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Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Economy Center of Economic Excellence
Inception: About the CoEE: The CoEE in Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Economy is part of USC’s larger Future Fuels™ Initiative, which is expanding the school’s expertise in fuel cells and alternative energy. This CoEE will conduct research to develop hydrogen storage materials and sensors for fuel cells. Fuel cells produce electricity from hydrogen and hydrogen-rich carbon fuels without thermal combustion and are more efficient for power generation than existing coal and natural gas technology.
One start-up company has been created through associated work of the CoEE: Hydrogen Hybrid Mobility. To date, this CoEE has received more than $4.5 million in private and federal research funding.
Along with other components of the Future Fuels™ Initiative, the Hydrogen Fuel Cells CoEE will be housed in the Horizon Center, a $55 million public-private facility at USC Innovista. The chairs for these CoEEs will work with public and private sector alliances such as the S.C. Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Alliance and the Greater Columbia Fuel Cell Collaborative. USC presently has the nation’s only NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) for Fuel Cells, which was renewed in FY 2009 for five years. As a part of this renewal, the I/UCRC has become a multi-university endeavor with the addition of the University of Connecticut and five member companies: IBM, Fuel Cell Energy, Northeast Utilities Foundation, Siemens and D‐Star Engineering. These CoEEs have international collaborations with the Korea Institute of Energy Research and the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy in Germany. Funding level: CoEE endowed chair:
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Dr. John Weidner, USC professor and associate chair of chemical engineering,
tests a fuel cell in the Swearingen Engineering Center.
