Science can be a risky investment. Large government institutions that hold the purse strings to research dollars want to know their investment is sound. But great scientific ideas don\u2019t always come with a guarantee of success. For a decade, the Dean\u2019s Catalyst Awards (DCAs) have allowed College of Engineering faculty to explore their riskier ideas, and the investment has paid off. The return is nearly ten-fold.<\/p>\n
The DCA program recognizes that fields of study within engineering overlap and new perspectives on old problems help move research forward. \u201cThe College as a whole is a highly collaborative place,\u201d says Associate Dean for Research and Technology Development Catherine Klapperich (BME, MSE, ME). \u201cAnd the Dean\u2019s Catalyst Awards program gives faculty that little extra push to reach out to their colleagues and get some of those exciting new areas of work started.\u201d<\/p>\n
Established in 2007 by Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen, the DCAs reward collaboration and innovation within the faculty. The competitive grant gives projects seed funding for two years to explore new areas of interest that could spark long-term research endeavors and yield new applications across fields. Over the past ten years, almost $2.5 million has been awarded by the DCAs and those projects have seen a return of over $21 million and counting from outside grants. In addition to a monetary return, the Awards have led to the formation of strong bonds between colleagues within the College and across the University.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Catalyst program is a spark for new areas of research in the College,\u201d says Klapperich. \u201cWe are extremely pleased with the success of the program in terms of collaborative publications and follow-on funding success.\u201d<\/p>\n
These engineers and scientists have established long-term working relationships with each other and over half of the collaborations are on-going. One of those successful partnerships is between Materials Science and Engineering Associate Head\u00a0Professor Soumendra Basu <\/a>(ME, MSE) and Professor Uday Pal<\/a> (ME, MSE). The pair won a DCA in 2012 to investigate how a process patented by Pal in 2007 could be used to produce solar-grade silicon. The new technique would not only be environmentally friendly, but also cheaper and faster than the current standard method.<\/p>\n Silicon is found in many every day products, but not as a pure element\u2014it\u2019s actually silicon dioxide, which is the main ingredient in sand. To be used for computer chips and solar cells, silicon needs to be pure. The standard way to purify silicon is done in two separate processes that require a lot of energy and are harsh on the environment because of the use of chlorine. The first process breaks the bonds between the silicon and oxygen, but the resulting silicon isn\u2019t pure enough for electronics. The second, separate process uses chlorine to draw out impurities, but \u201cit\u2019s overkill, and the silicon is a thousand times more pure than silicon needed for solar cell applications,\u201d says Basu. \u201cBut there\u2019s nothing in the middle, it\u2019s not like you can stop the process.\u201d<\/p>\n Pal\u2019s patented solid oxide membrane-based (SOM) electrolysis process would allow for the production of solar-grade purity silicon directly from silicon dioxide in a one-step, low-cost process that eliminates the need for chlorine. The solid silicon dioxide is dissolved into molten salt called flux and then heated to over 1,000 degrees to break the silicon-oxygen bonds. A ceramic membrane allows pure oxygen gas to be collected as a valuable byproduct and the resulting silicon is dissolved into liquid tin, again using high temperatures. When the silicon and tin cool, they separate.<\/p>\n \u201cBy combining the separation of silicon and oxygen using the membrane and the purification of silicon using the strong temperature dependence of the solubility of silicon in tin, we can produce solar-grade silicon in one step keeping the membrane intact,\u201d says Pal.<\/p>\n One of the biggest challenges is the damage to the expensive ceramic membrane caused by extremely high temperatures and the corrosive nature of the flux. If they can minimize the corrosive attack and prolong the life of the membrane, the cost will decrease and open up the possibility for use in industry. Basu\u2019s expertise in how materials degrade at high temperatures was the perfect match to help solve this problem.<\/p>\n The work is ongoing to study how and why the membrane is destroyed during the purification process and solutions to damper or eliminate the damage are being tested. \u201cWe have a theory,\u201d says Pal. \u201cIf we can match the basicity of the flux and the basicity of the membrane then we can stop the attack.\u201d They\u2019ve begun testing this theory by adding different compounds to the flux to see if one will create a less corrosive environment for the membrane.<\/p>\n The original DCA award for $45,000 allowed them to verify their idea to use the SOM method to produce solar-grade silicon. \u201cThose feasibility results were subsequently used to attract two additional National Science Foundation (NSF) projects on that topic,\u201d Pal points out. They also led to a new patent application. The two NSF grants totaled $312,000 and that research led to a collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory starting in spring 2018 that could be the first of many.<\/p>\n \u201cThe initial investment has different branches,\u201d says Basu. \u201cIt\u2019s interesting that what started as the SOM process moved to an emphasis on the membrane interaction with the molten salt to the study of the molten salt itself, and now, using that knowledge to branch out.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"solid](\"\/eng\/files\/2017\/10\/Fig.jpg\")