Sandia researcher Brian Somerday prepares to load a hydrogen pressure vessel into a laboratory furnace. Through the new International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research (I2CNER) and the Research, Engineering, and Applications Center for Hydrogen (REACH), Sandia hopes to expand its hydrogen research activities and engage the global hydrogen research community even more ambitiously than it has in the past. Photo: Dino Vournas |
A new hydrogen
research initiative based in Japan will leverage Department of Energy
(DOE)-funded hydrogen research at Sandia National Laboratories’ California site
and will likely become the first research effort to be rolled into a broader
laboratory research umbrella aimed at increasing the laboratories’ hydrogen
partnerships domestically and abroad.
Sandia’s Brian
Somerday is playing a lead role with the International Institute for
Carbon-Neutral Energy Research (I2CNER), one of six research institutes that
comprise the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) established by
the Japanese minister of Education, Culture, Science, and Technology.
WPI provides support
for research and development projects and encourages international
collaboration among leading researchers. It is designed to encourage the
development of research and development centers that attract leading scientists
from around the world and advance high-caliber work.
Somerday serves as
lead principal investigator for I2CNER’s hydrogen structural
materials research area. For Sandia, I2CNER represents a concrete
opportunity to engage the international community on hydrogen-related research
even more ambitiously than it has in the past.
“Though Sandia’s
hydrogen program has interacted with non-U.S. collaborators previously to
address individual technical activities and information sharing, leadership in
the I2CNER initiative provides an opportunity to coordinate with
international experts to address big, complex problems,” said Daniel Dedrick,
manager of Sandia’s hydrogen and combustion technology group.
One of the primary
goals of the WPI, Somerday said, is to change the research university
environment in Japan
by fostering more direct collaborations with non-Japanese entities.
Consequently, I2CNER—though based at Kyushu
Univ. in Japan—is
unique in that its director is Professor Petros Sofronis of the Univ. of Illinois, a longtime collaborator with
Sandia. Sofronis has most recently been conducting hydrogen embrittlement
research and development at the Univ.
of Illinois, funded by
the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).
In addition, Somerday
has already developed a number of research contacts in Japan and is
planning on attending an I2CNER program review there in June. He and
Dedrick are preparing to welcome Japanese researchers to Sandia’s California site as part
of the I2CNER collaborative process.
I2CNER’s
research goals, Somerday said, strongly overlap with Sandia’s interests. The
institute’s technical areas include (in addition to the structural materials
area that Somerday leads) hydrogen production, fuel cells, thermophysical
properties, hydrogen storage materials, and carbon capture and storage.
In the meantime,
Dedrick is working with EERE to develop the Research, Engineering and Applications Center
for Hydrogen (REACH) at Sandia’s California
site, a project that would house I2CNER and other specific hydrogen
research activities.
REACH, when it comes
to fruition, will include three primary components. One will be to perform as
an international research and development center for hydrogen, an objective
supported by DOE since global collaborations are key to solving difficult
problems in hydrogen. Secondly, REACH will feature a materials thrust, with a
focus on new structural materials and predictive simulation. Finally, REACH
will focus on engineering and applications, such as the award-winning fuel
cell mobile lighting technology.
In the wake of the
recently-completed DOE
Metal Hydrides
Center of Excellence led
by Sandia, the new REACH effort exemplifies continued hydrogen science and
technology leadership at Sandia. Somerday’s work with I2CNER
dovetails perfectly with the long-term REACH vision, Dedrick pointed out.
“Our first goal with
REACH is to have physical space within Sandia/California’s open campus, and we
envision that REACH and I2CNER will work together within that space,
such as hosting I2CNER researchers, co-organizing workshops on
future trends, and other activities,” said Dedrick. Eventually, he hopes that
REACH’s longer-term program development efforts will pay off and lead to new
facilities on the Livermore Valley Open Campus (.pdf).
“Fortunately, we have
a good network of collaborators and potential funding sources already
identified, with some of them even knocking on our doors ready to go down the
research path with us,” he said. “So this is a great opportunity to develop
those relationships even more and turn ideas into real programs.”
