RASEI Fellow Niels Damrauer is part of a collaborative team that have developed a new light-driven C-F activation reaction, one that has the potential to help dismantle PFAS ‘forever chemicals’

Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are synthetic compounds that have found widespread use in consumer products and industrial applications. Their water and grease resistant properties have been part of their attraction in their applications, but these are also the reason that they are now found practically everywhere in the environment, they are very difficult to decompose.

While many chemicals will decompose relatively quickly, studies have shown that PFAS are expected to stick around for up to 1000 years. While this durability is great in something like firefighting foams or non-stick cookware, it is not great when these compounds get into the environment.

This new article, published in Nature in November of 2024, describes the work of a collaborative team of theoretical and experimental chemists, who have developed a new photochemical reaction that could hold promise of speeding up the decomposition of PFAS. A recent highlight of this work, written by the graduate student and postdoctoral fellows who did the research, appeared in The Conversation.

Using a photocatalyst, that absorbs light to speed up a reaction, the researchers were able to ‘activate’ one of the carbon-fluorine bonds, one of the strongest bonds in organic chemistry. The photocatalyst absorbs light, transfers electrons to the fluorine containing molecules, which then breaks down the sturdy carbon-fluorine bond.

While this doesn’t decompose the whole molecule, it is essentially like finding a chink in the armor, it opens the door to degradation of the PFAS to harmless smaller molecules.

This study demonstrated this process on a small scale, and the researchers are looking at how to optimize this reaction so it is more robust and can be done on larger scales. This work is part of a National Science Foundation funded Center for Chemical Innovation called SuPRCat, a research community that will be looking at this challenge, among others.

If it is possible to break down these forever chemicals, it will help prevent these environmental pollutants being in our soil, rivers, and drinking water. Excited to see the next steps from the team!

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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI) Fellow Lucy Pao, from the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering at University of ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder, is travelling to Milan, Italy, this December to receive the IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology Outstanding Paper Award. 

Collaboration Highlight

Each year a panel reviews papers nominated from the past two years and selects an article of high significance. The paper, published in 2022, describes the first experimental implementation of Model Predictive Control of the pitch angles of the blades in wind turbines. The Award Ceremony will be held on December 18, 2024, as part of the , held at the Milan Convention Centre in Italy. 

Model Predictive Control (MPC) is an established control technique that is popular in the general control systems community. One of the primary demonstrated applications for MPC is in process chemistry for the large-scale manufacture of pharmaceuticals and commodity chemicals. This describes, for the first time, the application of this technique in the blade pitch control of wind turbines. Control systems in wind turbines are essential for optimizing their performance, ensuring safety, and maximizing energy output. By monitoring key parameters such as blade pitch, rotor speed, yaw angle, and blade root bending moment, the control system can adapt to changing wind conditions, enhancing the efficiency of power generation and reducing mechanical stress on components, helping to extend the turbine’s lifespan.

“MPC is a very nice approach, but it is computationally complex,” explained Lucy. “There is an optimization that needs to be done at every time step, so getting it into a form where we could implement it, was a challenge”.

While MPC is a computationally intensive approach, the benefits for wind turbines are significant. Many wind turbine control systems are based on a feedback-only system, where the adjustments are based on feedback of what is happening now. MPC enables preview information to be included, so, for example, you can incorporate knowledge of a gust coming through and the controls can prepare the turbine ahead of time, which can reduce structural loading on that turbine. It changes the control system from simply being responsive to stimuli, to instead being proactive to knowledge of the conditions, essentially letting the wind turbine “see into the future”.

The MPC approach could have significant impacts on how wind turbines are controlled, not only improving their efficiency, but also reducing structural stress on the turbines and extending their lifetimes.

“We are really very excited about this award,” said Pao. “This has been a wonderful collaboration with our colleagues at the for Wind Energy Research in Oldenburg Germany. We started in 2016, with an experimental campaign in 2019 that led to this paper”. Misha Sinner, the lead author of the study, was a graduate student working with Lucy Pao and is now a at the (NREL). Misha travelled to Germany to lead this experimental campaign, and worked together with the team in Germany, led by , to apply MPC to the turbines. “This was a complex experiment to run, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the team of experts and infrastructure at ForWind,” said Misha. “The collaboration has been a really symbiotic relationship; I really value Martin’s input, support, and feedback on the work,” said Lucy.

The collaboration was sparked over a meeting in Stuttgart in 2015. “Martin and I were both external evaluators on a PhD defense for a student at the University of Stuttgart. We had lots of opportunities to chat, and when I mentioned that I was coming up on a sabbatical, he suggested a fellowship that I could apply for that would enable me to work with them,” explained Lucy. This was the start of the long and fruitful collaboration among the team.

There is hope that the recognition that the award brings will accelerate adoption of advanced control systems by the wind energy industry. “MPC can take into account constraints on the wind turbine system, and it is flexible enough to incorporate preview wind information,” said Lucy. This could provide significant improvements in the efficiency and lifetime of future wind turbines. “It is a really nice control framework, and while it has been looked at in the simulation context, it had not been examined experimentally for blade pitch control, to our knowledge,” said Lucy. “We have heard that Industry is looking at MPC, but we don’t know whether it has made it into their actual controllers. The wind turbine industry can be quite secretive about what they are doing”.

The MPC approach could have significant impact on future, and existing wind turbines, by giving the control system the chance to effectively “see into the future” by a couple to tens of seconds so the turbine can prepare itself. “We are very excited and really touched by this award,” emphasized Lucy, with the hope that this will catch the attention of those in the wind turbine industry.

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ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder Press Release

RASEI Director Seth Marder spoke at the 2024 VinFuture Sci-Tech Week and Awards Ceremony, where ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder Colleague Kristi Anseth was honored with the Special Prize for Women Innovators Award.

December 2024 – This week in Hanoi, Vietnam, the VinFuture Foundation hosted the 2024 Sci-Tech week and award Ceremony. This series of world-class events bring together leading scientists and experts from across a range of critical scientific fields, including materials science, artificial intelligence, air pollution and environmental studies. The capstone of the week is the Award Ceremony, recognizing scientists for their groundbreaking achievements that have significant societal impact. 

RASEI Director Seth Marder was an invited keynote speaker in the Materials for a Sustainable Future session. ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder colleague Kristi Anseth received the 2024 Women Innovators Award, recognized for the advancement in design of polymeric biomaterials and methods for biomedical applications. Kristi is a pioneer in the development of biomaterial cell culture systems, critical components in the regulation of tissue development, maintenance and regeneration. Her team has designed new materials that can be engineered for tissue regeneration and accelerate healing of disease states. This provides a foundation for the study of 4-D biology in vitro with responsive and synthetic biomaterials, regenerating tissues across the human body.

Congratulations Kristi!

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Five RASEI Fellows awarded the Highly Cited Researcher designation by Clarivate.

Each year Clarivate analyzes the citations of articles from researchers from across the sciences. From this analysis Clarivate highlights the researchers who have authored multiple highly cited papers which rank in the top 1% by citations for their field(s) and publication year in the Web of Science over the past decade.

This year five RASEI Fellows featured in the 2024 Highly Cited Researcher list, which includes 6,886 researchers. This year Matt Beard, Joe Berry, Joey Luther, Mike McGehee and Mike Toney were selected. For Matt, Mike and Joey, this is the fifth year in the row, the fourth year in a row for Joe Berry and the third year in a row for Mike Toney.

Congratulation to everyone for the recognition of the impact of their research. 

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In November of 2024 RASEI hosted the 2024 TEAM PV Consortium meeting. This event brought together researchers from ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder, NREL, Humboldt University and Hemholtz-Zentrum Berlin. 

The goals of this workshop was to develop nascent collaborative connections, discuss the best practices for collecting, sharing, and analyzing data around the parametrization of perovskites. 

RASEI Fellows Steve Barlow, Joe Berry, Seth Marder, Mike McGehee, Laura Schelhas, and Mike Toney participated in the event that included many students and researchers both from ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ and Germany. 

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The Climate Innovation Collaboratory (CIC) was launched as a collaborative venture between ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder and Deloitte, with the goal of translating cutting-edge climate research and data into meaningful climate solutions for businesses, organization, government agencies and communities.

This year three RASEI Fellows were recipients of awards to develop long-term engagements with Deloitte and expand access to critical climate data analytics, research and technology. These projects explore how the renewable energy grid can be built out to offer clean solutions for AI data centers and greater adoption of electric vehicles. 

RASEI Fellow Bri-Mathias Hodge is the principal investigator for a project titled “Interconnection Planning for Large Data Centers”. The goal is to develop a system planning tool to automate the initial processes needed for utilities to identify generation expansion, network reinforcement, and asset upgrades to meet the demands of new data centers. This work will help utilities, grid operators, and data center operators to deal with the expansion in the number and energy usage of data centers at the state, regional, and international levels. With the rise of AI, seen as the industrial revolution of the 21^st century, better understanding of how and where to place the data centers that are the engines driving this transformation will be critical.

RASEI Fellow Kyri Baker is the principal investigator for a project titled “Viability of long- and short-duration energy storage for AI Data Centers: Carbon, Cost, and Reliability”. This project combines the benefits of short and long duration energy storage to increase uptime, improve renewable energy utilization, and lower payback periods for AI data centers. By developing an optimization framework for data centers energy storage that leverages price and renewable energy forecasts to co-optimize cost, carbon, and resilience. Creation of a tool that optimizes data energy storage would have significant relevance to commercial and government clients seeking to lower data center consumption. 

RASEI Fellow Stephanie Weber is the principal investigator for a project titled “EV Infrastructure and local economic spillovers”. This project seeks to understand both how the construction of public electric vehicle charging infrastructure affects the surrounding areas as well as the tradeoffs associated with prioritizing equity in public charging locations. This will help inform state and national governments in the deployment of EV charging stations, to help incentivize EV adoption, and better understand the non-monetary impact of building EV chargers. 

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Jeffrey Cameron, Associate Professor in the Biochemistry Department and RASEI Fellow died on September 25 in Boulder County, ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ.  A memorial for Jeff was held on Friday, October 11 at Rundus Funeral Home in Broomfield, CO.  

RASEI wishes to recognize the person and life that Jeff embodied, his valuable contributions to our community, as well as his enthusiasm, kindness, friendship, and collegiality.

A GoFundMe page has been set up to collect donations in support of Jeff’s four children and wife at this difficult time.  Please consider donating and/or sharing the link. 

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RASEI Graduate Jake Perez (Shaheen Group) and Advanced Thermovoltaic Systems Team Win 2024 Earthshot Prize to Transform Our Planet

Pioneering Energy Solution Converts Industrial waste Heat into Clean Electricity, Revolutionizing Global Energy Use

The Earthshot Prize, inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s “Moonshot” challenge in 1962 to land a man on the moon, was launched by Prince William in 2020 to search for, and scale, the most innovative solutions to the world’s greatest environmental needs. The aim is to unleash the urgent optimism required to accelerate and scale the environmental innovations that will repair and regenerate our planet. In 2024 there were over 5,000 nominations across five categories. One of the 20 winners was the Advanced Thermovoltaic Systems (ATS) team, including Jake Perez, a RASEI alum.

The ATS team was awarded the distinguished 2024 Earthshot “Fix Our Climate” prize for their transformative efforts against climate change. Chosen from 5,342 nominations across 141countries, this prestigious award was recently celebrated at the Earthshot Prize ceremony in Cape Town, that brought together global stakeholders in the fight to save the climate, including Prince William and Sir David Attenborough.

Waste heat is everywhere. Globally, of the energy used to power the industries that the world needs, such as cement and steel, approximately 60% is simply lost as waste. This wasted heat is the equivalent of the energy used by 4 billion homes, twice the number of homes that are on the planet. It is a huge economic and environmental cost. ATS’s revolutionary technology has the potential to redefine the energy sector by tackling the colossal challenge of industrial waste heat, by changing perspectives and considering this ‘waste heat’ as an untapped resource.

ATS has developed a solid-state approach to harness electricity from waste heat, eliminating the resilience on moving parts. This is a shift from traditional turbine-approaches that are complex, have a lot of moving parts and can often rely on hazardous chemicals. The ATS cartridge system is designed for seamless integration across a wide range of industrial applications. You can learn more about the team and the technology that they are developing on this short video.

Congratulations to Jake Perez, who is a RASEI alumni from the Shaheen Group, and the whole team at ATS! Excited to see what is next!

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Fourteen teams from across the University of ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ competed for a combined total of $1.25M in startup funding grants as part of the 2024 Lab Venture Challenge (LVC). 

Judges from across the network heard Shark-Tank-Style pitches across two evenings, one for innovations in biosciences, and another for physical sciences and engineering. Two RASEI Fellows, Gregor Henze and Adam Holewinski were members of two of the successful teams, being awarded a total of $250k in startup funding ($125k each). 

Visit EcoValeric Innovation's website

RASEI Fellow Adam Holewinski was the lead for EcoValeric Innovations, built around an electrochemical process that converts biomass-based building blocks (levulinic acid) into commodity chemicals (4-hydroxyvaleric acid (HVA)), versatile intermediates for producing biodegradable plastics, biofuels and green solvents. This scalable, renewable process has the potential to significantly reduce the reliance on fossil fuels in a sustainable fashion. Also on the EcoValeric team were CEO and CTO . 

Visit Whisper Energy's website

RASEI Fellow Gregor Henze was the lead for Whisper Energy, built around the development of a wireless, battery-free sensor platform for smart buildings. Using machine learning to cut energy consumption by >30%, the platform can provide real-time data to optimize energy use, reduce emissions, and drive toward more energy efficient homes and commercial buildings. Developed through an initial $2M ARPA-E grant, it advances zero emissions in an economic and efficent manner. Gregor was supported by CEO and Technical lead . 

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