Two scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory — Senior Chemist Radoslav Adzic and Head of the Laboratory’s Instrumentation Division Veljko Radeka — will be honored today by Battelle, the global science and technology company that, together with Stony Brook University, manages Brookhaven Lab. Adzic will be honored as Brookhaven Lab’s “Inventor of the Year,” and Radeka will be given a special lifetime achievement award for his leadership at the Laboratory and his enabling and supporting key Brookhaven Lab inventions over almost 50 years.

Brookhaven Lab’s Adzic and Radeka will be among employees of Battelle and four other national labs it manages to be honored at Battelle’s annual recognition event, which will be held this year at the Franklin Park Conservancy in Columbus, Ohio.

Adzic has recently focused his research on developing catalysts to accelerate chemical reactions in fuel cells to generate electrical energy. He holds patents for catalysts that contain far less platinum than traditional catalysts, which could greatly reduce the cost and increase the use of fuel cells in electric vehicles and in stationary power applications.

In addition, he and his team developed a catalyst that efficiently oxidizes ethanol, which can make it more efficient as an alternative fuel.

“The rising cost of gasoline and concerns about global warming have made my research particularly relevant today,” Adzic said. “I am honored that Battelle is recognizing the breakthroughs made by my colleagues and myself, which may lead to applications of fuel cells — a source of clean energy. Fuel cells are a cheaper, more efficient, and more environmentally friendly alternative to the conventional use of fossil fuels.”

Adzic earned a Ph.D. in chemistry in 1974 from the University of Belgrade. He remained at the university, eventually becoming a professor and director of the Institute of Electrochemistry. He joined Brookhaven in 1992. A Fellow of the Electrochemical Society and correspondent member of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, Adzic is the author of 260 scientific publications. He has won numerous awards, including, most recently, the SciAm 50 Award in 2007 and the Department of Energy’s Hydrogen R&D Award in 2008. Battelle is honoring him for the second time as “BNL Inventor of the Year.” He first received the honor in 2005.

Veljko Radeka joined Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Instrumentation Division in 1962, and a decade later, he became head of the division — a title he has retained to this day. Under his leadership, the division has become one of the foremost resources in radiation detector and microelectronics research and development among Department of Energy laboratories.

Radeka and his colleagues developed state-of-the-art detectors and electronics that have had a major impact on many significant experiments in a wide variety of disciplines at Brookhaven and around the world. In addition to his other patents, Radeka holds two patents as a co-inventor of instrumentation related to positron emission tomography, a medical imaging technique that provides information about the body’s chemistry. He is the author of 180 publications.

“This award has been made possible by the dedication and hard work of my colleagues in the Instrumentation Division and by the sustained support of this division provided by Brookhaven National Laboratory,” Radeka said.

Radeka earned a Ph.D. in engineering sciences from the University of Zagreb, Croatia, in 1961. A Fellow of the American Physical Society and a Life Fellow of the IEEE, Radeka has received numerous awards from IEEE, including, most recently, the Instrumentation Outstanding Achievement Award in 2010.