HPCwire: DOE Funds Clemson University Clean Energy Research

The Leading Source for Global News and Information Covering the Ecosystem of High Productivity Computing

HPCwire >> Topic >> Applications

July 08, 2009

DOE Funds Clemson University Clean Energy Research

CLEMSON, July 7 -- Clemson University associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering David Bruce will participate in a multi-university Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) funded with $12.5 million from the U.S. Department of Energy. The Center for Atomic-Level Catalyst Design (CALCD) is focused on the development of new catalysts for the production of clean fuels and chemicals from renewable sources.

David Bruce"The scientific research efforts of CALCD, combined with those of 45 other new EFRCs, are focused on the development of lower-cost renewable fuels that can be produced in the U.S.," said Bruce. "The ultimate goal is to develop new environmentally friendly reaction processes that will help to decrease the nation's dependence on fossil fuels."

Bruce said that most renewable fuels now must be subsidized by government entities to be cost-competitive with fossil fuels. The materials that will be developed by the catalyst design center will enable renewable fuels to be produced at a lower cost and allow more of the feedstock to be converted into usable fuel and chemical products, which will further reduce the carbon footprint of new production processes.

Bruce will receive $714,000 for five years to use advanced computational methods to provide the molecular insights needed for collaborators on the project to prepare catalyst materials that are optimally suited to convert cellulose and other waste organic materials into renewable liquid fuels and bio-derived chemicals.

"Using state-of-the-art simulation and material-characterization methods, we plan to develop the next generation of catalysts and reaction processes that are needed to efficiently produce the bio-derived fuels of tomorrow," said Bruce. "We expect to make significant discoveries in the coming years given the exceptional computational facilities at Clemson. The Palmetto high performance computer system and Internet2 connectivity at Clemson will greatly enhance our abilities to model these reaction systems and interact with the other center investigators."

The Center for Atomic-Level Catalyst Design, located at Louisiana State University, is a collaborative effort that includes 21 investigators from nine institutions in the United States and Europe. Bruce will serve as its coordinator for all simulation efforts. James Goodwin, a professor in the department of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Clemson, will serve as a consultant to the project for one year.

-----

Source: Clemson University

Article Tools

Share Options

(Digg, Technorati, more)

Subscribe

Subscribe to HPCwire

Discussion

There are 0 discussion items posted.

Join the Discussion

You must be a registered user in order to comment on HPCwire stories.

Members enjoy:

	Access to Special Content, including Podcasts, Webcasts, and Whitepapers and more!
	Ability to take an active role in the discussions that are shaping the HPC technology discipline!
	Special offers available only to HPCwire members!

Become a Registered User Today!

Registered Users Log in Here to Comment

Email Address:	Password (case sensitive)

Remember me	Forgot Password?

RSS Feeds

Feeds by Topic

Feeds by Industry

Feeds by Content Type

Feature Articles

The Week in Review

C-DAC announces plans for a petaflop system; IBM researchers are working on vertical integration techniques to extend Moore's Law another 15 years. We recap those stories and more in our weekly wrapup.
Read More...

Moscow State University Supercomputer Has Petaflop Aspirations

The Moscow State University supercomputer, Lomonosov, has been selected for a high-performance makeover, with the goal of tripling its processing power to achieve petaflop-level performance in 2010. T-Platforms, who developed and manufactured the supercomputer, is the odds-on favorite to lead the project.
Read More...

Intel Ups Performance Ante with Westmere Server Chips

Right on schedule, Intel has launched its Xeon 5600 processors, codenamed "Westmere EP." The 5600 represents the 32nm sequel to the Xeon 5500 (Nehalem EP) for dual-socket servers. Intel is touting better performance and energy efficiency, along with new security features, as the big selling points of the new Xeons.
Read More...

Read more HPCwire features...

Top Headlines

Intel Partners See 'Easy' Upgrade Path With Xeon 5600 Chips

Mar 18 | ChannelWeb | Westmere parts already showing up in HPC machines. Read more...

AMD: OEMs primed for Opteron 6100s

Mar 17 | The Register | But what about the tier ones? Read more...

Arrival of the Desktop Supercomputer

Mar 17 | Cadalyst Magazine | A new generation of workstations is changing the nature of technical computing. Read more...

Scheduling HPC In The Cloud

Mar 17 | Linux Magazine | Latest iteration of Sun Grid Engine able to tap into Cloud. Read more...

Tailoring Medicine with Supercomputers

Mar 16 | Bio-IT World | Biotech firm builds genetic models from patient data. Read more...

Read more headlines...

Featured Whitepapers

Virtualization for Aggregation And The vSMP Architecture™

Jan 12 | | In-depth look at vSMP Foundation server virtualization technology, technical implementation, use cases and capabilities. The technical whitepaper provides an architectural overview and details on the three vSMP Foundation products: vSMP Foundation for SMP, vSMP Foundation for Cluster and vSMP Foundation for Cloud.

Copper Cable Technologies for High Performance Computing

Jan 18 | | This white paper discusses Gore’s copper cable assemblies, and how they continue to exceed the standards for providing reliable, cost-effective solutions for high-performance computer applications.

View the White Paper Library

Multimedia

Webcast: Virtualized Data Center Roundtable

Join this online panel discussion for live Q&A with leading industry experts, analysts, and end-users to discuss the latest innovations, best practices, barriers to implementation, and measurable benefits of server virtualization with a particular focus on today's real world solutions.

Webcast: Watch SC09 Birds of a Feather Video: Scalable Fault-Tolerant HPC Supercomputers

Learn about scalable fault-tolerant architectures and examples of energy efficient and scalable supercomputing clusters using dual QDR InfiniBand to combine capacity computing with network failover capabilities with the help of programming languages such as MPI and a robust Linux cluster management package.

Webcast: High Performance Computing for a Smarter Planet

LIVE@SCO9: The IBM team discusses new innovations in hardware, software and services that help clients better understand their workloads and get insight from their R&D efforts. Technology demonstrations include the soon-to-be-released Power7 HPC processor, the DCS990 system with 2.4 petabytes of storage, the xCAT management tool, secure HPC cloud computing and more. Winners of two HPCwire Readers' and Editors’ Choice Awards! Take the IBM virtual tour at SC09 or more information go online to: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/deepcomputing/sc09.html