Joint energy research center receives renewed funding
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) researchers have joined their partners in garnering renewed federal funding for energy research.
Department of Energy officials said PNNL and partners at Yale University, the University of Wisconsin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Washington, and Purdue University earned the renewal through significant achievements in developing catalysts that can convert energy between electrical and chemical forms.
The collaboration known as the Center for Molecular Electrocatalysis is expected to
receive $3.2 million per year for the next four years.
“We are excited to be able to further our scientific mission by developing new approaches to circumventing traditional relationships found between rates and energy efficiency,” Morris Bullock, a PNNL chemist, said.”These parameters are often correlated, such that improvements in one are obtained at the expense of the others. Typically, the faster catalysts are less energy efficient and the more energy efficient catalysts are slower. To make breakthrough progress, we seek to remarkably improve catalyst performance through system-level design.”
Department of Energy officials said the Center for Molecular Electrocatalysis was established in 2009 as an Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC), as the agency recently announced awards of $100 million for 42 new or continuing EFRCs, such as the one led by PNNL.
The centers are charged with pursuing the scientific underpinnings of various aspects of energy production, storage, and use.
