Published August 14, 2023
By Christine Reed
Three University of Wyoming research proposals recently were selected to receive seed funding through the Hydrogen Energy Research Center’s (H2ERC) Hydrogen Production and Transportation for Wyoming initiative.
The funding, available through the UW School of Energy Resources (SER), is part of Phase II of a funding initiative to promote and facilitate hydrogen research among current UW faculty members and researchers that will be applicable in Wyoming.
In 2022, H2ERC issued a request for proposals (RFP) on hydrogen energy, in which topics of interest included all supply chain levels, such as hydrogen production, use, transportation and storage. Seven projects were selected under the initiative that focused on hydrogen storage and hydrogen made from natural gas.
Phase II proposals were requested to focus on three areas of interest: hydrogen transportation, electrolysis hydrogen production systems or hydrogen production from Wyoming’s coal resources.
“We are excited to have the ability to offer opportunities like this to members of the university who are interested in advancing a hydrogen economy,” says Eugene Holubnyak, H2ERC director. “We have received a lot of support from the state, and our objective is to grow this area of research for the benefit of the state. We were really pleased with the quantity and quality of proposals we received, and I am grateful and humbled to be surrounded by so many brilliant colleagues.”
The selected proposals will receive up to $150,000 over a two-year period. The selected projects are:
— Saman Aryana, an associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering and the Occidental Chair in Energy and Environmental Technologies, will lead the project “Hydrogen Production through Coal Gasification — State of the Art and Future Directions.”
— Haibo Zhai, an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering and Construction Management and the Roy and Caryl Cline Chair of Engineering, Environment and Natural Resources, leads the proposal titled “A Multi-Scale Computing Framework for Advancing Hydrogen Transportation Infrastructure.”
— Charlie Zhang, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering and Construction Management, leads the proposal titled “Developing a Smart, Safe, Sustainable, Resilient (SSSR) Hydrogen Transport Ecosystem in Wyoming.” The project team includes Selena Gerace, an SER associate research scientist, and Danish Kumar, a graduate research assistant in the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences.
While it was not a requirement to have participated in Phase I of the funding initiative to receive an award in Phase II, all three selected projects are repeat recipients.
“We opened Phase II of the RFP with the intention of soliciting from a large pool of applicants across the UW community,” Holubnyak says. “Our review team at SER was presented with the difficult task of selecting only three finalists among many excellent proposals, and our winning submissions will continue to drive forward the excellent research contributions that they have already proven in this field.”
About the Hydrogen Energy Research Center
Supported by the state of Wyoming, the Anschutz Foundation and Williams, H2ERC focuses on applied research to support the growth of the hydrogen industry in Wyoming. It leads investigative analysis to identify and quantify the relative competitive advantages of Wyoming in an emerging hydrogen economy and collaborates with Wyoming stakeholders to support growth of a hydrogen industry focused on serving the state’s existing energy customers and growing new markets.
For more information, email Christine Reed, SER outreach director, at christine.reed@uwyo.edu.
