MSU selected for U.S. energy research project

A team of researchers at Missouri State University has been selected to participate in a five-year, $15 million grant project to develop materials for next-generation energy production.

The grant is through the U.S. Department of Energy, according to a news release from southwest Missouri Congressman Roy Blunt. MSU will join 15 other institutions, laboratories and universities in the U.S. as participants in the Center for Energy Frontier Research in Extreme Environments project.

Professor Robert Mayanovic in the Department of Physics, Astronomy & Materials Science heads up the team at MSU.

"Our research team will generate the science to assist in the development of new materials suitable for use in the next generation of energy production," Mayanovic said in the release. "Corrosion and degradation are common in the materials that are in contact with hydrothermal fluids used currently in energy production. Those problems are likely to be more pronounced as new energy technologies rely on hydrothermal fluids under higher pressures and temperatures putting such materials under greater stress."

The project is part of the Department of Energy's efforts to establish 46 Energy Frontier Research Centers at universities, national laboratories, nonprofit organizations and private firms across the country. Grants for the 46 research projects will total more than $770 million, the release said.[[In-content Ad]]