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Using the power of the sun to roast green chile
July 6, 2022 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Every August and September the unmistakable pungent aroma of roasting green chile permeates the air across New Mexico and neighboring states. This delectable staple of regional cuisine is green in color, but roasting the chile pepper to deepen the flavor and make the inedible skin easier to...
Categories: Energy / Environment / Water, Renewable energy
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Roasting green chile on top of Sandia National Laboratories’ National Solar Thermal Test Facility. Roasting green chile with concentrated sunlight instead of propane produces flavorful chile and reduces carbon dioxide emissions. Members of the media interested in b-roll of the experiment, may download the video here.

Exploring explosives for expanding geothermal energy
June 21, 2022 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Why are scientists setting off small-scale explosions inside 1-foot cubes of plexiglass? They’re watching how fractures form and grow in a rock-like substance to see if explosives or propellants, similar to jet fuel, can connect geothermal wells in a predictable manner. Geothermal energy has a lot of...
Categories: Energy / Environment / Water, Renewable energy, Science / Technology / Engineering
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Powering the moon: Sandia researchers design microgrid for future lunar base
May 11, 2022 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories is well-known for designing reliable and resilient microgrids for military bases and vital city services. Now, Sandia researchers are working with NASA to design one for the moon. This is not the first time Sandia has partnered with NASA to power equipment on the...
Categories: Energy / Environment / Water, Renewable energy, Space / Astronomy
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An illustration with solar panels and a dome on the moon with another base further away and the Earth in the sky.

Seashell-inspired Sandia shield protects materials in hostile environments
May 3, 2022 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Word of an extraordinarily inexpensive material, lightweight enough to protect satellites against debris in the cold of outer space, cohesive enough to strengthen the walls of pressurized vessels experiencing average conditions on Earth and yet heat-res…
Categories: Chemistry, Energy / Environment / Water, Materials Science, Nanotechnology, Nuclear Weapons, Physics, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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International collaboration compares geologic repository assessment tools
April 15, 2022 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Researchers from Sandia National Laboratories and partner national laboratories will compare their Geologic Disposal Safety Assessment software framework to the safety assessment software of international peers at a late-April workshop. The Sandia-led Geologic Disposal Safety Assessment framework is a computer modeling system designed to answer critical safety...
Categories: Energy / Environment / Water
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Woman and man talk with a colorful computer model on a screen behind them.

Preserving the past
March 22, 2022, Media Advisory • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — When archaeologist Christina Chavez surveys Sandia National Laboratories land and finds rusted tobacco tins, ceramic fragments, glass shards or rocks resting in deliberate formations, she documents and determines who at the Labs needs to know.[caption i…
Categories: Energy / Environment / Water, History
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Record-breaking, ultrafast devices step to protecting the grid from EMPs
March 15, 2022 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Scientists from Sandia National Laboratories have announced a tiny, electronic device that can shunt excess electricity within a few billionths of a second while operating at a record-breaking 6,400 volts — a significant step towards protecting the nation’s electric grid from an electromagnetic pulse. The team published...
Categories: Energy / Environment / Water, Nanotechnology, Science / Technology / Engineering
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Foreground: Two men, one passing a nickel-sized wafer. Background: A device for testing the diodes on the wafer and a computer screen showing an array of dots/diodes

Safer, more powerful batteries for electric cars, power grid
March 7, 2022 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Solid-state batteries, currently used in small electronic devices like smart watches, have the potential to be safer and more powerful than lithium-ion batteries for things such as electric cars and storing energy from solar panels for later use. However, several technical challenges remain before solid-state batteries can...
Categories: Energy / Environment / Water, Materials Science, Science / Technology / Engineering
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Two men, one holding a shiny battery testing case, stand beside a beach-ball-sized, thick-metal testing instrument.

Sandia engineer elected fellow of two prestigious national societies
March 2, 2022 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Babu Chalamala, an engineer and manager of Sandia National Laboratories’ energy storage group, was recently elected fellow of two prestigious national societies. On Jan. 26, he became a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. On Dec. 7, he became a fellow of the...
Categories: Awards, Renewable energy
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Portrait of Babu Chalamala

Black engineer awards distinguish Sandia Labs
February 28, 2022 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Ten Sandia National Laboratories engineers received Black Engineer of the Year Awards this year, including Most Promising Scientist in Government, Research Leadership, Science Spectrum Trailblazers and Modern-Day Technology Leaders. Honorees include Sandia mechanical, electrical, civil, aerospace and aeronautical engineers who excel in their respective fields. From the...
Categories: Awards, Computing, Cybersecurity, Energy / Environment / Water, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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Sandia Labs BEYA winners

Improved nuclear accident code helps policymakers assess risks from small reactors
February 16, 2022 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories recently updated the Maccs code to better aid the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the global nuclear industry in assessing the consequences of nuclear accidents. The Maccs code can also evaluate the potential health and environmental risks posed by advanced nuclear reactors and small modular...
Categories: Computing, Energy / Environment / Water
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Two people walking beside a fence. A cooling stack of a nuclear facility is in the background.

Great Minds in STEM celebrates two Sandia engineers
January 31, 2022 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories systems engineer Kenneth Armijo has been named a 2021 Most Promising Engineer Advanced Degree at the Hispanic Engineering National Achievement Awards Conference. Sandia mechanical engineer Michael Omana was named a 2021 Most Promising Scientist, Masters at the conference. Armijo, who holds a doctorate in...
Categories: Awards, Community / Education, Coronavirus, Energy / Environment / Water, Science / Technology / Engineering
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Awardee Armijo

Sandia cooks material-storage containers to assess fire safety
November 16, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A team at Sandia National Laboratories has completed a series of tests on specially designed stainless-steel containers used by the Department of Energy for storage and transportation of hazardous materials.[caption id="" align="alignright" width="250"]…
Categories: Energy / Environment / Water
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Still from video from a container test

Remote high-voltage sensor unveiled at Sandia gamma ray lab
November 10, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Ever since the first human placed a bare hand on an uninsulated electric line, people have refrained from personally testing energetic materials. Even meters made of metal can melt at high voltages. Now, using a crystal smaller than a dime and a laser smaller than a shoebox,...
Categories: Energy / Environment / Water, Homeland security, Materials Science, Physics
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Sandia National Laboratories researcher Israel Owens holds the optical sensor used to house the crystal that proved central to his team’s successful attempts to measure very high voltages. The two red spots on each side of the crystal are due to laser light reflecting off the side mirrors used to direct light through the middle of the crystal. The actual experiments used green laser light.

Sandia-operated Arctic measurement facility moves, research to continue
November 9, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — After eight great years of observations and research, a Sandia National Laboratories-operated atmospheric measurement facility moved from Oliktok Point, on the North Slope of Alaska, this summer. The mobile facility will be relocating to the southeaster…
Categories: Climate Security, Energy / Environment / Water
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Two men look at blue shipping container-like shelters. One points.

Underground tests dig into how heat affects salt-bed repository behavior
November 3, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Scientists from Sandia, Los Alamos and Lawrence Berkeley national laboratories have just begun the third phase of a years-long experiment to understand how salt and very salty water behave near hot nuclear waste containers in a salt-bed repository. Salt’s unique physical properties can be used to provide...
Categories: Energy / Environment / Water
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Two people holding large hunks of pinkish salt. One is a cylinder the size of a basketball. The other is more rough, the size of a softball.

Sandia creates global archive of historical renewable energy documents
October 6, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories began studying the power of the sun to produce utility-scale energy in the 1960s. Sandia’s National Solar Thermal Test Facility was commissioned in 1978, spurred by the oil crisis of 1973.[caption id="" align="alignleft" w…
Categories: History, Renewable energy
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Two people look at blueprints with Sandia's Solar Tower looming large above.

Mimicking mother nature: New membrane to make fresh water
September 27, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories and their collaborators have developed a new membrane, whose structure was inspired by a protein from algae, for electrodialysis that could be used to provide fresh water for farming and energy production. The team shared their membrane design in a paper published...
Categories: Bioscience / Medical Research, Energy / Environment / Water
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Two scientists look at hand-sized white membranes, water and lush trees in background.

High-speed alloy creation might revolutionize hydrogen’s future
September 20, 2021 • LIVERMORE, Calif. — A Sandia National Laboratories team of materials scientists and computer scientists, with some international collaborators, have spent more than a year creating 12 new alloys — and modeling hundreds more — that demonstrate how machine learning can help accelerate the future of hydrogen energy by making it...
Categories: Computing, Materials Science, Renewable energy
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Sandia designs better batteries for grid-scale energy storage
July 21, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have designed a new class of molten sodium batteries for grid-scale energy storage. The new battery design was shared in a paper published today in the scientific journal Cell Reports Physical Science. Molten sodium batteries have been used for many years to...
Categories: Renewable energy, Science / Technology / Engineering
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Foreground, two glass tubes connected at an angle with shiny metal in one tube and purple liquid in the other. Background woman with hands in a glove box.

The hidden culprit killing lithium-metal batteries from the inside
July 14, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — For decades, scientists have tried to make reliable lithium-metal batteries. These high-performance storage cells hold 50% more energy than their prolific, lithium-ion cousins, but higher failure rates and safety problems like fires and explosions have crippled commercialization efforts. Researchers have hypothesized why the devices fail, but direct...
Categories: Chemistry, Energy / Environment / Water, Materials Science, Nanotechnology, Science / Technology / Engineering
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Battery Team

Sandia-led center to advance understanding of new solar panel technology
July 8, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The Department of Energy recently awarded $14 million to form a Sandia National Laboratories-led center to improve the understanding of perovskite-based photovoltaic technologies and determine the best tests to evaluate the new solar panels’ lifetimes. The efficiency of perovskite-based solar cells has reached 25%, approaching the levels...
Categories: Renewable energy
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Two men in protective helmats look at a solar module under a bright light.

Using a mineral ‘sponge’ to catch uranium
June 9, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A team of researchers from Sandia, Lawrence Berkeley and Pacific Northwest national laboratories tested a “sponge-like” mineral that can “soak up” uranium at a former uranium mill near Rifle, Colorado. The researchers found that the mineral, calcium apatite, soaks up and binds uranium from the groundwater, reducing...
Categories: Energy / Environment / Water, Materials Science, Science / Technology / Engineering
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Graphic of underground stream with uranium being absorbed by apatite with detection wells upstream and downstream.

Sandia app assesses value of energy storage for businesses, utilities
May 19, 2021, Media Advisory • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Utility companies and corporate project developers now have help assessing how much money adding an energy storage system will save them thanks to new Sandia National Laboratories software.[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="250"] A new Sandia Natio…
Categories: Computing, Renewable energy
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Here comes the sun: Tethered-balloon tests ensure safety of new solar-power technology
April 22, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — What do tiny dust particles, 22-foot-wide red balloons and “concentrated” sunlight have in common? Researchers from Sandia National Laboratories recently used 22-foot-wide tethered balloons to collect samples of airborne dust particles to ensure the safety of an emerging solar-power technology. The study determined that the dust created...
Categories: Climate Security, Energy / Environment / Water, Renewable energy
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Two small balloons against a blue sky to the left of a large tower with a
Results 26–50 of 308