Success Stories

This low-swirl burner uses small air jets to swirl the premixed flow inside the burner tube, providing a stabilized lean premixed combustion. This ring stabilizer keeps the flame steady under both fuel-rich and lean conditions and helps produce more complete combustion, which increases efficiency and reduces pollution.  Burning a Cleaner Flame Humankind has been … [Read more...] about UltraClean Low Swirl Combustion

EnergyPlus Saves Federal Building $9 Million in Energy Costs By Robin Johnston, June 2002 EnergyPlus software — a building energy simulation program distributed by Berkeley Lab — has been integral to the design of a new federal office building to be built in San Francisco. EnergyPlus contributed to nearly $9 million in energy costs savings projected over 20 years, according … [Read more...] about Licensed Technologies – EnergyPlus Software

If every home in the United States sealed its leaky HVAC ducts, the nation would save $5 billion annually in energy costs. Typical ductwork systems, both residential and commercial, lose 25-40 percent of heating and cooling energy; even newly installed systems experience 10-30 percent leakage. Solving this energy-wasting problem, once a costly, labor-intensive process, can … [Read more...] about Sealing in Energy Savings

Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, recording sound for the first time when he spoke the words “Mary had a little lamb” onto a vertically embossed tinfoil cylinder.  In the following years, sound was recorded on diverse media – tin foil, wax and plastic cylinders, shellac and vinyl discs, acetate sheets, and plastic dictation belts.  The problem with restoring audio … [Read more...] about Berkeley Lab’s Sound Restoration System Gets in the Groove with Optics

Until Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientist Peter Schultz thought of a better way, materials discovery was a costly, slow, and laborious process.  In the early 1990s Dr. Schultz and colleagues invented a super efficient materials research process that combined minaturizing with parallel processing.  In 1994 the start-up company Symyx Technologies, Inc. licensed the … [Read more...] about Materials Discovery