The grant will allow Christine Burgan, who’s earning her doctorate in chemistryĚýat , to spend the fall semester conducting her dissertation research at the DoE’s Pacific Northwest National Lab in Washington state. She’s one of just 87 students selected from among the nation’s top schools.Ěý

“This award is such a treasure to me because it offers me the opportunity to fill in some holes in my thesis project,” Burgan said. “[When I was accepted,] I had to read the email three times because I couldn’t believe it.”Ěý

The program, through the DoE’s Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program, connects students with specialized equipment and experts they may not otherwise have access to. The idea is to give students resources that will help them complete their dissertation or thesis research, with an eye on growing the STEM workforce.

Burgan’s research focuses on molecular complexes that excel at capturing dilute carbon dioxide, including direct air capture, which will be an important part of decarbonizing the atmosphere. She said this program and working at the national lab will allow her to further that research by doing high-pressure Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and electrochemistry experiments, which would allow her to confirm some observations and potentially publish in high-impact journals.Ěý

“Hands down my favorite part of the PhD adventure has been seeing my dissertation come together after these 4 years,” said Burgan, whoseĚýadvisors are Robert Buchanan and Craig Grapperhaus, professors in the chemistry department. “I never would’ve thought the start of my fifth year would’ve been at a national lab. I’m very excited to talk to new people about what they do and sharing what I do. Science is best when it’s collaborative.”

The award, valued at $30,000, is given to just 62 U.S. college juniors annually and is the premier graduate scholarship for aspiring public service leaders in the United States. Winners were announced April 12.

Nicodemus, originally from the small rural western Kentucky city of Hartford, is a chemical engineering major in the who is minoring in chemistry. His undergraduate research at UofL and with the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is aimed at mitigating the effects of climate change.Ěý

Hoping to bridge the gap between technological advancements and social policy, upon graduation he plans to pursue doctoral studies in chemical engineering and continue his career as a researcher with the DOE. He hopes to transition into policy work as a subject matter expert in his field with an eye toward enabling scientific discoveries to directly serve public needs.

Nicodemus was also one of two UofL students to be awarded a 2023 , which recognizes U.S. sophomores and juniors pursuing research careers in math, science and engineering.

“I am thrilled with the opportunity to represent the University of Louisville and my home state of Kentucky in both of these prestigious organizations,” he said. “It is one thing to be recognized for my accomplishments and potential as a scientist and as a public servant, respectively, but to be able to combine these two passions of mine in such elite venues as the Truman and Goldwater foundations is a dream come true; just the next step in a lifelong journey of service as a scientist.”

Among his many projects at Speed, he worked on the Team Desert Phoenix solar house in 2021 and was part of the 2020 to improve a device commonly used to treat COVID-19 and other patients with respiratory problems.

There were more than 700 applicants for this year’s Truman Scholarship from 275 colleges and universities. This year’s awardees join a community of 3,504 Truman Scholars named since the first awards in 1977. Including Nicodemus, 15 UofL students have been Truman awardees; the last UofL student to win the scholarship was in 2021.Ěý

Nicodemus also is one of UofL’s two 2023 Goldwater Scholars. Read more.

SoFab Inks LLC was founded by UofL graduate students Blake Martin, Peter Armstrong and Sashil Chapagain, who won DOE’s for technology they helped develop along with UofL investigators Thad Druffel and Craig Grapperhaus. SoFab Inks is one of only three companies currently moving on to the final stage of the competition.

Solar panels today are typically made of single-crystal silicon, which requires expensive processing using clean room environments. The American-Made Perovskite Startup Prize is designed to accelerate the use of perovskite crystalline semiconductor materials that can be produced using simpler known printing techniques, resulting in improved efficiency, durability and affordability.

The UofL technology improves these panels further by replacing other expensive photovoltaic materials with a liquified “ink.” This more cost-effective, high-performance liquid can be deposited as one of the conductive layers of a solar cell called charge transport layers that allow electrons to move and produce electricity. The UofL-held technology is patent-pending. Ěý

“The perovskite technology is a new entrant in the solar energy industry and has clear potential to radically reduce costs both due to low cost of materials and simple manufacturing,” Druffel said. “This prize reflects the potential of this technology and this team. They are well suited to continue to validate this technology and demonstrate substantial progress towards commercialization over the next year.”

The next step for SoFab Inks is to begin production and scale up capacity. In about a year, their progress in commercializing the product will be evaluated for the final prize award. The founders also plan to market their materials to LED and detector manufacturers.

“The mission of SoFab Inks is to accelerate the decarbonization of electrification by improving efficiency, scalability, stability and bankability of perovskite solar cells,” Martin said. “The $200,000 prize will allow us to scale our process up and begin selling to customers.”

IACs offer no-cost energy and water use efficiency and waste reduction recommendations to small- and medium-sized regional manufacturers and train the next generation of energy engineering professionals. The members of this largest-ever cohort of IACs will focus on improving productivity, decarbonization, enhancing cybersecurity, promoting resiliency planning and providing training to entities located in disadvantaged communities.

The funding allows for the creation of the UofL Industrial Assessment Center for Manufacturing Technical Assistance and Energy Engineering Workforce Development at UofL’s . A focus of the UofL IAC will be to train graduate and undergraduate students in providing energy and water use reduction assessments. The IAC training will leverage the newly created master’s degree in materials and energy science and engineering at the Speed School to provide these students with advanced training in state-of-the-art energy systems and applications. The center also will address industry engagement and energy efficiency research within the , according to Mark McGinley, civil and environmental engineering professor at UofL and principal investigator on the project.

“We want to educate students in this process, to teach them to conduct these assessments using best practices and offer more students with these skillsets to support industry over a long period of time,” McGinley said. “We have structured the IAC center to identify recurring industry needs and facilitate development of technologies to address these needs.”

The UofL project team also includes Mahendra Sunkara, co-principal investigator and director of the Conn Center, who will coordinate research and development of educational programming; Ed Tackett, director of engineering solutions and industry relations, who will manage community college interactions and industrial relations; Lissa McCracken, executive director of the , who will manage assessment staff and industrial outreach; and Emmanuel Collins, dean of the Speed School, who will manage recruitment of industrial entities and students from underrepresented groups and communities.

“I’m thrilled that the Department of Energy has chosen to invest in the University of Louisville and its students, selecting it as one of the newest sites for an Industrial Assessment Center,” saidĚýU.S. Rep. John Yarmuth.Ěý“The IAC program provides an immense value to students and businesses alike, harnessing the talent of our brightest minds to tackle the energy, environmental and economic challenges of tomorrow. I’m so proud to support this effort and to know that Louisville will play such an important role in continuing to build the clean energy economy of the future.”ĚýĚý

Since its inception, the IAC program has provided nearly 20,000 no-cost assessments for small and medium sized manufacturers and more than 147,000 recommendations for improvement measures. IACs typically identify more than $130,000 in potential annual savings for each manufacturer, nearly $50,000 of which is implemented during the first year following the assessment.

Earth depends on balanced levels of greenhouse gases for our warm climate, averaging 59^oF, to sustain plant and animal life. Since the Industrial Revolution, burning of fossil fuels for energy has resulted in the excessive accumulation of atmospheric gases such as CO₂, raising the temperature of the planet.

Greenhouse gas levels are the highest ever recorded and continue to rise as worldwide energy use is projected to double in the next 10 years. Flue gas is the smoky exhaust from a furnace, boiler or generator and, on a larger scale, the gas that results from combustion at power plants. A major portion of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions (approximately 33%) are attributable to the flue gas resulting from electricity generation by utilities.

While most research into electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide has relied on pure gas feedstocks, CO₂ is more dilute in flue gas at typically less than 20%. The Conn Center project will pursue the development of a stable and efficient method to convert the CO₂ directly from a power plant exhaust stream, which would aid in making the overall process more cost-effective.

Flue gas contaminants can degrade the performance of an electrolysis reactor, making the direct electrochemical conversion of flue gas CO₂ a challenging prospect. The UofL team is working on novel molecular catalysts to guide the selectivity of the reaction within a new high-performance reactor designed for use with both water and organic solvent.

The major challenge of utilizing flue gas CO₂ to produce carbon-based chemicals is to create technology that is efficient, economical and achievable at a commercial scale. Meeting these three criteria would provide an economic incentive for industry by adding value to their waste instead of emitting it to the atmosphere.

These power plant emissions will be processed to convert CO₂ to useful products, including those where the single carbon atoms in CO₂ are combined to form larger compounds with two to four carbon atoms. Such products include formic acid, ethanol and methyl formate, all of which are currently produced using fossil fuels.

The research team is led by Joshua Spurgeon, Ph.D., theme leader for Solar Fuels at the Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research in the , and UofL chemistry professor Craig Grapperhaus, Ph.D., in conjunction with the University of North Dakota’s Institute for Energy Studies. This research has been funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). Funding of $1.25 million over two years was secured by Spurgeon and Grapperhaus to conduct the research, which has enabled the recruitment of several graduate students and postdoctoral scholars and will include research opportunities for undergraduate students.

The partnership also includes an alumnus of the University of Louisville Speed School. Nolan Theaker, one of Spurgeon’s previous undergraduate researchers, is now a Ph.D. student at the University of North Dakota and a research engineer with the Institute for Energy Studies. Theaker will lead the effort at UND to develop methods to process the flue gas for stable and efficient operation in the electrolyzer. This partnership includes Minnkota Power Cooperative, which will provide access to its coal-based post-combustion flue gas and analysis capabilities.

Spurgeon and Grapperhaus designed this project based on their from similar research on electrochemical conversion of CO₂, including Spurgeon’s work on electrochemical CO₂ reactors and Grapperhaus’s work on molecular catalysts, which bind CO₂ and assist the conversion. In the new effort, they will pursue a high-performance reactor design capable of meeting the metrics necessary for a commercially viable process. This includes achieving much higher operating current densities, similar to water-based electrolyzers, than typical laboratory measurements and very high selectivity (~90%) for the desired chemical products.

“Electrochemical reduction of CO₂ allows for renewable energy-driven production of chemicals and fuels in a distributed and modular fashion,” said Mahendra Sunkara, director at Conn Center. “Conn Center is looking towards the development of a CO₂ electrolyzer in the next five years.”