Global Centers Track 2: Developing Solutions to Decarbonize Emissions and Fuels

这个全球中心第二轨道设计奖通过推进能源流脱碳科学来推进多学科、实用的方法来应对气候变化。由于人口的不断增长以及随之而来的生活水平的提高，世界能源需求继续增加。今天，住房、交通、工业和农业的能源密集型需求都依赖于各种能源。化石燃料——煤、天然气和石油——在我们的能源流中继续占据主导地位，这要求我们紧急向脱碳过渡，以避免极端气候变化。来自美国、日本、以色列和加纳的国际团队汇集了他们的专业知识，以确定并开始解决成功实施脱碳的关键科学和工程挑战。多学科的全球中心设计团队与来自四个国家的学术、工业、研究和决策部门的利益相关者一起，探索了几种途径，从直接从大气中捕获碳到所谓的“绿色”氢的无碳生产，以确定最佳的科学、政策和工程解决方案。设计团队将举办一系列研讨会，为学生和早期职业研究人员开发能源和可持续发展课程，并通过国际学习机会促进学生的专业发展。这个设计奖主要集中在三个方面。第一个重点是碳捕获、利用和封存。研究人员探索使用纳米多孔材料、介孔材料和其他多孔介质作为吸收二氧化碳气体的最佳途径。这些材料应该具有成本效益，可扩展，并且能够将二氧化碳转化为有用的产品或易于隔离的产品。第二个推动力是蓝氢的生产，蓝氢被定义为氢燃料，由甲烷蒸汽重整形成，同时捕获二氧化碳副产品。化学环法和载氧材料方面的国际专家将制定战略，如何利用这些方法高效、经济地生产蓝氢。第三个也是最后一个推动力是通过水的热化学或光化学分解生产绿色氢，这是一项新兴技术。全球合作伙伴将利用太阳能热化学分解水作为一种获得绿色氢的新方法。奖项活动的一个交叉方面是利用机器学习来解决材料发现问题。通过这三大重点，全球中心的设计团队将提高我们对全球能源流脱碳解决方案的认识。该奖项由全球中心项目资助，该项目是一个创新项目，支持以使用为灵感的研究，解决与气候变化和/或清洁能源相关的全球挑战。Track 2设计奖支持美国的研究人员将国际团队聚集在一起，开发研究问题和合作伙伴关系，进行景观分析，综合数据，和/或建立多方利益相关者网络，以推进他们未来更大规模的使用灵感研究。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Global Centers Track 2 Design award advances multidisciplinary, use-inspired approaches to tackle climate change by advancing the science of decarbonization of our energy streams. The world energy demand continues to increase due to an expanding human population and a concomitant rise in our standards of living. The energy-intensive needs of housing, transportation, industry, and agriculture all rely today on a mixture of energy sources. The continued dominance of fossil fuels—coal, natural gas, and petroleum in our energy stream calls for urgent transition toward decarbonization to avoid extreme climate change. An international team from the U.S., Japan, Israel, and Ghana brings together their expertise to identify and begin to address the key scientific and engineering challenges to successfully implementing decarbonization. Together with stakeholders from academic, industry, research and policy-making in four countries, the multidisciplinary Global Center design team explores several pathways, from direct carbon capture from the atmosphere to the carbon-frese production of so-called "green" hydrogen to identify the best science, policy, and engineering solutions for decarbonization. The design team will conduct a series of workshops, develop a course on energy and sustainability for students and early career researchers, and promote student professional development through international study opportunities. This design award is focused on three major thrusts. The first thrust is carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration. Researchers explore the use of nanoporous materials, mesoporous materials, and other porous media as optimal pathways for the absorption of CO2 gas. These materials should be cost-effective, scalable, and have the capability to either convert CO2 to a useful product or one easily sequestered. The second thrust is in the production of blue hydrogen—which is defined as hydrogen fuel formed by steam reforming of methane while capturing the CO2 byproduct. International experts in chemical looping methods and oxygen-carrying materials will strategize how to utilize these approaches to produce blue hydrogen efficiently and cost-effectively. The third and final thrust is in the production of green hydrogen through the thermochemical or photochemical splitting of water, an emerging technology. The global partners will use solar thermochemical splitting of water as a novel way to achieve green hydrogen. A cross-cutting aspect of award activities is the employment of machine learning to tackle materials discovery. Through all three major thrusts, the Global Centers design team will enhance our knowledge on global solutions for decarbonizing our energy streams. This award is funded by the Global Centers program, an innovative program that supports use-inspired research addressing global challenges related to climate change and/or clean energy. Track 2 design awards support U.S.-based researchers to bring together international teams to develop research questions and partnerships, conduct landscape analyses, synthesize data, and/or build multi-stakeholder networks to advance their use-inspired research at larger scale in the future.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.