Pictured above are David Wesolowski, left, director of the Fluid Interface Reactions, Structures, and Transport Center; and Yanwen Zhang, director of the Energy Dissipation to Defect Evolution Center. (Photo courtesy ORNL)

Oak Ridge National Laboratory will be home to two Energy Frontier Research Centers announced this week by U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. The Department of Energy awarded a total of $100 million to 32 EFRC projects to accelerate the scientific breakthroughs needed to build the 21st-century energy economy. 

“Today, we are mobilizing some of our most talented scientists to join forces and pursue the discoveries and breakthroughs that will lay the foundation for our nation’s energy future,” Secretary Moniz said. “The funding we’re announcing today will help fuel scientific and technological innovation.”

The two ORNL EFRCs are a renewal of the Fluid Interface Reactions, Structures, and Transport (FIRST) Center, which is led by David Wesolowski, and a new award to the Energy Dissipation to Defect Evolution (EDDE) Center, led by Yanwen Zhang.

ORNL scientists also partnered on successful proposals to lay the groundwork for fundamental advances in solar energy, electrical energy storage, carbon capture and sequestration, materials and chemistry by design, biosciences, and extreme environments. Those proposals include three new projects (led by the Georgia Institute of Technology, the State University of New York–Stony Brook, and Pennsylvania State University) and three renewals (led by Washington University in St. Louis, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology). [Read more…]