Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for the Electrification of the Chemical Industry (CECI)

The Planning Grants for Engineering Research Centers competition was run as a pilot solicitation within the ERC program. Planning grants are not required as part of the full ERC competition, but intended to build capacity among teams to plan for convergent, center-scale engineering research.

The chemical industry is one of the largest consumers of energy and changing its energy source from coal and natural gas to renewable electricity would have significant impact on reducing carbon dioxide emissions and on reversing climate change. In traditional chemical plants energy needed but not produced in the plant is supplied by burning fossil fuels and transported around the plant as high pressure and temperature steam. The global chemical manufacturing infrastructure has been based on this model since the beginning of the industrial revolution. In contrast, the future electrified chemical plant will rely on fundamentally different unit operations powered by electrochemistry. This project envisions for transforming the present-day chemical industry from an enterprise that relies on fossil-fuel-derived heat as power source to one that is based on renewable electricity. Towards this end, plans for initiating the formation of an Engineering Research Center for Electrification of the Chemical Industry (CECI) are proposed. This team proposes to engage a broad and diverse group of experts and stakeholders through a call for solutions to CECI's target technology needs and a workshop to generate actionable ideas and interdependent research tasks. The goals are (1) to facilitate the formation of a community vested in CECI's vision, (2) to identify and bring together the necessary skills and capabilities to surpass the existing barriers for the electrification of the chemical industry, (3) to plant the seeds for the formation of a community and the accompanying.

CECI will concentrate on three key bottlenecks for the deployment of electrochemical manufacturing on large scale: electrochemical reactors, electrochemical separation units, and electrochemical energy recycling. The technological development in these three technology areas will be supported by exploration on four research platforms: components, unit operations, systems integration, and societal impact. The component research platform will comprise a team of chemists, material scientists and chemical engineers who will develop membranes, electrocatalysts, and molecular redox energy carriers that satisfy the needs of the unit operations. The unit operations platform will comprise chemical, electrical, and mechanical engineers who will develop electrochemical cells that incorporate the components developed in CECI to impact each of the three technology areas. The systems integration platform will comprise power and systems engineers who will develop protocols to integrate unit operations with each other, renewable energy generators, and/or the electric grid. The impact research platform will comprise, energy economists and sustainability experts who will develop and employ techno-economical and life-cycle assessment tools to provide CECI with societal, economic, and environmental welfare targets. This multi-level interdisciplinary and ambitious effort would only be possible through large convergent research approaches enabled by an NSF ERC. CECI will aim to reduce the overall energy consumption and cost, making its impact on the society both environmental and economical. Importantly, CECI will educate the next generation of scientists and engineers with technical, entrepreneurial, and communication skills necessary for realizing CECI's vision. The diverse CECI team will also endow these students with policy knowledge and awareness necessary for successful implementation of technological advances achieved by CECI. The New York Metropolitan area and surrounding states (e.g., New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut), is well-suited for nucleating and assembling the CECI team because it provides access to a diverse population of students, an abundance of higher education institutions, including some designated as minority-serving, proximity to chemical companies and capital, and a well-established culture of innovation and entrepreneurship.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.