Department of Energy grants fuel hydrogen research at UGA
Saturday, November 05, 2005
"Incorporating nanostructures may lead to more efficient hydrogen production and storage, according to researchers from the University of Georgia and the University of California, Santa Cruz who have secured $1.35 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to work on clean energy technologies. Yiping Zhao, assistant professor in the department of physics and astronomy at UGA and a recognized expert in the fabrication of nanostructures, is the principal investigator on the hydrogen storage aspect of the multi-institution project. The grants cover two distinct projects based on nanoscale materials on which the researchers will collaborate; one is for generating a solar cell device to produce hydrogen and one is using nanomaterials to safely store the hydrogen. Both projects are dependent on the materials to be designed and fabricated by Zhao at UGA, which will then be characterized and tested by Jin Zhang at UCSC. Researchers also involved are Mathew D. McCluskey from Washington State University for the hydrogen storage project and Wei Chen from Nomadics, Inc., in the hydrogen generation project. The grants are among 70 hydrogen research projects funded through a $64 million DOE initiative aimed at making vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells available, practical and affordable to American consumers by 2020. Generating hydrogen from solar energy using it as a transportation fuel with only clean water as a byproduct would completely bypass fossil fuels as an energy source. Still, significant technological barriers continue to block this reality." Source: eurekalert.org
posted by Frank @ 10:37 AM,
