“With the approaches we will develop, we aim to address problems such as how to create materials for sustainable energy production and storage such as safer new battery technologies or the efficient capture and utilization of solar energy.”Matthew Rosseinsky, University of Liverpool
A new £6.65 million grant for research aimed at accelerating the discovery and application of new advanced materials for the energy sector has been announced by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
The grant, awarded to a team led by Professor Matthew Rosseinsky of the University of Liverpool, will support a program entitled ‘Integration of Computation and Experiment for Accelerated Materials Discovery’. Rosseinsky will head up an expert team at Liverpool and University College London that will work to tackle the challenge of designing and testing new materials at the atomic level and that aims to keep the UK at the forefront of materials research.
"The controlled arrangement of atoms and molecules to create function is a grand scientific challenge,” said Rosseinsky. “With the approaches we will develop, we aim to address problems such as how to create materials for sustainable energy production and storage such as safer new battery technologies or the efficient capture and utilization of solar energy.”
"Our team will include specialists in prediction of the structures and properties of materials, in measurement and materials synthesis. We will combine computation and experiment to discover new materials, developing methods that combine calculation with chemical understanding."
The program will exploit its discoveries and share its approach with its commercial partners via the Knowledge Centre for Materials Chemistry and the new Materials Innovation Factory, a state-of-the-art materials research facility for both academic and industrial users.
"Advanced materials will be crucial for future energy storage technologies like smaller, longer-lasting batteries and more efficient solar panels,” commented Jo Johnson, Minister for Universities and Science in the UK government. “With this £6.65 million investment from government, researchers will be able to develop a smarter design process from the single atom all the way up to new materials that will speed up discovery and strengthen commercial capabilities in this increasingly important field."
"The development of new advanced materials is vital to extending our capabilities across a wide range of scientific disciplines,” said Philip Nelson, EPSRC's chief executive. “The work planned as part of this program grant promises to find new materials that will have many applications in the energy sector. This grant will be supporting some of the UK's talented scientists and help achieve EPSRC's vision to make the UK the best place in the world to research, discover and innovate."
This story is adapted from material from the EPSRC, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier. Link to original source.