{"id":137078,"date":"2024-02-21T18:59:05","date_gmt":"2024-02-22T00:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=137078"},"modified":"2024-02-21T18:59:06","modified_gmt":"2024-02-22T00:59:06","slug":"university-of-mississippi-research-aims-to-improve-clean-energy-production","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/university-of-mississippi-research-aims-to-improve-clean-energy-production\/","title":{"rendered":"University of Mississippi Research Aims to Improve Clean Energy Production"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chemistry professor, student study ways to make clean energy available to all<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By Clara Turnage<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

To create clean energy sources that are affordable and easy to replicate, researchers must first figure out how to efficiently create hydrogen. That is the process\u00a0University of Mississippi<\/strong>\u00a0professor Vignesh Sundaresan<\/strong> hopes to improve in his upcoming research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\u00a0National Science Foundation<\/strong><\/a> has awarded Sundaresan, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, $244,000\u00a0in an Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research grant for a partnership with Lane Baker, a Texas A&M electrochemist who specializes in scanning probe techniques.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The collaboration’s aim is to study electrocatalyst testing methods in hopes of creating more reliable hydrogen production for use in fuel cell-based vehicles and other clean energy-powered devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“To make clean hydrogen, we need the tools to determine what works best,” Sundaresan said. “We must be able to\u00a0measure the efficiency and stability of\u00a0hydrogen-producing catalysts.\u00a0That’s\u00a0the goal of this project.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fuel cell-based vehicles<\/a> are similar to electric vehicles in that they do not use fossil fuels. However, they do not rely on lithium, a rare mineral that is a necessary component in the batteries for electric vehicles<\/a>. Fuel cell-based vehicles emit only water vapor<\/a>, making them a clean mode of transportation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem? Hydrogen production is costly and only California and Hawaii have hydrogen refueling stations,<\/a> making widespread use of fuel cell vehicles difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The creation of hydrogen relies\u00a0largely on\u00a0electrocatalysts, substances that speed up chemical reactions, Sundaresan said. The current testing method for electrocatalysts does not give a nuanced view of each particle’s reaction, making production of chemicals such as hydrogen less precise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sundaresan and his Ole Miss team hope to design an electrochemical-optical microscope that can test electrocatalysts at the particle level and give scientists a deeper understanding of which catalysts produce hydrogen best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We can see the need of moving from fossil fuel-based energy to clean energy sources,” said Shubhendra Shukla<\/strong>, a second-year doctoral chemistry student from Gonda, India. “We have to find other sources that are clean and environmentally friendly. Hydrogen is one of these.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We need to focus on how to produce hydrogen so we can be less dependent on other forms of energy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sundaresan and Shukla will live in College Station for roughly six months over two summers as they work with Baker, and the grant will also fund a summer research program for K-12 students, where Sundaresan said he hopes to encourage students’ interest in STEM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We’re going to be working with Coffeeville High School to boost STEM learning for students there,” he said. “We want to use this research as a bridge to encourage the K-12 students in our community, and we hope to see more Mississippi-based students here at Ole Miss in STEM.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This research is supported by the\u00a0National Science Foundation<\/a>\u00a0grant no.\u00a02327025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Vignesh Sundaresan (left), assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Mississippi, and graduate student Shubhendra Shukla, of India, will travel to Texas A&M to study with Lane Baker, an electrochemist who specializes in scanning probe techniques, as a part of Sundaresan\u2019s recent grant. Photo by Kevin Bain\/Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chemistry professor, student study ways to make clean energy available to all By Clara Turnage To create clean<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123462,"featured_media":137079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25263],"tags":[27941,27738,27940,5,642,17181,7067,4,655],"class_list":["post-137078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-university-news","tag-chemisty","tag-clara-turnage","tag-clean-energy","tag-mississippi","tag-ms","tag-national-science-foundation","tag-ole-miss","tag-oxford","tag-university-of-mississippi"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Sundarasaen-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123462"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137078"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137080,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137078\/revisions\/137080"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}