Argonne Research Contributes to a Better Future

Still in its infancy, this decade promises to be a period of rapid scientific growth and development. Continuing its 50-year tradition of accomplishment, Argonne National Laboratory is pushing back the frontiers of knowledge on many fronts.

The laboratory has two locations. The main campus covers 1,700 acres in Chicago’s western suburbs. Argonne-West is a 900-acre site located 40 miles west of Idaho Falls, Idaho.

Argonne is a multi-disciplinary research center with major missions in advanced energy technologies, environmental management and basic science, including chemistry, biology, physics, computer science and materials science. In addition, the laboratory runs a number of world-class, national user facilities, including the Advanced Photon Source and the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source.

ILLUMINATING SCIENCE
Argonne’s national user facilities are open to researchers from industry, universities and other laboratories across the country. The Advanced Photon Source (APS), Argonne’s research crown jewel, supplies the nation’s most brilliant X-ray beams for research. The APS has shone new light on many scientific fields. Research on the structure of immune-system proteins will help speed the design of more effective drugs. Studies of the atomic-level interactions of minerals and solids improved scientists' understanding of erosion and environmental contamination.

APS researchers are leading the development of new technology for the next generation of faster, more brilliant light sources. Based on the free-electron laser concept, these light sources will provide beams billions of times more brilliant than possible today.

Even before biologists had finished mapping the human genome, Argonne hosted a workshop that spawned the national structural genomic program to identify the structure and function of biological proteins. This knowledge will help doctors treat, cure and perhaps prevent disease.

The linchpin of this effort at Argonne is the Structural Biology Center (SBC) at the APS. The SBC supplies the quickest and most detailed protein structures available anywhere. Argonne’s researchers have developed techniques to slash the time needed to determine a protein’s structure from months or years to as little as hours or days.

Argonne’s Intense Pulsed Neutron Source (IPNS) is the nation’s most reliable source of neutrons for studying atomic arrangements and motions in liquids and solids. IPNS researchers are in charge of designing the instrument suite for the new Spallation Neutron Source under construction at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Argonne was chosen to work closely with Oak Ridge on designing and building the new experimental facility because Argonne researchers and engineers built the first spallation neutron source in the 1970s.

Argonne physicists have designed plans for a major new national physics research facility that may be built here. Physicists understand stable ions, but the proposed Rare Isotope Accelerator will allow them to study the short-lived, “exotic” ones that originate in astrophysical processes and create most of the chemical elements.

Physicists investigating the potential of exotic nuclei research at the Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System benefited from many Argonne facilities, something that can happen only at a multidisciplinary national laboratory. One result was an insight that can help find supernovae in the Milky Way.

Researchers commonly study small objects, but Argonne chemists and materials scientists are investigating the unique properties of nanomaterials. These materials are measured in billionths of a meter and can be as tiny as 10 atoms across. Their promise for useful applications from manufacturing to medicine is as huge as the materials are infinitesimal.

ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT
When Argonne was chartered as the nation’s first national laboratory in 1946, its goal was to develop peaceful uses of atomic power. While the mission has expanded since then, energy has always remained at the forefront of Argonne research.

Argonne is the lead laboratory in seven U.S. Department of Energy projects to retain nuclear power as an energy option for the future. Researchers are investigating the physics and engineering of advanced nuclear energy systems, fuels and materials, spent-fuel chemistry and nuclear waste minimization.

The laboratory’s nuclear energy expertise is also helping improve the efficiency of existing reactors, increasing the security of research reactors and providing leadership in international nuclear power concerns.

The National Research Council recommended Argonne continue using its newly demonstrated technology for treating spent fuel from Experimental Breeder Reactor-II. The reactor was shut down in 1994.

The laboratory’s energy-efficiency research involves both basic and applied science. Engineers work with industry groups to develop long-term plans to operate industrial facilities in cleaner and more efficient ways. Engineers are working with the government and transportation industry officials to create cars, trucks and locomotives that are cleaner and more energy efficient.

In the environmental arena, Argonne researchers are developing quick and cost-effective techniques to clean contaminated sites and creating software to aid environmental managers when they need to make complex ecosystem decisions.

THE BEST OF ARGONNE
Argonne received three R&D 100 awards in 2000. These awards presented by R&D magazine recognize the top 100 products developed each year. Argonne’s winners were:

• The CCD X-ray detector – Created for the Structural Biology Center, it allows scientists to study and determine the structure of larger protein molecules 100 times faster and in greater detail than ever before.
  
  
• The hard X-ray scanning microprobe for the APS – This non-invasive tool provides spatial detail previously unavailable from X-ray research. The microprobe works much like a scanning electron microscope, except that an X-ray beam replaces the electron beam and allows scientists to study samples without having to specially prepare them.
  
  
• A process to clean and recover flexible foam from automobile shredder residue – It can keep about 300 million pounds of automobile scrap from landfills and save about 12 trillion Btu of energy annually in the United States.

Another plastic recovery technique was named a Discover Award finalist. The Federal Laboratory Consortium recognized the researchers who developed the chemically bonded ceramic Ceramicrete for excellence in technology transfer.

An Argonne-developed laser-weld monitor was put to work in a DaimlerChrysler transmission plant in Kokomo, Ind., where it helps make better welded parts at lower cost. The plant’s scrap from bad welds has decreased 10 percent. The monitor was designed for research and was then further tested and commercialized by cooperative research and development partner Spawr Industries.

Working with the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Englehardt Institute of Molecular Biology, Argonne researchers have developed a new biochip that may do for biology what the electronic chip did to revolutionize electronics. The biochip is being tested in Russia to see if it can rapidly identify drug-resistant tuberculosis strains so doctors may more effectively treat TB.

Students from junior high to graduate school gain valuable experience working with Argonne researchers. Argonne is active in creating and nurturing young scientists by working with students and improving science-teacher training.

Argonne will continue in its long tradition of scientific innovation in the energy, physical and environmental sciences.

The University of Chicago operates Argonne for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The majority of the laboratory’s approximately $466 million operating budget comes from taxpayers through DOE to support more than 200 research projects.