Y-12 researchers garner R&D 100 awards
Y-12 researchers garner R&D 100 awards
Mon, 21 July 2008
A research chemist and his revolutionary cloth invented to clean surfaces leaving no sticky residue, even down to the nanoscale, have captured a prestigious R&D 100 award, along with three other researchers at the Y‑12 National Security Complex.
R&D magazine issues the awards in recognition of the year’s most significant technological innovations. This year’s winners, announced June 30, will receive their awards at a ceremony this fall.
“I am proud of our researchers and their efforts,” said Ted Sherry, manager of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Y‑12 Site Office. “I think this is a great example of how Y‑12’s expertise and innovations, fostered through defense programs, have broader commercial applications.”
B&W Y-12 researchers Ron Simandl, Roland Seals, Gerald Devault and Bob Smithwick all received R&D 100 award honors.
Simandl’s Negligible-Residue Tack Cloth or Non-tacky Tack Cloth works by trapping dust, dirt, or other particles in the cloth as it is wiped over the surface of the material being cleaned. While Y‑12’s primary application for the tack cloth is removal of legacy beryllium contamination, it also has the potential for wide application in industry—including the semiconductor and electronics industries—where surface cleanliness is critical.
Seals collaborated with researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to create Cratos V Nano-Wool, which is a new process for producing high-purity carbon nanotubes quickly and at a fraction of the typical cost. The resulting high-strength lightweight Nano-Wool may be used to reinforce cutting tools, grinding wheels and metal composites, or to produce new polymers that conduct electricity.
Devault and Smithwick were part of a team, including members from ORNL, CenTACat at Queen’s University Belfast and Hiden Analytical, that developed SpaciMS: Spatially Resolved Capillary Inlet Mass Spectrometer. SpaciMS takes samples inside the confined spaces of reactors such as automotive catalysts, fuel reformers or fuel cells, measuring changes in chemical composition in both space and time within the reactors. Sampling within the reactor during operation gives greater understanding of reactor and catalytic chemistry than has previously been possible by measuring reactor exhaust alone.
B&W Y-12 President and General Manager Darrel Kohlhorst congratulated the researchers and noted that Y‑12 researchers are competing with scientists and engineers throughout the world.
“Working mainly on classified programs, Y‑12 researchers have limited external recognition because of the nature of our work,” he said. “We know what we can do, but most of the outside world doesn’t. These awards are a great spotlight for our talented researchers.”
Over the years, the R&D 100 awards have recognized winning products that have become today’s commonplace items, such as the flashcube (1965), the automated teller machine (1973), the fax machine (1975), the liquid crystal display (1980) and HDTV (1998).
B&W Y-12, a limited liability enterprise of The Babcock and Wilcox Company and Bechtel National Inc., operates the Y‑12 National Security Complex for the National Nuclear Security Administration.