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Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is a leading new chemicals and materials creation with a broad array of applications including batteries, catalysts for clean technology, ceramics, composites, additives and more. The Lab’s unique Advanced Manufacturing capabilities go hand in hand with the creation of novel methods to create new concepts altogether.

Portfolio News and Multimedia

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Lab scientists win four 2025 R&D 100 awards

The trade journal R&D World Magazine recently announced the winners of the awards, often called the “Oscars of innovation,” recognizing new commercial products, technologies and materials that are available for sale or license for their technological significance.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists and engineers have earned four awards among the top 100 inventions worldwide.  With this year’s results, the Laboratory has now collected a total of 186 R&D 100 awards since 1978. 

Submitted through LLNL’s Innovation and Partnerships Office (IPO), these awards recognize the impact that Livermore innovation, in collaboration with industry partners, can have on the U.S. economy as well as globally.

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Carbon nanotube ‘smart windows’ offer energy savings

A multidisciplinary team of researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) developed a new type of electrically controlled, near-infrared smart window that can cut near-infrared light transmission by almost 50%. Their secret ingredient? Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes—tiny, tube-shaped structures made from carbon atoms that are thousands of times thinner than a human hair. The research was published in Nano Letters.

Information about the opportunity to license the technology can be found here: Electrochromic Devices Made from VACNTs

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Smarter Alloy Design, Now at Your Fingertips: Introducing TAOS from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

A recording of DOE Office of Technology Commercialization's National Lab Discovery Series webinar that introduces TAOS — The Alloy Optimization Software was recently posted.  Discover how Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is making metal alloy design faster, easier, and more accessible with TAOS.

TAOS is a cross-platform tool that helps users design new alloys based on target properties like melting temperature or phase stability — without requiring deep expertise in materials science. With an intuitive interface and powerful back-end modeling, TAOS allows users in aerospace, automotive, power generation, electronics and more to screen large multicomponent systems in minutes using a standard computer. This enables non-experts to develop new complex metal alloys for unique industrial applications in an accelerated, flexible and cost-efficent way.  To learn more about TAOS, go to LLNL's software portal.

Chemicals and Materials Technologies

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Printed lattice structure using conductive elastomeric composite DIW ink formulation

LLNL researchers have developed a silicone based conductive, elastomeric 3D DIW printed structure with a lower wt.% conductive, composite filler to allow for the creation of 3D printed lattice structures with tunable conductivity.   The conductivity of the printed structure can be varied using composition of the starting DIW ink formulation as well as the 3D printed spacing and…

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3D printed structure made from depolymerized urethane oligomers

LLNL researchers have developed a method which utilizes functional alcohols to depolymerize polyurethane crosslinked networks. The functional alcohols show 5X increase in the depolymerization efficiency compared with current state of art (e.g. methanol, ethylene glycol).  The crosslinked polyurethane networks completely depolymerized into a liquid oligomer within 48 hours at ambient…

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3D printed Gyroid structure using novel long shelf-life silicone formulation

LLNL researchers have developed a novel photocurable silicone useful for producing three-dimensional objects via additive manufacturing. The resin formulations consist of a mult-component siloxane polymers with different functionalities, a platinum catalyst, a photoinitiator, and other organic peroxides.  The LLNL invention involves controlling the spatial and temporal aspects of the…

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A hypothetical structure-optimized adsorbent packing with hierarchical pores and submicron features will facilitate mass transfer to adsorption sites. SEM image of porous fluoropolymer

LLNL researchers have developed a self-supporting structural material that promises more efficient carbon capture specifically from air, but generally from all CO2 containing gas sources. The material is produced with a liquid high-amine-content precursor polymer that is functionalized by adding on polymerizable end groups.

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Picture of SLA printed structures using 3D printable nitrile-containing photopolymer resins

LLNL’s invention is a photopolymerizable polymer resin that consists of one or more nitrile-functional based polymers. The resin is formulated for SLA based 3D printing allowing for the production of nitrile-containing polymer components that can then be thermally processed into a conductive, highly graphitic materials. The novelty of the invention lies in (1) the photo-curable nitrile-…

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Examples of different UV exposure patterns printed from the same multi-material resin.  Darker yellow regions have higher UV exposure times leading to tougher regions.

LLNL researchers have developed an innovative and uniform single-pot polymer multi-material system, based on a combination of 3 different reactive chemistries.  By combining the three different constituent monomers, fine control of mechanical attributes, such as elastic modulus, can be achieved by adjusting the dosage of UV light throughout the additive manufacturing process.  This…

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Potential reactor configurations with printed TPMS scaffolds

LLNL researchers have devised a set of design principles that facilitates the development of practical TPMS-based two fluid flow reactors.; included in the design are these new concepts:

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Filled (8,8) (left) and (15,15) (right) CNTs with [EMIM+][BF4- ] using SGTI with the proposed spliced soft-core potential (SSCP) approach

LLNL researchers have developed a novel simulation methodology using slow growth thermodynamic integration (SGTI) utilizing spliced soft-core interaction potential (SSCP).  The approach to filling the molecular enclosures is a nonphysical one.  Rather than filling the pores from the open ends this method creates steps in the algorithm that allow molecules to pass through the pore…

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A sample of micro-architectured graphene aerogel, made from one of the lightest materials on Earth, sits atop a flower.

To overcome challenges that existing techniques for creating 3DGs face, LLNL researchers have developed a method that uses a light-based 3D printing process to rapidly create 3DG lattices of essentially any desired structure with graphene strut microstructure having pore sizes on the order of 10 nm. This flexible technique enables printing 3D micro-architected graphene objects with complex,…

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Nanoporus gold

By combining 3D printing and dealloying., researchers at LLNL have developed a method for fabricating metal foams with engineered hierarchical architectures consisting of pores at least 3 distinct length scales. LLNL’s method uses direct ink writing (DIW), a 3D printing technique for additive manufacturing to fabricate hierarchical nanoporous metal foams with deterministically controlled 3D…

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energy_absorbing_material

To overcome limitations with cellular silicone foams, LLNL innovators have developed a new 3D energy absorbing material with tailored/engineered bulk-scale properties. The energy absorbing material has 3D patterned architectures specially designed for specific energy absorbing properties. The combination of LLNL's capabilities in advanced modeling and simulation and the additive…