The Department of Energy has given North Carolina A&T State University’s Center for Electrochemical Dynamics and Reactions on Surfaces (CEDARS) a four-year, $10.35 million grant.
A&T is the only historically Black college or university to get this funding from the Department of Education.
CEDARS is one of 43 universities and national laboratories that will receive over $400 million for the establishment and maintenance of Energy Frontier Research Centers. EFRCs assemble multidisciplinary scientific teams to address scientific obstacles impeding the advancement of energy technologies.
The programs are led by 28 colleges, including Stanford University, Michigan State University, MIT, and Georgia Tech, in addition to national laboratories and partner institutions.
They will investigate everything from energy storage to quantum information science together. CEDARS will concentrate on separating hydrogen and oxygen from water in order to produce clean hydrogen for energy applications.
These contributions will support research that lays the groundwork for the development of solar and nuclear energy technologies, energy storage, carbon capture, novel manufacturing processes, and the more efficient use of essential minerals in energy technologies and manufacturing.
The center’s lead investigator is Dhananjay Kumar, a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering who will collaborate with A&T academics in computational science and engineering, science, technology, chemistry, nanoscience, and nanoengineering; and the College of Education.
Kumar will also oversee faculty from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cornell University, Penn State University, Colorado University at Boulder, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, according to a press statement.
