The Chemical, Earth, and Life Sciences Directorate (ALDCELS) is home to three divisions and thirteen capability-focused groups whose work spans the Laboratory's major mission areas of stockpile stewardship, global security, and energy security.

A few of our key capabilities are listed below and additional detail can be found in the division organizational pages.

Key scientific capabilities

Bioscience

• Novel vaccines and therapeutics
• Biofuels from algae and plants
• Discovering and managing disease threats

Chemistry

• Analytical chemistry and measurement science 
• Physical chemistry and molecular spectroscopy
• Isotope and actinide science
• Nuclear and radiochemistry
• Nanoscience
• Material processing and characterization
• Chemical engineering
• Function and dynamics of living systems

Earth and Environmental Sciences

• Environmental systems and predicting climate effects
• Subsurface flow and transport in porous media
• Microscale, mesoscale, and global-scale atmospheric phenomena
• Nuclear explosion-induced atmospheric physics and modeling of wildland and urban fire phenomena
• Carbon capture and utilization science
• Next generation ecosystem experiments
• Vegetation mortality experiments
• Earthquake triggering
• Ground-based explosion monitoring
• Medical and seismic imaging
• Nondestructive evaluation