About the Workshop
We are pleased to announce the “Porous Materials for a Sustainable Energy Future through Neutron Scattering” workshop at ORNL. This workshop will highlight how neutron scattering, with its unique ability to probe guest–host interactions at atomic level, can advance our understanding of fundamental processes governing gas adsorption, chemical separation, and catalysis. We welcome participants at all levels of experience with neutron scattering—from newcomers to advanced users—to join us in exploring how these techniques can benefit their research on advanced porous materials.
Topics to Be Covered
- Frontline research and new directions. Hear from leading experts in porous materials chemistry, catalysis, and computational modeling as they discuss new insights into advanced separations, ion transport, gas storage, light harvesting and quantum sensing with porous materials.
- Unlocking the potential of neutron techniques. Discover how neutron diffraction and spectroscopy can reveal the atomic-scale details of gas adsorption, chemical separations, and catalytic processes in porous materials.
- Experiment planning and proposal support. Learn about our sample environments, in situ capabilities, experiment design, and data analysis to set up your neutron experiments for success. Our beamline scientists can also help you refine your research ideas and prepare compelling proposals that maximize your chances of securing neutron beamtime.
- Shaping the future of neutron science. Discover how to share your needs and ideas to help guide the development of new capabilities, sample environments, and automation efforts at the neutron scattering facilities.
Invited Speakers
Prof. Omar K. Farha – Northwestern University
Prof. Sheng Dai – Oak Ridge National Laboratory / University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Prof. Natalia B. Shustova – University of South Carolina
Dr. Craig Brown – NIST Center for Neutron Research / University of Delaware
Prof. Shengqian Ma – University of North Texas
Prof. De-en Jiang – Vanderbilt University
Dr. Ryan Klein – UC Berkeley / NIST Center for Neutron Research
Workshop Details
The workshop is free to attend and we plan to host up to 60 participants. Please note that site access requests may take up to 30 working days to process. We highly encourage participants to submit oral and/or poster presentations to share their work and engage with the other participants.
Dates: October 13–14, 2025
Location: Building 8600, Room C-156, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Format: In-person, with tours to our facilities
Question about this workshop?
Please contact Cheng Li, lic1@ornl.gov
