In just the past year, UMass Lowell faculty received approximately $13.5 million in research funding related to energy.
Energy Funding
| Principal Investigator (PI) | Co-PI(s) | Project Title | Agency | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agar, Ertan | Murat Inalpolat, Alireza Amirkhizi | Manufacturing of Fabric Electrodes using a High-Throughput Screening Platform for Redox Flow Batteries | US Department of Energy (DOE) | $500,000 |
| I-Corps: High-Stability Bio-Inspired Non-Aqueous Redox Flow Batteries | National Science Foundation (NSF) | $50,000 | ||
| Amir, Ameli | Margaret Sobkowicz-Kline, Idaho National Laboratory, Washington State University, Auburn University, DTG Recycle Group, Remacol Inc., Coperion Corp., Barnes Group, Sirmax
| Developing Technologies for Recovery and Reuse of Nonrecyclable Mixed-Waste Plastics and Natural Fibers for Building Construction and More | U.S. DOE's REMADE Institute, Corporate partners | $1,750,000 |
| Apul, Onur | Xiaoqi Zhang | Increasing Biogas Production from Wastewater Residual Sludge by a Novel, Single-Step Nano-Enabled Thermal Pretreatment Method | Mass Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) Catalyst | $65,000 |
| Hunter Mack | Nano-Enabled Combustion of Natural Gas in Constant Volume Isothermal Chambers | Columbia Gas | $150,000 | |
| Hunter Mack | Enhanced Combustion of Natural Gas using Nano-Additives | Columbia Gas | $150,000 | |
| Che, Fanglin | CAREER: Interpretable Deep Learning for Advancing Field-Enhanced Catalysis | National Science Foundation (NSF) | $875,000 | |
| Chen, Julie | Christopher Neizrecki & Joe Hartman | UMass Lowell (UML) / Fraunhofer CSE integration | MassCEC | $1,200,000 |
| Adam Shine, Matthew Plummer, & David Wagger | Chemical Recycling of Mixed Plastics and Precious Metals in the Electronic Wastes Using Solvent-based Processing | The REMADE Institute | $89,000 | |
| Chow, Kwok-Fan | Textile based capacitor using Iridium oxide (IrOx) nanoparticles for use in energy storage | U.S. Army | $125,000 | |
| de Almeida, Valmor | Stephen Lam | Distinguished Faculty Advancement Program for Nuclear Materials at the University of Massachusetts Lowell | U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission | $600,000 |
| Hansen, Christopher | Chris Niezrecki, Siavash Pakdelian, Richard Gaschnig, & Chi Zhang
| Creating the Next Generation Offshore Wind Workforce | MassCEC | $244,457 |
| Hsien-Yuan Hsu, Yanfen Li | Expanding Access to Opportunity in Offshore Wind | MassCEC | $48,000 | |
| Inalpolat, Murat | Christopher Niezrecki & Yan Luo | Development of an Acoustics-based Automated Offshore | DOE | $1,400,000 |
| Christopher Niezrecki & Yan Luo | B1-19 Long-duration testing of the Acoustic Blade Monitoring System in a Wind Farm | NSF Industry/University Collaborative Research Center (I/UCRC) WindSTAR | $64,450 | |
| Christopher Niezrecki & Yan Luo | B1-18 System Integration of a Wind Turbine Blade Acoustic Monitoring System | NSF I/UCRC WindSTAR | $60,080 | |
| Christopher Niezrecki & Yan Luo | B1-17 Intelligent Damage Detection from Wind Turbine Blades using Acoustic Excitation | NSF I/UCRC WindSTAR | $65,000 | |
| Christopher Niezrecki | Development of an Integral Off-Shore Wind Turbine Blade Structural Health Monitoring System | MassCEC | $150,000 | |
| Chris Niezrecki | Feature-based Identification of Data Collected Using Acoustic Blade Monitoring System | WindSTAR (NSF I/UCRC) | $68,000 | |
| Jin, Xinfang | Electrochemical Thermal Coupled Model and Model Development | University of South Carolina | $80,000 | |
| SusChEM: Collaborative research: A New Class of Chemical Potential Driven Plug Flow Membrane Reactors for Combined Gas Separation and Direct Natural Gas Conversion | NSF | $129,890 | ||
| A Multifunctional Isostructural Bilayer Oxygen Evolution Electrode for Durable Intermediate-Temperature Electrochemical Water Splitting | DOE | $287,540 | ||
| Kosny, Jan | Cordula Schmid & MegSobkowicz-Kline | Multipurpose Latent Heat Storage System for Building Applications | DOE, Dept. of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy | $1,949,980 |
| Kumar, Jayant | Lian Li & Youngju Bae | Development of flexible perovskite photovoltaic power sources for soldier applications | US Army CCDC Soldier Center (CCDC SC) | $213,220 |
| Dhandapani Venkatarama (UMass Amherst)* | Development of high performance flexible perovskite photovoltaic power sources for soldier applications | CCDC SC | $79,540 | |
| Ramaswamy Nagarajan & Claire Lepont | Optimizing reliability, performance and conformability of organic photovoltaic fibers | CCDC SC | $266,430 | |
| Lian Li & Claire Lepont | Optimizing performance of Organic Photovoltaic Fibers | CCDC SC | $331,140 | |
| Lam, Stephen | Vyacheslav Bryantsev (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Santanu Roy (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) | Accelerating the development of reliable and robust machine-learning based interatomic potentials for the prediction of molten salt structure and properties | DOE – Nuclear Energy University Program | $400,000 |
| **Boris Khaykovitch (MIT, PI), David Sprouster (SBU), Anatoly Frenkel (Brookhaven National Lab), Marisa Monreal (Los Almos National Lab), Joanna McFarlane (Oak Ridge National Lab)
| Redox potential, ionic speciation, and separation and recovery challenges from molten salts containing actinides and fission products | U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) | $1,000,000 | |
| Screening and Development of Doped Mixed Metal Oxides | NSF | $208,000 | ||
| Lin, Yuzhang | Cyber Security of Power System Model Dataset: Threats, Impacts, and Defenses | NSF Energy, Power, Control, & Networks (EPCN) Program | $287,053 | |
| Liu, Fuqiang | PFI-TT: Prototype Development of Portable Rechargeable Solar Batteries | NSF | $249,997 | |
| Mack, Hunter | Noah Van Dam | Enabling compression ignition of natural gas through noble gas addition | Columbia Gas | $150,000 |
| **PI: Peter Russo (Blackburn Energy), UML = Subcontractor | Efficacy Test for Variable Uses of Blackburn RelGen | MassCEC Innovate Mass | $201,000 | |
| Hsi-Wu Wong (UMass Lowell), *Thomas Schwartz (Univ. of Maine),
*Clayton Wheeler (Univ. of Maine) & *Paul Yelvington (Mainstream Engineering) | Renewable Fuel Additives from Woody Biomass | DOE | $1,001,700 | |
| Hsi-Wu Wong | Renewable Fuel Additives from Woody Biomass (Add-on Funding) | MassCEC Amplify Mass | $215,476 | |
| Stephen Johnston, Hongwei Sun, Meghan Sobkowicz-Kline | Enabling Improved Microclimate Cooling Systems Through Custom Materials and Design Modifications | HEROES | $175,000 | |
| Juan Pablo Trelles | Scalable JP-10 Production from Sustainable Resources | Department of the Navy (DON) / Mainstream Engineering | $69,872 | |
| Maiaru, Marianna | Chris Hansen, Scott Stapleton | Wind blade repair optimization | WindSTAR | $65,000 |
| Scott Stapleton, Chris Hansen | Cure Cycle Optimization of Wind Turbine Blade Bondlines | WindSTAR (NSF I/UCRC) | $69,000 | |
| Alireza Amirkhizi, Todd Griffin* (Univ. of Texas-Dallas) | Project A1-19: Mechanical property enhancement prediction for matrix materials | $79,988 | ||
| Christopher Hansen | Structural Wind Blade Repair Optimization | WindSTAR (NSF I/UCRC) | $67,000 | |
| Margaret Sobkowicz-Kline | Mechanical Properties Enhancement Prediction for Matrix Materials | WindSTAR (NSF I/UCRC) | $71,139 | |
| Nagarajan, Ramaswamy | Claire Lepont | Photovoltaic (PV) Energy Harvesting Textiles for Homeland Security Ensembles (Phase 1) | Department of Homeland Security-Sillicon Valley Innovation Program (SVIP),
UML is a sub-contract to Protect The Force | $118,951 |
| Niezrecki, Christopher | Julie Chen | UMass Lowell – Central Maine Power Company Collaboration and Master Funding | Avangrid | $500,000 |
| Murat Inalpolat, Scott Stapleton, Marianna Maiaru
& Chris Hansen | Phase II IUCRC University of Massachusetts Lowell: Center for Wind Energy Science, Technology and Research (WindSTAR) | NSF | $582,050 | |
| Clean Energy Center of Excellence Study | MassCEC | $100,000 | ||
| Sukesh Aghara, Juan Pablo Trelles, Hunter Mack,
Ertan Agar, Fuqiang Liu & Walter Thomas | Clean Energy Innovation Institute (CEII) | UMass President’s Office:
Science and Technology Initiatives Fund | $95,000 | |
| Development of a National Offshore Wind Research Agenda | MassCEC | $50,000 | ||
| **Yacov Shamash (SBU), Cohort of Co-PI's from UML, SBU, UVA, and UTA | University – Navy Research Collaboration on Energy Resiliency | Office of Naval Research | $3,673,000 | |
| **Yacov Shamash (SBU), Cohort of Co-PI's from UML, SBU, UVA, and UTA | University – Navy Research Collaboration on Robust Energy Infrastructure and Resiliency | Office of Naval Research | $3,243,000 | |
| Alessandro Sabato, Murat Inalpolat | ARROW - Academic Center for Reliability and Resilience in Offshore Wind | DOE & MassCEC | $622,000 | |
| **Yacov Shamash (SBU), Cohort of Co-PI's from UML, SBU, UVA, and UTA | SBU-UML Navy Research and Demonstrations of Energy Resilience Technologies | Office of Naval Research | $3,243,000 | |
| **Yacov Shamash (SBU), Cohort of Co-PI's from UML, SBU, UVA, and UTA | University-Navy Research on Energy Resilience | Office of Naval Research | $3,716,000 | |
| Ross, Michael B. | ML-ROCKS: Machine Learning Reaction Optimization of Carbonation KineticS | Alfred P. Sloane Foundation | $55,000 | |
| Cow Burps to Butanol: Bio-electrocatalytic Valorization of Methane to Butanol | Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA) | $55,000 | ||
| Ryan, David | Safe and Efficient On-Demand Hydrogen Production and Regeneration System Based On Thermal Catalytic Splitting of Water with Nano-Structured Cobalt | MassVentures - MassCEC Catalyst Award Program | $65,000 | |
| **Triton Systems, Inc. | Hydrogen generation and fuel cell integration technology | Department of Defense | $106,000 | |
| Sabato, Alessandro | Chris Niezrecki | Foundation Stiffness Monitoring Using Optical Motion Magnification for Land-based and Offshore Wind Turbines | WindSTAR (NSF I/UCRC) | $72,139 |
| Sharma, Subash | Design and analyze sparging systems for tritium removal from fusion energy liquid breeder blankets | DOE | $486,000 | |
| Sherwood, James | Techno-Economic Modeling for the Insertion of Automation to Advance the State of Composite Wind Blade Manufacturing | Mass Clean Energy Center | $100,478 | |
| Techno-Economic Modeling for the Insertion of Automation to Advance the State of Composite Wind Blade Manufacturing | Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI) | $100,000 | ||
| Techno-Economic Modeling for the Insertion of Automation to Advance the State of Composite Wind Blade Manufacturing | Mass Clean Energy Center | $150,000 | ||
| Techno-Economic Modeling for the Insertion of Automation to Advance the State of Composite Wind Blade Manufacturing | IACMI | $150,000 | ||
| Sobkowicz-Kline, Meg | Dongming Xie, His-Wu Wong | Plastics in the Circular Carbon Economy AOI 8b: Designing novel methods for deconstructing and upcycling existing plastics | Department of Energy Bioenergy Technologies Office | $1,921,237 |
| Sun, Hongwei | Alkim Akyurtlu | Thermal Management of Fibers and Films- Smart Textile Platforms for Heating, Cooling and Signature | US Army | $303,024 |
| Javier Vera-Sorroche, Marianna Maiaru & Ramaswamy Nagarajan | Novel Thermoresponsive Fibers for Lightweight Smart Thermal Insulation | US Army | $176,465 | |
| Trelles, Juan Pablo | Nonequilibrium Phenomena in Plasmas in Contact with Liquids | DOE: Early Career Research Program | $750,075 | |
| CAREER: Sustainable Chemical Synthesis by Plasma-Enhanced Solar Energy | NSF | $513,120 | ||
| Hunter Mack, Hsi-Hu Wong | Hydrogen Production from Solids via Atmospheric Pressure Non-Thermal | U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development
Command (CCDC) Soldier Center | $180,000 | |
| Turcotte, David | TNEC-CSEA Ensuring a Safe Offshore Wind Workforce Project | MassCEC - Offshore Wind Works | $300,000 | |
| Wong, Hsi-Wu | CAREER: Molten Polymers for Selective Biomass Fast Pyrolysis to Produce Value-Added Chemicals | NSF | $500,000 | |
| Zhiyong Gu | EAGER: Catalytic Reaction Coupling of Bio-oil Hydrodeoxygenation and Alkane Dehydrogenation | NSF | $100,000 | |
| Xie, Dongming | Hsi-Wu Wong | Upcycling Waste Polyethylene into Nylon Precursors and Platform Chemicals via A Hybrid Pyrolysis-Biomanufacturing Approach | NSF | $463,000 |
| TOTAL | $37,236,677 | |||
*Noted if affiliated organization or institution is other than UMass Lowell.
**Noted where UMass Lowell is the sub-contractor and there is a different non-UML PI listed.