Renewed Energy Frontier Research Center to continue providing pivotal discoveries related to advanced materials underpinning future solutions to water crises.
Water-energy systems are at the heart of electricity production, water treatment and distribution, irrigation of energy crops such as maize, oil and gas operations and more. One of the biggest impediments to improving such systems is the complicated science at the interface between water and solid surfaces in these systems.
For the past four years, the Advanced Materials for Energy-Water Systems (AMEWS) Center, led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, has been making pivotal discoveries centered on this important interface.
Today, DOE announced its decision to renew AMEWS for another four years. For the renewal period, Argonne will continue its earlier partnership with the University of Chicago and Northwestern University and will add a valuable new partner, Princeton University. Planned funding is $13 million over the next four years.
“Our discoveries will inspire game-changing technologies to address water crises brought on by increasing population, accelerating development and climate disruption.” — Seth Darling, director of the Advanced Materials for Energy-Water Systems (AMEWS) Center led by Argonne
Established in 2018, AMEWS is one of DOE’s Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs). The EFRCs bring together leading researchers from national laboratories and universities to tackle the many big challenges our nation faces in energy and related areas.
“With this renewal, AMEWS will continue unravelling the mysteries behind the fundamental chemical and physical interactions at the water-solid interface,” said AMEWS director Seth Darling. “Our discoveries will inspire game-changing technologies to address water crises brought on by increasing population, accelerating development and climate disruption.”
In addition to serving as AMEWS director, Darling is the interim associate laboratory director for the Advanced Energy Technologies directorate at Argonne.
One of the numerous highlights from AMEWS’s first four years is the pioneering of a new route for fabricating electrically conductive membranes with precise pore structure. The route involved applying a method invented at Argonne, sequential infiltration synthesis. Research on these membranes will continue in the next four years as AMEWS scientists look to attach a catalyst to the electrified membrane. This catalyst-coated membrane will be able to degrade water contaminants that pose a risk to public health.
One key example of such a water contaminant is per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). These extremely stable pollutants are produced in many industrial processes and are present in numerous consumer products.
Another highlight is use of molecules with “reporter bonds.” When these molecules are tethered to solid surfaces, the vibrations of the reporter bonds can be probed with advanced characterization tools. The findings report on what is happening in the nearby environment, giving critical insight into the water-solid interface.
“In this effort, we will be drawing on our newly developed ability to attach these molecules to surfaces in a very precise way and measure their vibrations in water with various advanced…