Andlinger Center supports investigations into green steelmaking, solid-state batteries, and geologic hydrogen production

By the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment

Underscoring its commitment to cutting-edge research with the potential for significant real-world payoffs, the Andlinger Center has awarded Grants for Innovative Research in Energy and the Environment to three projects exploring new and emerging technologies for the clean energy transition.

This year, the Andlinger Center supported projects at two levels. The first level, known as Convergence Projects, provides up to $450k of support for one or two years to projects that draw together a collaborative, interdisciplinary research team seeking to address a multi-dimensional energy and environmental challenge. The second tier provides seed funding at up to $150k to support high-risk, high-reward research ideas and enable new collaborations.

Convergence project:

Greener steelmaking using hydrogen, ammonia, and low-temperature plasmas

Steel is a bedrock of the construction industry, yet the process for producing new steel is energy- and carbon-intensive — the industry accounts for around 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions.

Yiguang Ju, the Robert Porter Patterson Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, will lead an interdisciplinary team of Princeton faculty to develop a new, net-zero emissions technology for manufacturing and recycling steel. Traditional steelmaking requires high temperatures in a blast furnace and relies on a chemical process known as reduction, in which oxygen bound to iron ore or scrap iron is removed by reaction with coke, a coal-based material that turns into carbon dioxide as the iron is reduced. To avoid the emissions associated with generating high temperatures and the use of coke, Ju’s team will explore the use of hydrogen and ammonia as reductants in the steelmaking process in conjunction with low-temperature plasmas. These innovations could lower the required reduction temperature for iron, avoid the use of coke and other carbon-based reductants, and accelerate the reduction process.

“I look forward to forming a collaborative team to develop a new technology foundation for decarbonizing the steel industry,” Ju said. “If we could significantly lower the temperature needed for processing using renewable electricity, for example, that would be a tremendous boost toward raising the energy efficiency of steelmaking.”

In addition to Ju’s expertise in combustion, fuels, and plasma chemistry, the project will bring together Alison Ferris, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, an expert in high-temperature gas-phase chemistry; Aditya Sood, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the Princeton Materials Institute, who will bring skills in surface and materials diagnostics; Michele Sarazen, an assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering, an expert in catalysis; and Claire White, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, a specialist in environmental materials characterization.

Beyond unlocking fundamental advances in nonequilibrium materials science and developing new diagnostic and predictive tools, the team aims to engage and collaborate broadly with scientists at other universities and national labs, with a goal of building a research network in sustainable steel manufacturing and recycling.

“This project is a great opportunity to leverage Princeton’s strengths in fuels, gas-phase chemistry, plasma, and materials science,” Ju said. “By forming a nationwide network of collaborators, we are hoping to lay the groundwork for a national research center on decarbonized steelmaking.”

Seed projects:

Multi-modal investigation of degradation mechanisms in solid-state batteries

Electrifying the transportation sector is one of the lynchpins of the clean energy transition, but doing so requires longer-lasting, more energy-dense storage devices than today’s lithium-ion batteries.

Solid-state batteries, which feature a solid electrolyte rather than the liquid electrolyte found in lithium-ion batteries, offer more power, faster charging, and potentially greater safety than today’s batteries. However, solid-state batteries are susceptible to instances of uneven contact at the interfaces between the battery’s solid electrolyte, the current collector, and the cathode. Degradation at these interfaces negatively impacts the performance and longevity of solid-state batteries, ultimately leading to fractures in the solid electrolyte that can cause the battery to fail.

Craig Arnold, the Susan Dod Brown Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Claire White, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, will collaborate on a project to improve the stability of solid-state batteries. The project will combine multi-modal characterization techniques, including X-ray and neutron imaging diagnostics, with physics-based modeling approaches, such as phase-field modeling, to reveal the relationship between the internal structure, properties, and performance of solid-state batteries as they undergo multiple charge and discharge cycles. Understanding such structure-property-performance relationships will allow the researchers to optimize the electrochemical mechanisms of the battery, potentially opening the door to longer-lasting, high-powered solid-state batteries.

Toward accelerated natural hydrogen production

As an energy carrier that does not generate carbon emissions when burned, hydrogen has emerged as a potentially critical fuel for efforts to decarbonize the global energy system. Alongside technologies for hydrogen production, such as water electrolysis using renewable energy, significant quantities of hydrogen are naturally generated deep below the Earth’s surface.

Led by Catherine Peters, the Magee Professor of Geosciences and Geological Engineering and a professor of civil and environmental engineering, researchers will explore methods for accelerating the production of such naturally produced geologic hydrogen. The process involves the oxidation of iron and the subsequent splitting of water molecules to generate hydrogen gas, yet the natural process is inefficient due to the number of competing reactions and secondary products that make the iron unavailable for productive reactions.

Peters, who will partner with the Institute for Rock Magnetism at the University of Minnesota, will use geomagnetic diagnostics on magnetite, a mineral that includes both oxidized and reduced iron, to draw inferences about how the iron in magnetite is partitioned into various end-products. This information — including quantifying the reaction thermodynamics and kinetics — is important not only for understanding the availability of natural hydrogen but also for identifying engineering approaches to accelerate natural hydrogen production.

Funding for the Andlinger Center Grant for Innovative Research in Energy and the Environment is provided by the Addy/ISN North American Low Carbon Energy Self-Sufficiency Fund, the Gerhard R. Andlinger Innovation Fund, and the High Meadow’s Foundation’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment Director’s Fund.