Energy is the juice that runs today’s world. Energy is also one of the main cause of much of turmoil in world’s politics. Clean, economical, and sustainable production of sufficient energy to satisfy the need of 8 billion humans requires continued research and development in production and harvesting of available primary and secondary energy sources: fossil, renewables, nuclear, biofuels, electricity, and hydrogen.
Areas of Research Focus
The University of Illinois is home to some of the most cutting edge research in the field of energy production and the new field of energy harvesting. From research on making renewables such as wind and solar more competitive, fossil-based energy production more clean, nuclear power more economical while being safe, to efficient production of secondary energy sources such as electricity and hydrogen, research and development at the University of Illinois is addressing the challenges being faced in production, extraction and harvesting of energy for a sustainable planet. Some specific projects:
- Small modular nuclear reactor design.
- Making coal clean by carbon sequestration.
- Ethanol production.
- Making solar thermal and solar photovoltaic competitive.
- Engineering solutions for biomass feedstock production and provision.
- Demonstration of biomass boiler using chopped Miscanthus for on-farm heating.
- Greenhouse gas emissions from land use change.
- Small modular (nuclear) reactors.
- Sodium-cooled fast reactors.
- Digital instrumentation and control for nuclear power plants.
- Reliable unconventional hydrocarbon resource assessment methodologies.
- Geochemical tracers in oil and gas fingerprinting
Energy Scholars at Work
(click to enlarge images and view as a slide show; more scholars’ studies profiled on each of the Areas of Excellence landing pages)
Researchers
Paul Braun
Materials chemistry, photonics
Caleb Brooks
Nuclear power
Leonardo P. Chamorro
Fluid mechanics and thermal sciences
Evan H. DeLucia
Bioenergy feedstock production
Scott Frailey
Petroleum engineering and CO2 storage
Sallie Greenberg
Carbon sequestration and climate change
Waltraud M. Kriven
Mechanical properties and materials
Jessica Krogstad
Materials structure and durability
Yu-Feng Forrest Lin
Hydrology
Nenad Miljkovic
Fluid mechanics and thermal sciences
Kevin O'Brien
Traditional and alternative energies
Roland Okwen
Enhanced oil recovery and carbon capture
Carlos Pantano-Rubino
Fluid dynamics and thermal sciences
Joaquin Rodriguez-Lopez
Electrochemistry for energy storage materials
Yang Zhang
Nuclear engineering
ILLINOIS RESEARCH CENTERS
- Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI)
- Energy-Water-Environment Sustainability (EWES) Program
- Illinois Energy Farm
- Illinois State Geological Survey, a division of the Prairie Research Institute
- Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, a division of the Prairie Research Institute
- Institute for Genomic Biology
- Integrated Bioprocessing Research Laboratory (IBRL)
- International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research (I²CNER)
- International Center for Advanced Materials (ICAM)
- Light Material Interactions in Energy Conversion (LMI-EFRC)
- Nuclear Plasma and Radiological Engineering (NPRE) Department
- Power and Energy Systems Research Area in ECE Department
ONGOING GRANTS & GRANT OPPORTUNITIES
Coming soon.
FIND AN ENERGY SCHOLAR