7 minute read
Investing in Cutting-Edge Research
One Year Later
Evaluating Infrastructure and Cities Post-pandemic Project
In the last year, the project team has: Conducted interviews with public officials in 26 U.S. and Indian cities regarding challenges faced, adaptive response strategies, partnerships, long-term learnings, and knowledge gaps that have emerged during the
COVID-19 pandemic. The focus of the interviews was on several physical provisioning systems, including food, water, sanitation, energy, shelter, waste management, mobility, information-communication technologies, and public green spaces. Formed partnership with Google to identify opportunities to collaborate and use Google’s mobility data to explore behavior changes during COVID-19 in the United States and in India.
Hosted a virtual workshop for city stakeholders in April 2021 with over 100 participants from 40 cities, universities, think tanks, and national labs across the globe to discuss findings in the researchers’ draft paper, “Building
Back Better: Pandemic-Resilient, Sustainable, and
Equitable Cities.”
Optimizing Offshore Wind Farm Design Project
In the last year, the project team has: Begun installation of a two-turbine setup in an on-campus wind tunnel to be able to experimentally characterize turbine-turbine interactions, as well as new capabilities for varying the incoming flow, which will be a future target of the computational campaign. Developed a new model for computational fluid dynamics simulations to better understand the influence of sea surface waves on offshore wind turbine wakes.
Conducted preliminary studies to introduce additional physical effects into wind turbine models for computational fluid dynamics simulations. These models will be assessed against experimental measurements in the wind tunnel.
Energy Models Under Uncertainty
Christos Maravelias is leading a team of researchers in a new project to identify pathways to achieve net-zero emissions by ensuring that the models take into account various types of uncertainty as well as bottlenecks that may arise along each pathway. Maravelias is the Anderson Family Professor in Energy and the Environment and professor of chemical and biological engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. The researchers are developing new modeling techniques and methods that allow models to incorporate the deep and diverse types of uncertainty in energy systems, quantify risk, and identify net-zero emission energy-system pathways that have low risk, rather than simply the lowest cost. These models build on modeling done in the Net-Zero America project, and now consider aspects such as supply-chain constraints, labor shortages, public opposition to changing landscapes and seascapes, environmental justice concerns, the impacts of climate change on energy infrastructure itself, and others. By explicitly modeling uncertainty, the selected transition pathways minimize the risk of failure by identifying a portfolio of alternative mitigation options and allowing for pivots along the way.
Funding for the Andlinger Center grant for Innovative Research in Energy and the Environment was provided by: Addy/ISN North American Low Carbon Emission Energy Self-Sufficiency Fund; John E. Cross ’72 and Mary Tiffany Cross; de Carvalho-Heineken Family Fund for Environmental Studies; High Meadows Foundation’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment Director’s Fund; Lewis W. van Amerongen ’62 Fund for Energy Research; and anonymous gifts.
—Michael E. Mueller
Princeton Teams up With National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Princeton University has signed a master agreement with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), based in Golden, Colorado, allowing the easy exchange of researchers and students between the two institutions to accelerate the development of clean energy technologies. Michael E. Mueller, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, helped facilitate the agreement and has been appointed a faculty researcher at NREL. The master agreement is designed to increase collaboration between anyone at the University with colleagues at NREL by streamlining the appointment process and standardizing terms related to intellectual property.
Using Light to Trigger Reactions
Bio-Inspired Light-Escalated Chemistry (BioLEC), an Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) based at Princeton University and in its third year of funding, aims to reduce the energy and emissions burden of chemical manufacturing. The EFRC, led by Gregory Scholes, the William S. Tod Professor of Chemistry, is developing catalysts and processes that draw inspiration from biological systems to funnel light energy into reactions, generating valuable chemicals from plentiful waste or plant feedstocks. It brings together diverse research fields, such as photophysics and organic synthesis, to achieve these aims.
Polyethylene, which makes up the bulk of the material in plastic carryout bags, is difficult to break down and typically requires high pressures and temperatures to recycle. Recent BioLEC work has successfully deconstructed a version of polyethylene using light, a first step to breaking down standard polyethylene using this method. This approach requires less energy than typical processes and breaks the plastic into useful smaller molecules that can serve as building blocks for new applications.
The Andlinger Center advises on the strategic management of BioLEC and provides support for distinguished postdoctoral researchers who work across all BioLEC research groups.
Growing Startups at the Andlinger Center
Andluca Technologies is a startup that spun out of Lynn Loo’s lab to commercialize a smart window technology with an onboard power supply from a transparent solar cell, which was developed in the lab. Nicholas Davy is the co-founder and CEO of Andluca Technologies.
In the last year, the company:
Received Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and
Small Business Technology Transfer Program grants from
New Jersey. Was accepted into the DeltaClimeVT accelerator program, which will allow the company to sharpen its business model and identify customers. Was selected as one of the 10 finalists to participate in Round 4 of the Luminate NY Accelerator Competition and program focused on optics, photonics, and imaging enable applications.
Flux Marine builds zero-emissions, high performance electric outboard boat motors. Ben Sorkin, Class of 2017, and Jonathan Lord, Class of 2018, both graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Princeton, and serve as the company’s CEO and chief technology officer, respectively.
In the last year, the company:
Tripled in size and moved its headquarters to East Greenwich,
Rhode Island.
Raised seed funding from institutional and private investors, including the Princeton Alumni Angels group. Was awarded National Science Foundation and Air Force
SBIR grants.
—Julie Euvrard
Julie Euvrard and Allyson L. McGaughey (Photo by Bumper DeJesus)
Julie Euvrard and Allyson L. McGaughey have been appointed as the Andlinger Center Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellows. Euvrard was selected for her work on engineering organic semiconductors for use in solar cells and LEDs, and McGaughey for improving the performance of tools used for water treatment. Euvrard brings expertise in a new and highly specialized methodology for characterizing organic semiconductors. Euvrard is working with Barry Rand, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, and Antoine Kahn, the Stephen C. Macaleer ‘63 Professor in Engineering and Applied Science. McGaughey creates novel polymer-based tools for preventing membrane degradation in large-scale water treatment systems.McGaughey is working with Rodney Priestley, the Pomeroy and Betty Perry Smith Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering and vice dean for innovation, and Z. Jason Ren, professor of civil and environmental engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. The fellowship aims to support researchers who bridge the gap between two or more Princeton labs and use expertise in each to advance an emerging field and find solutions related to energy and the environment.
The Andlinger Center started a seminar series to highlight early career researchers affiliated with the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. The lectures this year ranged from harvesting natural energy for water vaporization as a means to Sunxiang (Sean) Zheng sustainable desalination, presented by Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow Sunxiang (Sean) Zheng, to designing net-zero emissions energy systems to address environmental and societal objectives, presented by Erin Mayfield, a postdoctoral research associate at the High Meadows Environmental Institute.
Launch Pad
Our past Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellows are making waves with their research. Here is a highlight of where they’ve landed after their fellowships:
Luis Ceferino
Assistant Professor in the Civil and Urban Engineering Department and the Center for Urban Science and Progress at New York University
Rebecca Ciez
Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Environmental and Ecological Engineering at Purdue University
Tapomoy Bhattacharjee
Assistant Professor at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, part of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
