production of lithium from domestic resources by 2025.

• Direct Recycling and Remanufacturing of Li-Ion Battery Electrode Scraps: ORNL scientists have developed a new approach to directly recycle battery scraps using a green solvent. This method efficiently separates electrode materials from metal foils at lower temperatures without impacting their quality. The recovered materials are ready for reuse in new batteries, reducing costs and environmental impact.

• MBE-DAC: Multifunctional Building Equipment for Direct Air Capture: MBE-DAC turns existing rooftop air-conditioning and ventilation equipment into direct air capture, or DAC, platforms to capture carbon dioxide from the air and the building’s ventilation airstreams. The technology collects carbon dioxide directly from air that passes through it by utilizing existing commercial and domestic air-handling systems without adding significant cost and energy consumption.

• MedUSA: Large-scale Multi-agent Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing: MedUSA is an ORNL-developed multi-agent additive manufacturing system that uses three robotic arms, each equipped with a welder, to collaboratively create near-net-shape parts via wire-arc additive manufacturing. The welders in MedUSA deposit melted metal layer upon layer to create components in significantly less time than traditional manufacturing techniques and can create complex shapes not achievable through other approaches.

• Split-Marker for Gene Stacking: This novel system for genetic engineering in plants makes it easy to add and study multiple genes at once, doubling the speed and halving the cost of plant transformation. This genetic engineering system uses a novel split selectable marker to insert multiple genes into a plant cell simultaneously. This means you only need one marker to select and track the success of adding these genes. It also allows easy identification of transgenic events – identifying which plants have the new genes – using the naked eye through visualization of two reporters: RUBY, which turns the leaf red under white light, and GFPuv, which causes the plant to glow green under UV light.

• Selective Mixed Plastic Recycling: Less than 10% of plastic waste is recycled. ORNL scientists have developed an extremely effective method that transforms a variety of plastic and mixed plastic wastes into valuable chemicals, thereby significantly decreasing the use of fossil fuels, greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption.  The novel organocatalyst can deconstruct all kinds of bottles, packaging, foams, lenses, textiles and carpets, which often exist as mixed plastics and are very difficult to recycle by conventional technologies.

• Real-Time Evaluator for Fast and Accurate Installation of Prefab Components: The Real-Time Evaluator, or RTE, improves the process for installing prefabricated building components by providing feedback in real time with the use of advanced software, surveying tools and 3D digital models of the building, called digital twins, to guide the precise placement. The RTE provides instant feedback and gives builders immediate instructions through a mobile phone application to show how to adjust placement to meet installation requirements.

• IRIS-SDK: Intelligent Runtime System for Extremely Heterogeneous Computer Architecture: 
IRIS is a unique runtime system designed to work with various types of computer hardware, boosting performance, portability and productivity. IRIS represents a pioneering leap in intelligent runtime systems tailored for extremely heterogeneous computer architectures.

• MAQ: Machine Learning on Adiabatic Quantum Computers: ORNL-developed MAQ is the first software that enables developers to leverage the speed of quantum computing to train machine learning algorithms significantly faster than using classical computers without affecting accuracy.

• ORNL also co-led the UnifyFS project, an R&D 100 Award winner in the Software/Services category. Co-developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, ORNL’s National Center for Computational Sciences and the University of Illinois, UnifyFS is an evolving user-level file system that makes node-local storage as easy to use as a parallel file system, improving performance and usability for scientific applications.

• Joshua New, ORNL Distinguished R&D staff member, won the R&D Researcher of the Year Award. New won for his many contributions to building science, energy efficiency and climate change research.

Throughout his career, New has averaged 12.4 publications per year, and had consistent success securing significant research funding, averaging $9 million annually. He also is dedicated to mentoring and knowledge sharing, “ensuring the next generation of researchers are prepared to address future sustainability challenges.”

New developed DOE’s Roof Savings Calculator, an industry web tool for estimating savings from cool roofs, which helped him win a previous R&D 100 Award. He also created the Autotune calibration methodology to make building energy models match measured utility data, which is approved for use in financial decisions. His Automatic Building Energy Modeling, or AutoBEM, software suite led to the creation of energy models for all 125.7 million buildings in the U.S.