Research Highlights

Discovery of stable nanodomains in an ionic liquid between 20 and 50˚C could enhance separations

Ionic liquids have exceptional properties in separations that may benefit the DOE mission in sequestering CO2 or rare earth elements. Understanding their structure provides a means of exploiting them. Previous investigations have focused on the small (~1-nm) domains formed by ionic liquids. We observe two large domains in tetradecyltrihexyl phosphonium chloride that are stable up to 50˚C.

Extreme Confinement Stabilizes Undercoordinated Sites

Scientists at Ames National Laboratory discovered that confinement effects can be sufficient to reduce the effective coordination number of a metal in grafted organometallic complexes. They applied nuclear dipolar coupling measurements to study the temperature-dependent motions of rare earth amidinate complexes grafted to silica support materials. They observed that ligand dynamics could be hindered, and slowed down, in narrow-pore environments.

CMI partner wins wind turbine recycling prize

CMI researchers from Ames National Laboratory and TdVib conducted the activity for this highlight

Nd metal successfully produced with fluoride-based feedstock without hazardous chemicals

CMI researchers from Ames National Laboratory and an industry partner conducted the activity for this highlight

Diversifying lithium supply from brines to hard-rock minerals: mechanochemical extraction of lithium at low temperature (MELLT) from α-spodumenes

CMI researchers from Ames National Laboratory conducted the activity for this highlight

Theoretical framework for modeling of intermixing in core-shell nanocrystals (NCs) with realistic kinetics

Solution-phase synthesis of metallic nanocrystals (NCs) can produce NCs with tailored non-equilibrium shapes, and e.g., core-shell compositional profiles for bimetallic NCs. These structures can be tailored to optimize properties for applications such as catalysis, but they are metastable and possible post-synthesis evolution would degrade properties.

Adaptive variational quantum computing approaches for response function calculations

Synergistic integration of variational quantum eigensolver with a quantum subspace expansion

12 MG-Oe energy product of MM-FeCo-B magnet

CMI researchers from Ames National Laboratory conducted the activity for this highlight

12 MG-Oe energy product of MM-FeCo-B magnet (MM=mischmetal)

CMI researchers from Ames National Laboratory conducted the activity for this highlight