EPSCoR CREST Phase I: Center for Energy Technologies

About This Grant

With support from the Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST), this project aims to begin a center at Montana Technological University. The center’s mission is to repurpose the thousands of acres of dead forest debris consumed annually in wildfires by developing technologies that use this resource for electricity generation and storage applications. While the need is acute, progress is currently limited by 1) lack of accessible and reliable energy conversion approaches, and 2) challenges with cold weather electricity storage. The center’s goals include producing inexpensive, efficient fuels from biomass, generating electricity from these fuels, and making cold-weather batteries from new materials produced from biomass along with student cohorts studying these specific issues and making their own new solutions. This project aims to 1) develop a mobile reactor to transform forest biomass into economic products and through machine learning process optimization, 2) develop solid oxide fuel cells to generate electricity from wood-debris syngas, 3) create nanostructured carbon web electrodes for bio-oil upgrading and supercapacitors, and 4) develop radical organic batteries optimized for cold weather. Methods include electrospinning for web fabrication, in-situ electrochemical/optical analysis, and machine learning. Expected results include scalable methods for biomass conversion to value-added products, materials development for electricity conversion and storage from these products, and improved process control technologies. A new workforce will be developed through the student cohorts capable of producing solutions to local energy needs. The Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) program provides support to enhance the research capabilities of institutions through the establishment of centers that effectively integrate education and research. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.