NSF Grant Supports Development of
Graduate Program in Sustainable Energy

A grant from the National Science Foundation is enabling a team of faculty at the University of Delaware to establish a new graduate program in sustainable energy from solar hydrogen.  Totaling $3.1 million over five years, the award was made through NSF’s Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) program.

Led by Christiana Honsberg, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the solar hydrogen IGERT program involves 21 faculty from four of UD’s seven colleges.  In addition, there are three key partner organizations:  the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the University of New South Wales, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.  (See sidebar for full participant list.)

The program will integrate relevant concepts from science, engineering, economics, and social sciences.  “Renewable energy is an inherently multidisciplinary topic,” says Honsberg, “and unfortunately that is what has hampered its implementation.  An environmentally and economically sustainable solar hydrogen system requires integration of policy, economics, systems, and components.”

Solar hydrogen—hydrogen generated from solar-derived power such as photovoltaics or biomass—is one approach to the critical global need for a sustainable energy system.  “It has attracted a great deal of interest because it uniquely addresses multiple aspects of the energy system,” Honsberg points out.  “For example, hydrogen can be used for transport, electricity or heat generation, and energy storage.”

The integrating theme driving the development of the new graduate program is the question “What needs to be done to implement a sustainable hydrogen economy using solar energy?”

“This question cannot be answered by improvements in a single component or single policy,” Honsberg says.  “We have to provide our students with the multidisciplinary background needed to make the scientific and technical breakthroughs that will drive advances in energy conversion and storage.  Just as important, we have to prepare them to provide the leadership that will ensure appropriate use of the technology.”

Ultimately, the program will fund some ten Ph.D. students and six or seven undergraduates each year.  Master’s students will also be involved but not funded directly by the IGERT.

“A major element of an integrated research and education program like this one,” says Honsberg, “is ensuring that the curriculum supports it.  We want to lower the barriers and create a curriculum that provides students with the fundamentals from a variety of areas without impacting the time it takes them to graduate.”

To that end, a modular approach is proposed, with one-credit units offered in such subjects as solid-state physics, surface science, semiconductors, and economics and policy.  Depending upon their backgrounds, students will have varying needs for the fundamental knowledge offered by these modules.  The modules will be integrated in a PBL (problem-based learning) class on solar hydrogen.

The IGERT research program will focus on four major areas:  photovoltaics and photoelectrochemistry, fuel cells, hydrogen storage, and policy and economics.  “Our goal is for our students to be ‘energy experts,’” says Honsberg, “with a research focus in one area but the background, knowledge, and skills to draw from and interact with colleagues from multiple technical disciplines.”

To ensure success, a Management Committee will meet monthly to guide the activities of the IGERT.  This group will consist of not only the PI, the co-PIs, and directors of the associated centers and institutes but also the heads of specific IGERT committees addressing research, diversity, and education.  Additional input will be provided by a Student Committee and an Advisory Committee.

Honsberg sees the IGERT program as having the potential to evolve into much more than what can be supported with the NSF award.  “We want to get solar hydrogen up and running,” she says.  “Ultimately, we want sustainable energy at the University of Delaware to be much bigger than the IGERT.”

by Diane Kukich