Organization Alert: William R. Riley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

"There's only one I wanna find / I'm gonna look until it makes me blind / Searching, searching, searching day or night" -- Jason & the Scorchers "Find You" (T. Krekel, J. Ringenberg)

We are searching for desulfurization in all the right places. Today’s tip … The William R. Riley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) (http://www.emsl.pnl.gov/emslweb/), a PNNL-Pacific Northwest National Laboratory facility.

The EMSL Web describes the facility thusly …

“EMSL was the concept of former PNNL Director, Dr. William R. Wiley who knew that understanding systems at the molecular level is imperative to tackle our nation's energy and environmental challenges. Since opening its doors in 1997 on the grounds of PNNL in Richland, Washington, scientific users from academia, industry, and other national laboratories representing all 50 states and nearly 30 countries have applied EMSL resources to their research. EMSL offers these scientists access to instruments—otherwise unavailable to many scientists at their home institutions—to further their scientific studies. All resources housed within EMSL are available at no cost to researchers if their research results are shared in the open literature. Access to EMSL resources is awarded on a peer-reviewed proposal basis. Researchers are encouraged to take advantage of the full complement of tools available and employ unique combinations of equipment and capabilities within EMSL. To become an EMSL user, follow the User Access steps to submit a proposal centered around EMSL's Science Themes, which represent growing areas of research.

“EMSL scientific consultants are available to help users find resources that best meet their needs. EMSL scientists are experts in their fields and can provide a variety of assistance, from helping design an experiment to analyzing results. In some cases, training on specific instruments is offered. Users are also encouraged to contact scientific consultants for potential collaborations.”

Use the site’s search box to search for “sulfur” and you will find a number of interesting items like the following …

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The Cage Stage: Researchers use 3-D silica nanocages to protect environmentally critical catalysts
[Excerpt]
“Effective metal catalysts are vital to pollution prevention and clean energy production, and thus central to the interests of the Department of Energy and the nation. Preventing nanosized catalyst particle sintering has remained a great challenge within the field of catalysis research. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory researchers have intricately studied a new cubic mesostructured silica (SBA-16) catalyst support that uses its cage-like 3-D structure to protect metal and metal oxide nanoparticles, keeping them safe from heat damage. Using electron microscopy resources at DOE’s EMSL, the team of scientists not only demonstrated the effectiveness of SBA-16’s nanocages, but in the process also developed a class of SBA-16-supported, regenerable metal catalysts that remove unwanted sulfur from syngas fuel.”
source: www.emsl.pnl.gov/news/highlights/cage20100209.pdf
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The site also has valuable contact information as shown below …

Allison Campbell, EMSL Director
Allison.Campbell@pnl.gov

April Green, EMSL Director Executive Administrator
April.Green@pnl.gov

Ray Teller, EMSL Associate Director for Scientific Resources
Raymond.Teller@pnl.gov

Staci West, EMSL Communications Manager
Staci.West@pnl.gov

David Koppenaal, Chief Technology Officer
david.koppenaal@pnl.gov

Monty Rosbach, Chief Operations Officer
ml.rosbach@pnl.gov

Don Baer, Interim Chief Scientist
don.baer@pnl.gov

Terry Law, User Support Office
Terry.Law@pnl.gov

Bert de Jong, EMSL interim Associate Director for Molecular Science Computing
Wibe.deJong@pnl.gov

Another contact to keep in mind … Jean Steinhardt (research@jeansteinhardtconsulting.com), producer of the Desulfurization Blog.