In Illinois, next time you drive past farms or prairies and ponds on a rural road, look around. They are a rich source of biomass. That includes corn, soybeans, sugar cane, switchgrass, algae and other plant matter. These carbon-rich materials can be converted to liquid fuels and chemicals with many possible applications. There is enough […]
In Illinois, wastewater contains valuable nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus that can be captured and recycled as fertilizer. The water itself can be treated and reused as fresh water. Most wastewater treatment plants do not currently capture these valuable resources for reuse. Nevertheless, there is significant potential for reaping their benefits, according to scientists at […]
In Illinois, when a car battery reaches the end of its life, it goes to an automotive shredder that chops it up. Getting out the useful chemicals from these chopped up batteries is no easy task. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have turned to a process called capacitive deionization […]
In Illinois, Argonne’s Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Technologies Model (GREET), using data provided by Gevo, is expected to yield results about its carbon footprint within a few months. The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory recently partnered with Gevo, Inc., a Colorado-based producer of energy-dense liquid hydrocarbons such as […]
In Illinois, for corn ethanol, most greenhouse gas emissions can be mapped to the fuel’s production, transportation, and combustion, but a large portion of the greenhouse gas calculation can be traced right back to the farm. Because of privacy concerns, however, scientists can’t access individual farm management decisions such as fertilizer type and rate. Nitrogen […]
In Illinois, by supercomputing standards, Argonne National Lab’s Bebop (1.75 terflops, stood up in 2017, bumped off the Top500 list after the June 2019 ranking) and Blues (stood up in 2012, ranked only that year) are somewhat anachronistic, vestiges of an earlier age. But those veteran systems can still take a star turn, as shown […]
In Illinois, a research team, led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory in collaboration with Northern Illinois University, has discovered a new electrocatalyst that converts carbon dioxide (CO2) and water into ethanol with very high energy efficiency, high selectivity for the desired final product and low cost. Ethanol is a particularly […]
In Illinois, Argonne researchers have quantified how to reduce emissions by farms changing their practices and adopting novel technologies. A recent study by researchers in the Energy Systems division at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Argonne National Laboratory quantified how much farms might reduce emissions by changing their practices and adopting novel technologies. The […]
In Illinois, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory are conducting pivotal research that will help keep soil healthy now and into the future. Scientists have long known that corn residue or stover — meaning the aboveground portions of the corn plant remaining after harvest — plays a critical role in […]
In Illinois, researchers from two divisions at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory who have joined forces to develop a highly selective adsorbent material called EZ Select to tackle inefficiencies in bioproduct extraction. Combining the laboratory’s expertise in biosciences with its manufacturing know-how, the technology demonstrates the power of partnership. In bioproduct […]
