posted on June 24, 2014
The College of Science and Engineering (CSE) announced yesterday that the Department of Chemistry has been awarded a $12 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to lead an Energy Frontier Research Center aimed at accelerating scientific breakthroughs in energy research. Professor Laura Gagliardi, an MSI Principal Investigator, will head the center. Five other professors from the department will also be involved: Professor Christopher Cramer, Assistant Professor Connie Lu, Associate Professor Lee Penn, Professor Andreas Stein, and Regents Professor Donald Truhlar. Professors Cramer, Lu, and Truhlar are MSI PIs. Professors Cramer and Truhlar are also MSI Fellows.
The new University center will be known as the Inorganometallic Catalyst Design Center. It will focus on the discovery of a new class of energy-science-relevant catalytic materials for energy- and atom-efficient conversion of shale-gas components. Center partners include Northwestern University, University of Washington, University of California - Davis, Clemson University, Argonne National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and the Dow Chemical Company.
Articles about this grant and the new center appear on the CSE (see: University of Minnesota receives $12 million grant for energy research) and chemistry department (see: New $12 million grant focuses on energy research) websites.