Emerging Energy Materials and Technology (Energy and Earth, Mines)

In September 2008 Mines received a $9.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to establish a center dedicated to investigating emerging renewable energy materials and technologies.

The Renewable Energy Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (REMRSEC) is headed by Physics Professor Craig Taylor.* This first NSF-funded center dedicated solely to renewable energy enjoys a strong collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

The strategic partnership with scientists and engineers at NREL allows for the sharing of students, research associates, equipment and facilities between the two organizations. More than a dozen companies actively involved in alternative energy partner with the center, which also collaborates with the University of New South Wales and Imperial College, London.

"In our first six months of operation we have put in place the organization and infrastructure to make highly significant contributions to materials that are critical to future solar and fuel cell applications and to the storage of hydrogen as a fuel," Taylor said.

REMRSEC is organized around two interdisciplinary research groups and an exploratory research group. The first interdisciplinary group concentrates on harnessing the unique properties of nanostructured materials (those whose dimensions are billionths of a meter) to significantly enhance the performance of photovoltaic devices that directly convert sunlight to electricity.

The second group is directed toward advanced composite membranes to enhance the performance of fuel cells and electrolyzers that use fuels such as hydrogen to generate electricity or use electricity to make fuels, such as splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. The final exploratory group is evaluating the use of open-cage solids called clathrates as potential materials for hydrogen storage.

The goal of Reuben Collins, photovoltaics researcher from the Mines Physics Department, and his group is to significantly improve the creation and transportation of electricity in materials and thereby shorten the time for solar energy to make a major contribution to world energy production. Center researchers are working on unique approaches to the materials, including synthesis, novel characterization and computational modeling of the materials' properties. This effort is directed at developing a fundamental understanding of advanced materials, nanoscale architectures and novel concepts to harvest energy from the sun. If successful, these investigations should lead to substantial reductions in the cost of photovoltaic devices. Andrew Herring from the Mines Chemical Engineering Department is leading the second group, which aims to develop an understanding of enhanced transportation of ions in solids, such as charged hydrogen atoms or oxygen-hydrogen molecules. Researchers are focusing on composite membranes that include both organic and inorganic components. Because the transportation of ions in solids is fundamental to nearly every process involving the conversion of chemical to electrical energy, such membranes underpin many biological systems. They're crucial to a diverse array of energy-related applications including fuel cells, electrolyzers, batteries, electrochromics, chemical separators, membrane reactors and sensors. Center research in this area emphasizes design of composite membranes containing very small-scale structures that exhibit improved stability, operational range, impurity tolerance, efficiency of ionic collection, and selectivity for specific ions and atoms.

Each year, REMRSEC will select new research directions and support them through a seed grant program. The purpose of this program is to support work in emerging areas of renewable energy research that is high risk, but potentially offers high rewards.

The initial seed grant is aimed at improving the storage of hydrogen or methane by using novel open-cage structures known as clathrates. Carolyn Koh from Mines' Chemical Engineering Department is coordinating this research, which involves the use of hydrate (water based) or silicon clathrate structures for the storage of hydrogen and methane.

Republished, with permission from the Colorado School of Mines' Energy & Earth magazine, which can be found online here.

*Dr. Taylor is also a Co-Editor of the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy.