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December 2025
Turning Plastic Waste Into Opportunity: Ongoing Projects Demonstrate Broad Applications of Chemical Oxidation Recycling Platform
The chemical oxidation recycling platform, originally developed through the U.S. Department of Energy’s BOTTLE Consortium, offers a practical, cost-effective, and scalable solution for processing contaminated, mixed, and multilayer plastic waste.
November 2025
A Phyto Finish: Could Seaweed Be Mined for Critical Minerals?
Some seaweeds accumulate critical minerals. NREL scientists are studying which ones do it best.
September 2025
Q&A With Alli Werner: Engineer Enlists Tiniest Engineers (Microbes) To Recycle Plastics, Mine for Metals, and More
In the latest Manufacturing Masterminds Q&A, biological engineer Alli Werner shares why she thinks high school students should not have to choose between sports and science, what a summer internship at an Alaskan glacier taught her about field work, and how her latest breakthroughs could help make it easier, cheaper, and less toxic to recover precious metals.
July 2025
Researcher Spotlight: Violeta Sanchez i Nogue’s Journey to Bioprocess Development at NREL
In the summer of 2015, Violeta Sanchez i Nogue joined NREL as a postdoctoral researcher working on a project to produce carbon fibers.
June 2025
Plastics Recycling With Enzymes Takes a Leap Forward
A successful collaboration involving a trio of research institutions has yielded a roadmap toward an economically viable process for using enzymes to recycle plastics.
NREL Publishes Method for Recycling All Components in Carbon Fiber Composites
Deconstructing epoxy resins with hot acetic acid has the potential to provide a scalable and affordable solution for recycling a material used in a range of high-value consumer products, according to new research from the BOTTLE consortium.
Solar Panels Give Edge to Tomatoes Grown Underneath
Researchers wanted to find out whether tomatoes would grow better using a specifically designed light filter that leverages a rapidly emerging photovoltaic cell technology that’s more flexible, lightweight, and inexpensive.
May 2025
NREL and Crysalis Biosciences Collaborate To Scale Up Domestic Biomanufacturing Technologies
Based on research initially funded by DOE’s Bioenergy Technologies Office, NREL granted Crysalis commercial licenses to three novel biological technologies to produce bio-based chemicals and fuels.
April 2025
With a Technology License From MIT and NREL in Hand, Comstock Fuels Aims To Produce Jet Fuel From Lignin
The aviation fuel technology being codeveloped by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NREL yields aromatic-rich SAF by deconstructing lignin in plants and hydrodeoxygenating the resulting molecules to jet-range blendstocks.
March 2025
Q&A With NREL Scientist Effie Kisgeropoulos
Kisgeropoulos is a full-time researcher in NREL's Biosciences Center, responsible for helping manage the Advanced Spin Resonance Facility, which houses the electron paramagnetic resonance equipment.
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Last Updated May 5, 2025