The U.S. Department of Energy’s
(DOE) Argonne National Laboratory announced
major new efforts with Northwestern
University and the University of Chicago
to advance the research and development of new materials to help solve the
nation’s challenges in the fields of energy, health, and security. The aim of
the collaborations is to strengthen Chicago’s
regional “innovation ecosystem” by linking experts in every aspect of advanced
materials science and providing them with direct access to the world’s most
advanced tools for materials discovery and characterization.
The announcement was made by
Argonne Laboratory Director Eric
Isaacs at a meeting of science and technology leaders at the White House to
kick off a major R&D thrust called the Materials
Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness.
The plans articulated by Isaacs
include the expansion of the joint Northwestern-Argonne
Institute for Science and Technology to incorporate materials research
emphasis and capabilities and, separately, the introduction of new
collaborative programs with the Institute for Molecular
Engineering at the University
of Chicago focused on
leading-edge materials research. In addition, industry partners are expected to
play key roles in the collaborations.
The Materials Genome Initiative,
announced last year by President Obama, seeks to accelerate the pace of
discovery and deployment of advanced materials that could fuel new and emerging
industries, much as research into the properties of silicon in the 1970s laid
the foundation for today’s $550 billion information technology industry.
“By more closely integrating our
national laboratories’ capabilities with those of academia and industry, we can
shorten the discovery-to-innovation timeline and enable a new generation of
advanced materials,” Isaacs said. “Our vision is to build a materials
innovation ecosystem in the Chicago area that leverages the power of discovery
science, the deep expertise of academia, the energetic spirit of
entrepreneurialism, and the pragmatic focus of industry—all powered by the
unique suite of scientific facilities at Argonne.”
“We look forward to expanding the
Northwestern-Argonne Institute, an already successful partnership,” said Julio
M. Ottino, dean of Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering
and Applied Science. “Computational materials has a long history at
Northwestern in both education and research, and by combining our strengths in
materials science, chemistry and nanotechnology with Argonne’s
facilities and talent, we are poised to help solve global challenges.”
“Northwestern and Argonne have a long history of productive, collaborative
research in materials science, the life sciences and chemistry,” said
Northwestern Vice President for Research Jay Walsh. “Our faculty and students
are excited to be collaborating with Argonne
scientists and engineers to further the national Materials Genome Initiative
and accelerate the development of new products and processes that will help us
respond to challenges in energy, national security, health care, and other
areas of societal need.”
“The Institute for Molecular
Engineering at the University
of Chicago will attack
societal problems from a technological viewpoint,” said Matthew Tirrell, the
Institute’s Pritzker Director. “I envision a translational institute, one where
scientists and engineers working at the atomic and molecular levels will apply
the most advanced tools to find solutions to engineering problems in fields
such as materials science, information technology, and health care.
“Engineering draws on both
empirical knowledge and computational modeling, including the management of
large data sets, to approach engineering solutions. IME’s interdisciplinary
setting is ideal for developing this powerful new approach to engineering
research and education.”
Argonne is the home of the
world’s most advanced tools for materials characterization, including the Advanced Photon Source, a premier national
research facility that provides the brightest high-energy X-ray beams in the
Western Hemisphere to more than 5,000 scientists each year from around the United States
and the world. The computational materials research effort at Argonne
stretches from materials for batteries and catalysts to magnetic materials for
information storage.
Argonne’s leadership computing
facilities will allow the properties of materials to be predicted with
unprecedented accuracy and can serve as the archive for the community’s
experimental and simulation results. This computational effort draws upon the
faculty of the University
of Chicago through the
joint Computation Institute.
The computational materials
effort at Northwestern involves faculty in nearly all the science and
engineering departments on campus. It spans from algorithm development for
quantum mechanical calculations of materials properties to the design of
high-temperature superalloys using thermodynamic databases.
Computational materials design is
deeply embedded in the educational effort at Northwestern as well through an
undergraduate materials design curriculum that was started nearly 15 years ago,
and a Masters Degree certificate in Integrated Computational Materials
Engineering is being developed.
As the nascent Northwestern-Argonne
Institute ramps up its activities, plans are to include new materials research
emphasis and capabilities that will engage disciplines from computer
engineering and materials science and engineering to chemistry, and physics.
The initiative will take full advantage of the advanced instrumentation at
Northwestern, such as the J. B. Cohen X-Ray Diffraction Facility and the
Northwestern University Atomic and Nanoscale
Characterization Experimental Center.
Northwestern faculty members are
currently working with companies such as Dow, Ford, and Boeing to design
advanced materials. In addition, a Northwestern
University spin-off company focused on
computational design of materials, Questek Innovations, is working with Argonne to design lightweight automotive materials.
The University
of Chicago deepened its commitment to
materials research with the creation last year of the Institute for Molecular
Engineering in partnership with Argonne.
Beginning with the appointment of Matthew Tirrell as Pritzker Director, the institute
has been pursuing an aggressive hiring plan to bring world-leading faculty
members into joint appointments at Argonne and
the university.
Molecular engineering encompasses
the design and construction of functional molecular-level systems for applications
in, for example, energy efficiency, energy conversion or bio-energy production,
as well as health care, computation, and communications. Early specific targets
of this hiring plan are in materials for advanced nanolithography, quantum
information technology, biological engineering, new materials, and device
technology for energy storage. To achieve this, computational methods are not
only essential and representative of another important area for targeted IME
hiring, but will be integrated with all experimental and developmental efforts.
The Materials Genome Initiative
will support the development of computational tools, software, new methods for
materials characterization, and the development of open standards and databases
that will make the process of discovery and development of advanced materials
faster, less expensive, and more predictable.
Among the potential advances
that could come out of the initiative are high-efficiency solar photovoltaics
and other clean energy systems, lightweight structural materials for
automobiles, biocompatible materials for prostheses and artificial organs and
substitutes for rare earth minerals vital in numerous civilian and military
applications but mined almost exclusively in other countries.
Source: Argonne National Laboratory