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Projects

As a scientific user facility, the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) provides expertise, instrumentation, and resources to 250 projects each year. 

Projects displayed below reflect information and abstracts that were published before April 30, 2024. To review current EMSL user projects, visit Science Central™.

  • Projects beginning at or after given date.
    Projects ending at or before given date.

Computational study of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and their derivatives

Lead Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Principal Investigator
So Hirata
Project type
Exploratory Research
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) constitute a large class of conjugated pi-electron systems that are key molecular species in many branches of chemistry, such as, interstellar, combustion,…

Hydrogen Adsorption Characterization of Carbon Supported Catalyst

Lead Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Principal Investigator
Feng Zheng
Project type
Exploratory Research
A carbon-supported catalyst was developed at PNNL for processing biobased feedstock by hydrothermal reactions. The dispersion of catalyst metal on the support needs to be measured using the hydrogen…

Characterization Polymer Thin Films and Arrays

Lead Institution
Portland State University
Principal Investigator
Mingdi Yan
Project type
Exploratory Research
Our research at Portland State University focuses on surface chemistry and molecular imprinting. One particular area of interest is the fabrication of polymer thin film arrays that possess molecular…

Fabricate Nanoscale Thin Film Cathode with Sputter Deposition

Lead Institution
University of Washington
Principal Investigator
Yunxiang Lu
Project type
Exploratory Research
The objective of this project is 1) to fabricate nanoscale thin film cathode with sputtering and pulsed laser deposition techniques with well defined electrode geometry, 2) study transient electrode…

Computer Simulation of Radiation Effects in Zircon

Lead Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Principal Investigator
Ram Devanathan
Project type
Exploratory Research
Zircon is an extremely durable mineral proposed as a crystalline host for the disposal of high actinide waste forms. In order to minimize the release of actinides to the environment, it is essential…

Computer Simulation of Radiation Effects in Zircon

Lead Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Principal Investigator
Ram Devanathan
Project type
Exploratory Research
Zircon is an extremely durable mineral proposed as a crystalline host for the disposal of high actinide waste forms. In order to minimize the release of actinides to the environment, it is essential…

Steam Reforming of Methanol over Highly Active and Selective Pd/ZnO Catalyst

Lead Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Principal Investigator
Robert Dagle
Project type
Exploratory Research
Pd/ZnO catalysts are currently being investigated for steam reforming of methanol. Unlike precious metal-based catalysts, Pd/ZnO catalysts not only exhibited high activity, but more importantly very…

Measure fluorescence spectra from LiF film

Lead Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Principal Investigator
Mark Murphy
Project type
Exploratory Research
Fluorescence spectra from a LiF film developed at PNNL was measured and found to exhibit peaks in the green, red and infrared. These color centers have been found to perform well in uses for high…

Ab initio calculations of GTP hydrolysis by using NWChem and TAO components

Lead Institution
Iowa State University
Principal Investigator
Theresa Windus
Project type
Exploratory Research
As part of the Common Component Architecture (CCA) project funded by the U. S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) under the Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) program, we are developing…

Image iron oxide nanoparticles

Lead Institution
Harvard University
Principal Investigator
Gary Holtom
Project type
Exploratory Research
Small particles (50-300 nm) particles of various iron oxides have been synthesized. These tend to aggregate and we would like to learn the size distribution of the particles and, if possible, if…

DC-1 Molecular & Bio imprinting

Lead Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Principal Investigator
Xiaohong Li
Project type
Exploratory Research
Employ whole cells (bacterial) as templates to create complementary polymer surface. Prepare polymer beads with spatially-defined, highly functional patches of size and shape corresponding exactly…

Local motions in protein structures

Lead Institution
Technische Universität München
Principal Investigator
Edward Schlag
Project type
Exploratory Research
For some years we have been involved in the question of a model for charge transport in peptides. We obtained unusual results for which we have proposed a new theory in 1995 which assigns special…

Hi-resolution infrared spectroscopy of nitrogen dioxide and water.

Lead Institution
NASA Langley Research Center
Principal Investigator
Mary Smith
Project type
Exploratory Research
Perform hi-resolution infrared spectroscopy of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) using a short path cell (1, 10, or 20 cm) and the Bruker IFS 120HR Fourier transform spectrometer located in EMSL 1130. …

High resolution infrared spectroscopy of methane.

Lead Institution
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Principal Investigator
Linda Brown
Project type
Exploratory Research
Conduct hi-resolution infrared spectroscopy of methane using the 200 meter White cell and the Bruker IFS 120HR Fourier transform spectrometer located in EMSL 1130. Rotationally resolved spectra of…