The University of Michigan will be home
to a $19.5-million Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) that will explore
new materials to better convert solar energy to electricity, the White House
has announced.
It is one of 46 centers announced across the nation and one of two in Michigan.
The other is Michigan State University's Revolutionary Materials for Solid State
Energy Conversion.
President Obama made the announcement at the annual meeting of the National
Academy of Sciences. The EFRCs, which will pursue advanced scientific research
on energy, are being established by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of
Science at universities, national laboratories, nonprofit organizations and
private firms across the nation.
The center will be Solar Energy Conversion in Complex Materials and will be
dedicated to studying complex material structures on the nanoscale to identify
key features for their potential use to convert solar energy and heat to electricity.
The center, funded for five years, will focus both on fundamental research
on materials for solar energy conservation and storage and on designing realistic
materials based on this research.
"The University of Michigan will be exploring the fundamental properties
of materials and how to exploit those properties to ultimately result in high-efficiency
solar cells," said Stephen Forrest, vice president for research and one
of the scientists in the new center. "People at the university have enormous
ability to grow new materials at the nano scale and bring new products to market.
It's all about surface materials."
Twenty-two U-M faculty researchers will be part of the center, in areas from
materials science and engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering,
physics and chemistry. Six of these are faculty fellows in the Michigan Memorial
Phoenix Energy Institute at U-M.
Peter Green, Vincent T. and Gloria M. Gorguze Professor of Engineering chair
of the Materials Science and Engineering department and principal investigator
of the EFRC, explained that while materials that convert solar energy and heat
into electricity have been around for years, the challenge is developing new
generation of materials that are significantly more efficient. Currently, too
much energy is lost during the energy conversion process.
U-M's distinction, he said, is its vast array of expertise to tackle the questions
on all fronts—from fundamental research involving synthesis and fabrication
of materials to understanding their properties at the nano, molecular or atomic
scale.
"We are working on challenging problems that can't be solved by just one
person in a laboratory, but by an interdisciplinary team of world-class researchers
from across the campus of the University of Michigan," Green said. "Our
team includes researchers who study optical and electronic processes using very
sophisticated tools, people who fabricate new materials and control structures
at the nanoscale, people who can synthesize materials with unusual properties
and people who are experienced in designing and making devices."
U-M's scientists and engineers also are partners in other EFRCs across the
nation.
Researchers Rod Ewing and Udo Beck are co-principal investigators in a center
based at the University of Notre Dame that will study nuclear materials under
extreme conditions to lay the scientific foundation for advanced nuclear energy
systems. Beck is a professor in the Department of Geological Sciences. Ewing
is the Donald R. Peacor Collegiate Professor in the Department of Geological
Sciences, the William Kerr Professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering
and Radiological Sciences, and a professor of materials science and engineering
Sharon Glotzer, professor of chemical engineering, materials science and engineering,
physics, macromolecular science and engineering, and applied physics, is part
of a center being established at Northwestern University to synthesize, characterize
and understand new classes of materials under conditions far from equilibrium
relevant to solar energy conversion, storage of electricity and hydrogen, and
catalysis.
The U-M EFRC is one of 16 to be funded by Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act.
"As global energy demand grows over this century, there is an urgent need
to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and imported oil and curtail greenhouse
gas emissions," said Secretary of Energy Steven Chu. "Meeting this
challenge will require significant scientific advances. These Centers will mobilize
the enormous talents and skills of our nation's scientific workforce in pursuit
of the breakthroughs that are essential to make alternative and renewable energy
truly viable as large-scale replacements for fossil fuels."
Forrest said U-M's Solar Energy Conversion in Complex Materials Center not
only is high-impact nationally, but also crucial to Michigan's economic recovery.
"This center is a significant win for the state of Michigan," Forrest
said. "Renewable energy—solar energy in particular—is one of
the major areas for opportunity in rebuilding the economy and this is exactly
the sort of activity that makes sense not only to generate new science, but
also very important economic opportunities in the long run."
The 46 EFRCs were selected from a pool of some 260 applications received in
response to a solicitation issued by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of
Science in 2008. Selection was based on a rigorous merit review process utilizing
outside panels composed of scientific experts.
EFRC researchers will take advantage of new capabilities in nanotechnology,
high-intensity light sources, neutron scattering sources, supercomputing and
other advanced instrumentation, much of it developed with DOE Office of Science
support over the past decade, in an effort to lay the scientific groundwork
for fundamental advances in solar energy, biofuels, transportation, energy efficiency,
electricity storage and transmission, clean coal and carbon capture and sequestration,
and nuclear energy.
Of the 46 EFRCs selected, 31 are led by universities, 12 by DOE National Laboratories,
two by nonprofit organizations and one by a corporate research laboratory. The
criterion for providing an EFRC with Recovery Act funding was job creation.
The EFRCs chosen for funding under the Recovery Act provide the most employment
for postdoctoral associates, graduate students, undergraduates and technical
staff, in keeping with the Recovery Act's objective to preserve and create jobs
and promote economic recovery.
Posted April 28th, 2009
