Thursday, August 19, 2010

Mass. clean energy researchers awarded grants

By Kyle Alspach

Five Massachusetts clean energy researchers will share in an award of $200,000 from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center and the Massachusetts Technology Transfer Center, directed toward projects that aim to help demonstrate the commercial viability of clean technology.

The award comes through the Clean Energy Center’s new Catalyst Program, which gives grants of up to $40,000 to early-stage researchers. The researchers must use the funding to develop prototypes, gather proof-of-concept data or obtain data showing a technology’s competitive advantage and how it compares to existing technologies.

The program received 17 applications from researchers throughout the state for the first round of funding. The grants were awarded to:

* Sankaran Thayumanavan, “Novel Proton Exchange Membranes for Fuel Cell Applications,” University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Chemistry Department.
* Timothy M. Swager, “Chemical Functionalization of Graphene for Energy Storage Applications,” MIT’s Department of Chemistry.
* Mengyan Shen, “A Reactor for Artificial Photosynthesis of Water and Carbon Dioxide,” University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Department of Physics and Applied Physics.
* Peter Girguis, “Development of Methane Bioreactors for Concurrent Carbon Sequestration and Energy Harvesting,” Harvard University’s Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Department.
* Christopher Reddy, “Investigating Unusual Lipids Derived by a Marine Algae for Next Generation Biofuels,” Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry.