(AGENPARL) - Roma, 29 Settembre 2023(AGENPARL) – ven 29 settembre 2023 A weekly compendium of media reports on science and technology achievements
at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Though the Laboratory reviews
items for overall accuracy, the reporting organizations are responsible for
the content in the links below.
….. LLNL Report, Sept. 29, 2023
The target chamber of LLNL’s National Ignition Facility, where 192 laser
beams delivered more than 2 million joules of ultraviolet energy to a tiny
fuel pellet to generate 3.88 megajoules of energy.
… Ignition achieved at LLNL. Again.
https://app.meltwater.com/newsletters/analytics/view/56b53d72a46f8a8c8be60d3a/newsletter/58d2e344f24a38f5224ef669/distribution/6512ebafab3b5e0013e4d784/document/e0rExNjeQsoZyBrCXihZ3Ru2dZA
In July, scientists at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory generated a burst of energy by bombarding a pellet of
hydrogen with 192 lasers, reproducing for a brief moment the process of
fusion that powers the sun. It was a repeat of an experiment last December,
but this time the scientists generated even more energy with nearly a factor
of two in gain compared with the energy of the incoming lasers.
“We again repeated ignition,” Richard Town, the associate program
director of the laser fusion program at Livermore, said. He gave a talk about
the July experiment on Monday at a conference in Denver.
The Livermore results raise hopes that fusion can one day be used to generate
bountiful amounts of electricity without producing greenhouse gases or
long-lived radioactive waste.
The experiment in December generated a whirlwind of accolades when it
produced about three megajoules of energy — equivalent to about 1.5 pounds
of TNT, or about 1.5 times the energy of the incoming lasers. It was the
first time that a fusion reaction in a laboratory setting produced more
energy than it took to start the reaction.
The July experiment was essentially identical to the December one.. “We
expected a similar yield,” Town said. “On the order of three
megajoules.” The actual output was 3.88 megajoules.
The better-than-predicted result indicates that with a few tweaks, laser
fusion can become markedly more efficient.
Read More
https://app.meltwater.com/newsletters/analytics/view/56b53d72a46f8a8c8be60d3a/newsletter/58d2e344f24a38f5224ef669/distribution/6512ebafab3b5e0013e4d784/document/e0rExNjeQsoZyBrCXihZ3Ru2dZA
The California Delta is an ideal location to store carbon because of its
geological foundations. Photo courtesy of USGS. **
… Zeroing in on carbon sequestration
Unlocking Net Zero Emissions in the California Delta
The picturesque California Delta, often referred to as the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta, is emerging as a geological sweet spot in California’s
ambitious journey toward reaching net zero carbon emissions. Its unique
geology presents a compelling case for carbon sequestration, an essential
strategy in the battle against climate change.
Recent developments, including a collaborative effort between SCS and
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on a Class VI permit application for
Pelican Renewables – a company formed by delta landowners and residents to
pursue geologic storage – are indicative of the region’s growing
importance in California’s carbon mitigation strategy.
The California Delta is a vast inland delta formed by the confluence of the
Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and their tributaries as they meet the
waters of the San Francisco Bay. Its unique geology makes it an ideal
candidate for carbon sequestration.
California has set an ambitious goal to achieve net zero carbon emissions by
2045, a milestone in the fight against climate change. Achieving this
objective necessitates reducing emissions and actively removing and storing
carbon from the atmosphere. Carbon sequestration in the California Delta can
play a pivotal role in this endeavor. The delta’s geological potential
aligns seamlessly with the state’s commitment to sustainable practices and
environmental responsibility.
Read More
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Meta researchers demonstrated a
new kind of 3D-printed material that can “translate” text messages to
braille on-the-fly by filling the device with air at strategic points. Image
by LLNL.
… It’s hard to be soft
https://www.nanowerk.com/news2/gadget/newsid=63695.php
Engineers and chemists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and
Meta have developed a new kind of 3D-printed material capable of replicating
characteristics of biological tissue, an advancement that could impact the
future of “augmented humanity.”
LLNL and Meta researchers describe a framework for creating a “one-pot”
3D-printable resin in which light is used to pattern smooth gradients in
stiffness to approximate gradients found in biology, such as where bone meets
muscle. The framework addresses a key challenge in developing more lifelike
wearables: “mechanical mismatch.” Whereas natural tissues are soft,
electronic devices are usually made of rigid materials and it can be
difficult and time-consuming to assemble such devices using traditional
means.
“For engineers, it’s very hard to get a softer material combined with a
stiffer material such as is common in nature,” explained LLNL engineer
Sijia Huang. “Engineers make a part that is stiff and another part that is
soft, and then manually assemble them together, so we have a very sharp
interface that compromises the mechanical property. This work has been
looking into whether we can design continuous mechanical gradients from soft
to stiff in a single resin system. Here, we’re printing everything we’re
seeing, just using the light dosage to control the modulus.”
Huang said the technique works by manipulating the intensity of light applied
to a photopolymer resin though the Digital Light Processing 3D printing
process — a layer-by-layer technique that can rapidly produce parts by
projecting light into a liquid resin — to modulate the deposited plastic
material. A lower light intensity results in a softer material, while a
higher light intensity results in a stiffer material.
Read More https://www.nanowerk.com/news2/gadget/newsid=63695.php
Lawrence Livermore’s El Capitan supercomputer is expected to go online in
2024.
… Greater than the sum of its parts
With the delivery of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) first
exascale system, Frontier, in 2022, and the upcoming deployment of Aurora and
Lawrence Livermore’s El Capitan systems by next year, researchers will have
the most sophisticated computational tools at their disposal. Exascale
machines, which can perform more than a quintillion operations per second,
are 1,000 times faster and more powerful than their petascale predecessors,
enabling simulations of complex physical phenomena in unprecedented detail to
push the boundaries of scientific understanding well beyond its current
limits.
This feat of research, development and deployment has been made possible
through a national effort to maximize the benefits of high-performance
computing (HPC) for strengthening U.S. economic competitiveness and national
security. The Exascale Computing Project (ECP) has been an integral part of
that endeavor.
In the project’s final year, ECP collaborations have involved more than
1,000 team members working on 25 different mission-critical applications for
research in areas ranging from energy and environment to materials and data
science; 70 unique software products; and integrated continuous testing and
delivery of ECP products on targeted DOE systems.
“ECP enabled these different groups — applications, software, and
hardware — to establish healthy, collaborative working relationships where
specialists in each area came together to create something greater than the
sum of its parts,” said Erik Draeger, the Scientific Computing group leader
in the Center for Applied Scientific Computing at Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory and the deputy director for ECP Applications Development.
Read More
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers have discovered
that carbon nanotube membrane pores could enable ultra-rapid dialysis
processes that would greatly reduce treatment time for hemodialysis patients.
Image by Francesco Fornasiero/LLNL.
… Gonna wash those toxins right out of the blood
https://phys.org/news/2023-09-filter-carbon-nanotubes-paradigm-dialysis.html
A collaborative team has developed a new type of filter for kidney dialysis
machines that can clean the blood more efficiently and improve patient care.
Partners include Vanderbilt University Medical Center, University of
California, San Francisco and Lawrence Livermore.
Chronic kidney disease, a condition where kidney damage results in poor blood
filtration, affects approximately 697.5 million people—or 9% of the global
population. Treatment includes hemofiltration, hemodialysis or kidney
transplantation. Hemofiltration and hemodialysis support the kidneys by
filtering toxins and waste products from blood.
The new filter uses carbon nanotubes — tiny tubes formed by a sheet of
carbon atoms bonded in a hexagonal honeycomb mesh structure — hat have very
small, smooth channels. These channels make it easier to remove toxins and
waste from the blood without letting important proteins escape, which can be
a problem with traditional filters.
The work also yielded fundamental insights on how biomolecules transport in
nanoscale constrictions. Like an octopus that can contort itself to fit in
the smallest spaces and then expand, the team discovered that biomolecules
squeeze into the entrance of the nanotube in the membrane, travel through it
and expand again on the other side. This knowledge can help researchers and
engineers design membranes for biological separations beyond dialysis.
Read More
https://phys.org/news/2023-09-filter-carbon-nanotubes-paradigm-dialysis.html
——————————————————————————
Founded in 1952, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory https://www.llnl.gov
provides solutions to our nation’s most important national security
challenges through innovative science, engineering and technology. Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory is managed by Lawrence Livermore National
Security, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security
Administration.
Read previous Lab Report articles online https://www.llnl.gov/news/lab-report
— Unsubscribe from this newsletter :
