EMSL Mission, Vision and Strategic Goals
The mission, vision and strategic goals for EMSL are outlined in the EMSL Strategic Plan.
User Program Description
The facilities and capabilities of the EMSL are available to the general scientific and engineering communities to conduct research in the environmental molecular sciences and related areas. EMSL supports both open and proprietary research. Open research is basic and applied research in science and engineering where the resulting information is ordinarily published and shared broadly within the scientific community. A limited amount of proprietary research may also be conducted in the EMSL under a proprietary sales contract.
Solicitations
Potential users may submit a proposal for use of EMSL capabilities through the EMSL web page at any time. EMSL periodically issues focused calls for proposals that are responsive to EMSL's science themese: Biological Interactions and Dynamics, Geochemistry/Biogeochemistry and Subsurface Science, and Science of Interfacial Phenomena. The science themes are aligned with broad program areas within the DOE Office of Science and thereby with DOE’s missions. In addition, the science themes provide focus that encourages users to submit proposals that make use of multiple capabilities within EMSL to address a complex scientific problem. Finally, the science themes enable EMSL to focus its resources and future capital equipment investments. All proposals are reviewed for scientific merit, appropriateness of the requested capability, relevance to DOE’s missions and competence of the investigator(s).
Why the Program’s Research is Important
Scientific breakthroughs leading to new sources of energy such as hydrogen, improved catalysts and materials for industrial applications, insights into the factors influencing climate change and carbon sequestration processes, new approaches to managing legacy wastes such as radionuclide and heavy metal contamination, and making bioenergy sources a reality, cannot be fully realized without detailed knowledge of the physical, chemical and biological processes occurring at the most fundamental levels. The complex nature of DOE’s energy, science and environmental missions demands a wide range of leading-edge experimental and computational capabilities to enable scientists to conduct fundamental and multidisciplinary research using multiple experiment and computational approaches that will lead to scientific advances to help address the DOE missions. EMSL provides these leading-edge experimental and computational capabilities to the scientific community.
Date Sharing Policy
Allocations of time on EMSL’s capabilities is contingent on adherence to EMSL’s terms and conditions as well as BER’s data sharing policy.
Capabilities
EMSL provides more than 60 leading-edge capabilities organized in eight areas: 1) Deposition and Microfabrication, 2) Kinetics and Reaction, 3) Mass Spectrometry, 4) Microscopy, 5) NMR and EPR, 6) Spectroscopy and Diffraction, 7) Subsurface Flow and Transport, and 8) Supercomputing.
EMSL’s nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometers; high resolution mass spectrometers; ultra-high vacuum scanning, tunneling, cryogenic and atomic force microscopy capabilities; and the 160 TeraFlop supercomputer are all used to study microbial and plant species important for bioenergy and other alternative energy applications. EMSL’s NMR spectrometers, microscopy and imaging tools, multi-scale surface and interfacial science synthesis and characterization tools, deposition and microfabrication tools, and the supercomputer are used to address a spectrum of molecular-level science issues associated with the fate and transport of radionuclides and heavy metals in the subsurface, long-term nuclear waste storage, carbon sequestration, atmospheric aerosol chemistry, green chemistry strategies, solvent development and catalysis research. EMSL capabilities in spectroscopy and diffraction, reaction kinetics, deposition and microfabrication techniques and the supercomputer are used to understand fundamental chemical reactions leading to new and improved catalysts, new nanomaterials and nanostructures, corrosion resistant surface coatings, new and improved chemical sensors, and spintronics applications for next generation technology.
Performance
BER is committed to a long-term facilities goal to manage the operations of its user facilities to the highest standards of overall performance using merit evaluation with independent peer review. The annual measure for BER’s user facilities is to achieve an average operation time of greater than or equal to 98% of the total scheduled annual operating time. The EMSL Operating Hours are tracked quarterly.
More Information about the Program and Its Accomplishments
EMSL honors users through Fellowships and Awards. Research highlights, facility information and user activities are described in a variety of EMSL publications:
EMSL News
Quarterly Highlights
EMSL Newsletter
User Publications
Program Manager
Mr. Paul Bayer
Climate and Environmental Sciences Division, SC-23.1
U.S. Department of Energy, GTN Bldg.
1000 Independence Avenue, SW
Washington, D.C. 20585-1290
Phone: 301-903-5324
Fax: 301-903-8519
paul.bayer@science.doe.gov
January 2009