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The Department of Energy’s
Office of Science recently
announced 59 projects that will
share nearly 6 billion core hours
on two of America’s fastest
supercomputers to advance
knowledge in critical areas from
sustainable energy technologies to
materials research. Allocations
come from the Innovative and
Novel Computational Impact on
Theory and Experiment (INCITE)
program. Through it, advanced
computational research projects
from academia, government, and
industry gain access to powerful
computing facilities at Oak Ridge
and Argonne national labs. For
example, Argonne’s Larry Curtiss
and a team from IBM received 100
million core hours to address the
chemical and physical
mechanisms that could lead to
breakthroughs for lithium-air
batteries, while Poul Jørgensen
from Aarhus University,
Denmark, received 24 million core
hours to study supramolecular
wires made of a new class of
organic gel.
incite-program.
Penn State, State College, and its
Materials Research Institute
launched a center to discover what
new properties can be created
when atom-thick 2D layers of
elemental materials and chemical
compounds are formed
or when those layers are built into
new 3D structures. Mauricio
Terrones, the center’s director and
a professor of physics, chemistry,
and materials science and
engineering, announced the
concept of the Center for Two-
Dimensional and Layered
Materials earlier this year. Its
mission is to conduct international,
multidisciplinary research on 2D
layered materials, with the goal of
discovering new phenomena and
applications that could be
transformed into high impact
products.
Purdue joins effort to solve rare earth metals shortage
Researchers at Purdue University, West Lafayette,
Ind., are part of a consortium of national labs, indus-
try, and other universities forming the Critical Mate-
rials Institute (CMI)—a new national research hub
focused on developing solutions to the shortages of
rare earth metals and other materials vital for U.S. en-
ergy security. A five-year, $120 million grant from the
Department of Energy launched the CMI in Septem-
ber as the newest DOE Energy Innovation Hub. Led
by Ames Laboratory in Iowa, the hub is one of five
such sites established since 2010.
Purdue’s John Sutherland, head of environmen-
tal and ecological engineering, will lead an effort to
develop closed-loop material cycles for rare earth el-
ements (REEs) used in making magnets for lighter
and more efficient generators that power wind tur-
bines, materials also used in hybrid vehicles and hard
disks. Materials engineering professor Carol Handwerker and her team will develop a tech-
nology roadmap in collaboration with the overall CMI enterprise for applying a systems
view of the risks to pursue new materials and energy technologies instead of relying on
rare earth materials.
CMI will initially focus on developing solutions to shortages for five REEs as well
as lithium and tellurium, and the technologies that use these critical materials, includ-
ing electric vehicle motors and batteries, wind turbines, energy-efficient lighting,
and thin-film solar cells. For more information: Carol Handwerker, 765/494-0147,
, .
Virus biology holds promise for better batteries
Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, found that adding
genetically modified viruses to the production of nanowires could help solve some prob-
lems facing lithium-air batteries. Increasing the wire’s surface area is key, as it increases the
area where electrochemical activity takes place during battery charging or discharging. An
array of nanowires, each about 80 nm across, was produced using the genetically modified
M13 virus, which can capture molecules of metals from water and bind them into struc-
tural shapes. In this case, wires of manganese oxide—a favorite material for a lithium-air
battery’s cathode according to professor An-
gela Belcher—were actually made by the
viruses. But unlike wires grown through con-
ventional chemical methods, these virus-
built nanowires have a rough, spiky surface,
dramatically boosting their surface area.
Belcher, the W.M. Keck Professor of En-
ergy and a member of MIT’s Koch Institute
for Integrative Cancer Research, explains
that this process of biosynthesis is similar to
how an abalone grows its shell, in that case,
by collecting calcium from seawater and de-
positing it into a solid, linked structure. The increase in surface area produced by this
method can provide a big advantage in lithium-air batteries’ rate of charging and discharg-
ing. But the process also has other potential advantages, says Belcher. Unlike conventional
fabrication methods, which involve energy-intensive high temperatures and hazardous
chemicals, this method can be carried out at room temperature using a water-based
process. For more information: Angela Belcher, 617/252-1163, , .
ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES • JANUARY 2014 10
E MERGING T ECHNOLOGY
Carol Handwerker, the Reinhardt
Schuhmann Jr. Professor of
Materials Engineering, discusses
materials sustainability issues in
electronics with students. Courtesy
of Purdue University/Vincent Walter.
Virus-built nanowires have a rough, spiky
surface, dramatically increasing their surface
area. Courtesy of MIT.