Projects

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

EMSL projects displayed on the EMSL web site project page reflect project abstracts and information migrated to this page before April 30, 2024. To review current and past EMSL user projects, visit EMSL Science Central.™

Solution Structure and Interfaces of Advanced Battery Electrolytes by Multinuclear NMR

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Vijayakumar Murugesan

The detailed investigation of advanced battery electrolyte solution structure and dynamics is critical to the ongoing development and capability expansion of alternative battery technologies for grid…

Characterization of Energy Storage Systems Using In Situ and Ex Situ Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Jian-zhi Hu

Fundamental research in beyond Lithium ion battery has been limited and an in-situ NMR method to probe transient electrochemical reactions has yet to be developed. We propose to develop unique in…

River Corridor Hydrobiogeochemistry from Reaction to Basin Scale

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

James Stegen

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) Environmental System Science River Corridor Scientific Focus Area (RCSFA) (https://sbrsfa.pnnl.gov/) will transform understanding of spatial and…

Studies on Cu-exchanged small pore zeolites as selective catalytic reduction (SCR) catalysts and CeO2 supported 2D Pd rafts for low-temperature methane combustion (LTMC)

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Feng Gao

To help meet the DOE goals of enabling more fuel-efficient vehicle engine technologies, we have been carrying out research programs funded by DOE/Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy …

features guiding amelogenin’s transformation of calcium phosphate into enamel – FY23.

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Garry Buchko

One of nature’s hardest materials is enamel, which is 95% (by weight) carbonated hydroxyapatite (HAP). The exceptional functional properties of enamel arise from its intricate hierarchical structure…

Characterization and development of a Ni-based catalysts for the conversion of methane into H2 and solid carbon

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Robert Dagle

The overall objective of this study is to further develop PNNL’s Regenerable Catalytic Pyrolysis (ReCaP) process to generate scaled CO2-free hydrogen (H2) from methane. The solid carbon is…

Metal Cofactor Composition and Coordination in the Hydrocarbon Synthesizing Methylthio-alkane Reductase

Lead Institution

The Ohio State University

Principal Investigator

Justin North

Project type

Limited Scope

Biological hydrocarbon production is essential for realizing a renewable bioeconomy of platform chemicals, such as methane and ethylene. For example, currently nearly all ethylene for the…

AlphaEnzyme: predicting enzyme functions directly from AlphaFold encoding

Lead Institution

Kent State University

Principal Investigator

Qiang Guan

Project type

Exploratory Research

Predicting the function of enzyme (represented as an enzyme commission number, or EC number) is one of the central tasks in annotating genomes and metagenomes. It is crucial for understanding the…

Detailed Analysis of Sulfur Isotopic Signatures via Atom Probe Tomography

Lead Institution

University of Toronto

Principal Investigator

Daniel Gregory

Project type

Exploratory Research

Pyrite is the end sink of sulfur in organic rich sedimentary environments. It is important both because sulfate is important for respiration of many organisms at low oxygen concentrations and because…

Proton paths in biological systems: Composition, stability, and requirements for transmitting protons

Lead Institution

City College of New York

Principal Investigator

Michael Green

Project type

Exploratory Research

Using structures from known proton transmitters, we will calculate, using DFT, the energy for successive proton positions, the bonding with the protons in these positions, and the charges on the…

Identification of root-specific terpenoids, mediators in the plant-microbe interaction in the rhizosphere

Lead Institution

Michigan State University

Principal Investigator

Bjoern Hamberger

Project type

Exploratory Research

The sorghum root microbiome undergoes profound changes during drought, so does its expression of terpene metabolism. Using an artificial root system (rhizotron) with sorghum grown in field soil, it…

SynThetic BiolOgy Driven Approach to Repurpose PolyaMides (STORM)

Lead Institution

Battelle Memorial Institute

Principal Investigator

Kate Kucharzyk

Project type

Exploratory Research

Nylon-6 (PA6) is a polyamide polymer abundant in clothing, ropes, fabrics, and automobile parts. The U.S. annual consumption of PA6 is ~0.5 million metric tons with manufacturing yields of 2.9 kg of…

Developing a protocol for spatial metabolomics to investigate cell types in the Sorghum bicolor stem

Lead Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Principal Investigator

Amy Marshall-Colon

Project type

Exploratory Research

Sorghum bicolor is an important bioenergy crop because it has high nutrient and water use efficiency, and produces a large quantity of biomass that can be processed into ethanol for biofuels. Many…