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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. 

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.™ 

 

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

Structure of the Shewanella cell surface

Lead Institution
University of Georgia
Principal Investigator
Andrew Neal
Project type
Exploratory Research
The bacterial cell surface is a complex, dynamic interface acorss which the cell interacts with its environment. From the perspective of iron reducing bacteria such as Shewanella, the cell surface…

Mechanisms of organic ions release from water droplets.

Lead Institution
University of Colorado at Boulder
Principal Investigator
Gayfree Ellison
Project type
Exploratory Research
Second Generation of Single Particle Laser Abletion Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometer will be used to investigate the mechanisms by which organic ions are released from water droplets.

Growth of Thin Film Model Oxide Catalysts

Lead Institution
Yale University
Principal Investigator
Eric Altman
Project type
Exploratory Research
Although oxides are widely used to catalyze partial oxidation reactions and the selective reduction of NO, the relationship between catalytic activity and structure remains poorly understood. It has…

Characterization of Synthetic Mixed Valence U Compounds

Lead Institution
The George Washington University
Principal Investigator
Christopher Cahill
Project type
Exploratory Research
The efforts proposed herein will explore the synthetic reaction conditions necessary to produce and stabilize pentavalent uranium oxide species under hydrothermal conditions. U(V) is a fleeting…

Evaporative Co-deposition of Fluoride Materials

Lead Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Principal Investigator
Dean Matson
Project type
Exploratory Research
Electron-beam evaporation will be used to co-deposit calcium fluoride and europium fluoride in varying proportions for application in the formation of scintillator films. The project will involve…

Tapping mode AFM for real-time analysis of DNA hybridization on microarrays

Lead Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Principal Investigator
Eileen Jutras
Project type
Exploratory Research
Recent advances in AFM make visualization of surface/DNA and DNA/protein interactions possible. Presently, we are designing nucleic acid based microarrays for the detection of bacterial pathogens…

Mapping of the contaminants in soil thin sections

Lead Institution
Oregon State University
Principal Investigator
Oleg Povetko
Project type
Exploratory Research
Dynamic models of the transport and fate of radionuclides in ecosystems include many parameters that can not be easily estimated and often their estimates vary by many orders of magnitude. This…

Plasma Coating for Surface Passivation of Silica-coated Wafers

Lead Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Principal Investigator
Suresh Baskaran
Project type
Exploratory Research
he surface of silica coating prepared by Sol-gel process contains large amount of adsorbed water molecules. The presence of these polar molecules adversely affect the properties of the Silica…

Roughness Measurements of Microchannel Surfaces

Lead Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Principal Investigator
David Pfund
Project type
Exploratory Research
Surface roughness may influence the heat transfer coefficients in microchannel heat exchangers, particularly in cases of boiling. Roughness may also influence flow regimes in two-phase flow. We…

Microscopic analysis of carbon-based nanomaterials

Lead Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Principal Investigator
Yongsoon Shin
Project type
Exploratory Research
We are synthesizing nanostructured carbon-based materials from different carbohydrate precursors, such as glucose, fructose, and their derivatives. Functional carbon spheres with core-shell…

High Resolution Infrared Spectroscopy of the 360 cm-1 Band of Acetonitrile

Lead Institution
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Principal Investigator
Linda Brown
Project type
Exploratory Research
We will record and analyze the high resolution infrared spectrum of the 360 cm-1 band of acetonitrile. The purpose of this work is to determine the line shapes and positions of the rovibrational…

Computational Study of Oxygen Reduction on SOFC Cathode Surfaces

Lead Institution
Georgia Institute of Technology
Principal Investigator
Meilin Liu
Project type
Exploratory Research
This project is to examine the detailed reaction mechanisms of oxygen reduction process in the cathode of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) employed with first-principle calculations of gas-surface…

Hydrophobic coatings development for contactor membranes

Lead Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Principal Investigator
Dean Matson
Project type
Exploratory Research
Porous contactor membranes are being developed for mass transfer of species into and out of aqueous solutions in high temperature corrosive environments encountered in heatpump and other applications…

Surface Structure Analysis of Hematite Thin Films Grown by MBE Technique

Lead Institution
Northwestern University
Principal Investigator
Laurence Marks
Project type
Exploratory Research
This proposed activity will focus on the the preparation of hematite thin films using the MBE system in EMSL and the characterization of surface structures of the as-deposited thin films utilizing…