The University of Utah’s College of Engineering and College of Mines and Earth Sciences have received a four-year, $10.75 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to create a new Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC). The U center will study how fluids interact with porous solids, vital research that could benefit the future production of oil, gas and other energy resources. It is the first EFRC grant ever awarded to the University of Utah.
The group, to be called the Center for Multi-Scale Fluid-Solid Interactions in Architected and Natural Materials (MUSE), will be a multidisciplinary effort involving researchers from the U’s departments of chemical engineering, civil and environmental engineering, mechanical engineering, chemistry, metallurgical engineering, and the Energy & Geoscience Institute. It also will include personnel from the Idaho National Laboratory; Pennsylvania State University; University of California, Davis; University of Wisconsin-Madison; and the University of Wyoming.
The research will focus on how fluids like gas, oil and water interact with materials such as underground shale to improve the production of energy resources while also minimizing its environmental impact. This knowledge could be applicable to a variety of processes used by energy companies, including figuring out ways to use less water in hydraulic fracturing.
“This is the key to unlock the secret of coupled phenomena in porous media,” said mechanical engineering assistant professor Pania Newell. “It provides deeper insights on understanding complex fluids, interfaces, and material-fluid interaction.
The MUSE Center will be led by University of Utah Colleges of Mines and Earth Sciences Dean Darryl Butt. It will be staffed by faculty from the College of Engineering including chemical engineering members Deo, Michael Hoepfner, Jules Magda, John McLennan, Swomitra Mohanty, and James Sutherland. Brian McPherson from the U’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Pania Newell from the Department of Mechanical Engineering also will work for the center.
MUSE is one of 42 EFRC awards totaling $100 million given to centers around the country, the DOE announced June 29. The current cohort of EFRCs, selected by competitive peer review, includes 22 new centers and the renewals of nine existing ones. All of the centers will be funded for up to four years. In addition, based on favorable peer review evaluations, another 11 existing centers were awarded two-year extensions to support the completion of valuable research that is still in progress.
The centers will help to accelerate scientific understanding in diverse energy-related fields including catalysts, electro- and photo-chemistry, geoscience, quantum materials, and nuclear and synthesis science. Their research will lay down the scientific groundwork for future advances in solar energy, nuclear energy, energy conversion and storage, electronics and computation, production of fuels and chemicals, carbon capture, and control of the earth’s subsurface, according to the DOE.
Established by the department’s Office of Science in 2009, the EFRC program brings together researchers from multiple disciplines and institutions, including universities, national laboratories, and nonprofit organizations. U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry announced “funding for EFRCs is to accelerate the scientific breakthroughs needed to strengthen U.S. economic leadership and energy security.”