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Print Edition StoriesTuesday, April 28, 2009
DOE awards UMass Amherst with energy center funding
By Mass High Tech staff
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The University of Massachusetts Amherst is expected to receive U.S. Department of Energy funding in the suggested amount of $16 million, stemming from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, to establish one of 46 national Energy Frontier Research Centers. The center will focus on converting solar energy into electricity via self-assembled polymer materials.
The UMass center, called Polymer-based Materials for Harvesting Solar Energy, will be directed by Thomas Russell, the Silvio O. Conte Distinguished Professor in the polymer science and engineering department and director of the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center on Polymers.
The center will coordinate scientific collaboration with research institutions in Germany, Japan and Korea, as well as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Pennsylvania State University and the University of Pittsburgh.
MIT also announced that it had won funding from the DOE to establish two Energy Frontier Research Centers, including $19 million for the Center for Excitonics and $17.5 million for the new Solid-State Solar-thermal Energy Conversion Center.
The EFRCs, established with funding from the Recovery Act, are intended to create jobs -- in this case, for post-doctoral associates, undergraduates, graduate students and technical staff. The EFRCs will receive five years of funding, between $2 million and $5 million per year. The 46 chosen developments came from a pool of 260 applications.
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