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Everything is Illuminated (Tips & Techniques) | October 2008
MIT Brainstorms Alternative Energies
A campuswide effort targets generating energy, research, education and outreach activities.

There is no shortage of great minds at work on the energy crisis. In Cambridge, the MIT Energy Initiative was launched in the fall of 2006 after an announcement during President Susan Hockfield’s inaugural address. Just two years later, alternative energies are in use on campus and energy research has crossed many academic disciplines.

Global corporations have signed on as partners, contributing much-needed funds to the efforts and receiving the collaboration of some of the best forward-thinking minds. One early collaborator, Fraunhofer Institute of Munich, Germany, is working with the initiative to build the MIT-Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems in downtown Cambridge. They will study solar technology and design as well as building efficiency.

Another global corporation joining the initiative is Robert Bosch GmbH of Gerlingen, Germany, which will contribute $5 million over a five-year period to fund a research portfolio focused on energy-efficiency and renewable-energy research. The Bosch collaboration will aid in the search for new materials for electrochemical energy storage and electromechanical actuation, for nanostructured thermoelectric materials for residential heat and electricity co-generation, and for ultraefficient thin-film solar cells. As a sustaining member of the initiative, the company will have a seat on the governing board and will support 10 Bosch-MIT energy fellows – graduate students doing research in various energy disciplines.

Splitting water

Working in conjunction with the initiative is MIT’s Solar Revolution Project, whose objective is to develop solar power into an affordable, mainstream energy solution. With a grant of $10 million from the Chesonis Family Foundation, one of the first projects is to develop an artificial photosynthesis device. The theory is that, when sunlight strikes the device, high-energy photons will split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The challenge is to keep costs down, so the group plans to use inexpensive metals as catalysts to split the water, focusing on the abundant iron, cobalt, nickel and manganese.

Once the water is split into hydrogen and oxygen, the hydrogen ...
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