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Two technologies developed at Argonne are among finalists in the 9th annualDiscovermagazine Awards for Technological Innovation.
This is the first time Argonne has been a finalist in the awards, which are presented to the best technologies developed by corporate, academic and government research centers. More than 4,000 innovators were invited to participate in the program, and 44 finalists were chosen in the competition.
The finalists are entered in seven categories in the competition. The winner in each category will be announced at an awards gala Saturday, June 6, at Epcot, at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida.
All 44 finalists will be featured in the July issue ofDiscover magazine, the nation's largest circulation science magazine. A total of seven developments from three DOE laboratories were among the 44 finalists in the awards competition.
The honored Argonne technologies are:
Green solvents -- Millions of pounds of toxic industrial solvents -- many of
which wind up polluting the environment -- could be replaced by "environmentally
friendly" solvents thanks to a new cost-cutting process developed by Jim
Frank, Rathin Datta, Shih-Perng Tsai, and Mike Henry (all ES).
The environmentally benign solvent, called ethyl lactate, has been around for years, but until the Argonne development the cost of producing is has been too high for it to compete economically with lower-priced chemical solvents.
Argonne has reduced the costs by improving a number of steps in the fermentation-based process used to manufacture ethyl lactate, and has also added an electrically driven advanced membrane separation step that eliminates an undesirable salt by-product.
The process was developed with funding from the Department of Energy'sOffice of Industrial Technologies. NTEC, Inc., of Mount Prospect, Ill., is now planning a commercial demonstration plant.
Near-frictionless carbon films-- An ultrahard coating many times slicker
than Teflon has been developed by Ali Erdemir, George Fenske and Osman Eryilaz
(all ET).
The most promising applications for the coating, which may have the lowest coefficient of friction of any carbon-based material in the world, are in automobile and engine parts such as turbocharger rotors and fuel injector components.
Other potential applications include oilless bearings, spacecraft mechanisms, rolling and sliding gear systems and bearings of ultrahigh vacuum instruments.
The coating has exceptional wear resistance and durability, with a coefficient of friction less than .001 -- twenty times lower than the previous record holder.
Funding for the research comes from the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Transportation Technologies.
Solar-powered model cars built by students from Bryan Middle School, Elmhurst, and Plum Grove Jr. High, Rolling Meadows, took top honors for design and racing competition at the eighth annual Junior Solar Sprint May 16.
The racing competition was won by a car built by Bryan Middle School students Tom Donnelly and Jeremy Miller, both 13-year-old seventh-graders. "Brian's Speed Demon" burned up the 65-foot track in 6.02 seconds.
Second place went to the Charles. J. Sahs School, Chicago, and third went to Naperville's Madison Junior High School.
In the design competition, first place went to a car designed by a team from Plum Grove Jr. High, Rolling Meadows; second place went to Chicago's Charles. J. Sahs School, and third to Jerling Junior High, Orland Park.
The competition, sponsored jointly by Argonne, Case Corporation and the Chicago Section of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), was held at Case's Technical Development Center in Burr Ridge.
Each school could enter two cars, designed and built by a student team under the guidance of a science teacher. One car could enter the design competition, and both could race.
All cars used identical solar-electric panels and electrical motors. Cars were powered entirely by the sun and competed in a double elimination race on a straight, asphalt track.
Representatives of the lab's retirement vendors will be at Argonne-East this month to meet individually with employees who have questions about their retirement plans or their retirement plan assets.
The schedule is listed below. To arrange an appointment, call the number listed.
Appointments are for one-half hour each.
| Vendor | Day | For Appointment, call: |
| TIAA/CREF | Thursday, June 11
and Friday, June 12 |
(800) 842-2005 |
| Prudential | Wednesday, June 17, Thursday, June 18
and Friday, June 19 |
(847) 619-3519 |
| Fidelity | Thursday, June 4
and Friday, June 5 |
(800) 642-7131 |
Argonne's Preventive Health and Wellness program will offer prostate screenings Thursday, June 11.
Screenings will take place in Argonne-East's Medical Department in Building 201 and are available to Argonne and DOE employees and their spouses.
Screenings include physical prostate exam by a urologist; a prostate-specific antigen blood test; and a one-hour seminar at 3 p.m. in Building 201, Room 190A-B. Individual results will be returned to the Medical Department and can be picked up there. Cost for the screening is $45.
To schedule an appointment contact the Medical Department at 2-2813 for a registration form. Appointments must be made by Friday, June 5.
Jill Morgenthaler (ECT) will give a talk on "The Gift of Fear, Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence," Wednesday, June 17, at 11:30 a.m. in Argonne-East's Building 362 Auditorium.
The hour-long presentation will help individuals recognize and react to danger. Morgenthaler will discuss eight "tools" to use to protect against attack including messages of intuition, disarming stalkers, danger signals, and choosing not to be the victim.
The presentation is sponsored by the Argonne Chapter of Professional Secretaries International. All interested indviduals are invited to attend and to bring their lunches.
Lori Diachin (MCS) will speak on "The Women in Mathematics and Computer Science Division" at the next First Friday Forum Meeting, Friday, June 5.
The "brown bag" meeting will begin at noon in Argonne-East's Building 201, Room 190.
The First Friday Forum is an informal gathering usually held on the first Friday of each month. Anyone interested in career and gender issues related to women is invited to attend.
A schedule of First Friday Forum meetings is can be found on the Argonne Women in Science & Technology web page.
Both Argonne sites were largely unaffected by the recent "beeper crisis," thanks to an on-site system that doesn't rely on a satellite.
Millions of Americans remained out of touch May 20 and 21, thanks to a satellite outage that rendered most pagers useless.
Service was knocked out to an estimated 80 to 90 percent of the nation's 45 million beepers, and television and radio broadcasts were knocked off the air the night of May 19 when a satellite owned by PanAmSat of Greenwich suddenly lost track of Earth.
Only a dozen pagers at Argonne-East depend on the satellite, said Mike Vonder Heide (ECT), Telecommunications Services manager.
The next meeting of the ArgonneComputer Users Group (CUG) will take place Tuesday, June 2, at 3 p.m. in Argonne-East's Building 221, Room A216. Items on the agenda are:
CIPC Review by Larry Price (HEP)
Administrative Projects for FY98 by Robert Hischier (IPD)
WWW Interface for Mail Aliases by Fred Moszur (ECT).
