NSERC has recently announced that five Canadian research teams have been selected to work with international partners to address research challenges related to climate change and clean energy as part of the National Science Foundation Global Centres initiative.
The Global Hydrogen Production Technologies (HyPT) Center, which received $3,577,300 of funding from NSERC through this initiative, establishes an international partnership of six countries – US, Australia, Canada, UK, Egypt, and Germany – to formulate a pathway to low-cost large-scale net-zero hydrogen production. Researchers with diverse expertise from many institutions in different countries work synergistically with the common goal of achieving US$1/kg and gigatons/year net-zero hydrogen production.
The Center is led by Arizona State University (US), University of Adelaide (Australia), University of Toronto (Canada), and Cranfield University (UK). Other founding members of the Center include:
- US: University of Michigan, Stanford University, Navajo Technical University
- Australia: Flinders University, Curtin University
- Canada: University of Quebec in Montreal, University of Calgary, McGill University, University of Quebec in Trois-Rivières, University of British Columbia
- UK: Imperial College London, Newcastle University, University of Cambridge, University of Birmingham
CHBE Assistant Professor, Dr. Chester Upham, will be part of the Canadian effort to develop and promote the pyrolysis of methane, a way to produce hydrogen without producing carbon dioxide gas. UBC’s effort will use molten metal catalysts which allow for continuous removal of carbon in a solid state. The emphasis will be to enable a process producing both low cost clean hydrogen and a useful and valuable carbon product.
The National Science Foundation Global Centres is a joint initiative between the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the US National Science Foundation (NSF), Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to encourage and support international collaborative research on climate change and clean energy.