Research Projects within the STAIR ProgramThe STAIR program endeavors to educate Ph.D. students through a unique curriculum and through the opportunity to perform state-of-the-art research in key fields especially relevant to the search for and implementation of sustainable energy. While the skills being developed in the classroom and in the laboratory will find application in a broad range of alternative energy sources, the specific tasks identified initially are related to the hydrogen fuel cycle. The hydrogen fuel cycle consists of a production step, a storage step and a conversion to energy step, as shown below.
At the University of Tennessee, researchers are working on all three steps in the hydrogen fuel cycle. These projects are already evolving and expanding in scope, but the figure below shows some initial plans. The production of hydrogen through biological pathways has involved the photolysis of water by algae and cyanobacteria. The storage of hydrogen is focused on metal porphyrin frameworks and decorated carbon fullerenes.The conversion of hydrogen is focused on understanding structure/property relationships in proton exchange membranes. Each task has numerous faculty participants, representing experimentalists, theoreticians,and simulators.
Additional information on each of the three research areas can be found in the pages below. |
