Award Abstract # 2236036
NSF Convergence Accelerator Track I: Toward Water Circularity: Mining Green Hydrogen and Value-Added Materials from Hypersaline Brines

NSF Org: ITE
Innovation and Technology Ecosystems
Recipient: OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
Initial Amendment Date: December 14, 2022
Latest Amendment Date: December 14, 2022
Award Number: 2236036
Award Instrument: Standard Grant
Program Manager: Richard Farnsworth
rlfarnsw@nsf.gov
 (703)292-5029
ITE
 Innovation and Technology Ecosystems
TIP
 Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships
Start Date: December 15, 2022
End Date: November 30, 2024 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $750,000.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $750,000.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2023 = $750,000.00
History of Investigator:
  • Zhenxing Feng (Principal Investigator)
    zhenxing.feng@oregonstate.edu
  • Chih-hung Chang (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Astrid Layton (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Kelsey Stoerzinger (Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: Oregon State University
1500 SW JEFFERSON AVE
CORVALLIS
OR  US  97331-8655
(541)737-4933
Sponsor Congressional District: 04
Primary Place of Performance: Oregon State University
1500 SW JEFFERSON ST
CORVALLIS
OR  US  97331-8655
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
04
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): MZ4DYXE1SL98
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): Convergence Accelerator Resrch
Primary Program Source: 01002324DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s):
Program Element Code(s): 131Y00
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.084

ABSTRACT

This track I NSF?s Convergence Accelerator aims to converge advances in fundamental materials science with innovative design and manufacturing methods to couple their end-use and full life-cycle considerations for environmentally- and economically sustainable materials and products. Guided by this principle and motivated by the global goal of Net-Zero Emissions by 2050, this project focuses on demonstration of a sustainable production and manufacturing process for large-scale hydrogen deployment and critical materials mining from earth?s abundant hypersaline brines (e.g., seawater). Hydrogen is a green fuel that can help accelerate decarbonization processes, and materials such as Lithium and Rare Earth elements that are critical to U.S. supply chain independence. This project emphasizes transformation from a linear to a circular economy; it enables a convergent, innovative team of universities, industry partners, government agencies, and students/trainees to ensure that the knowledge developed transitions effectively into many aspects of practice. The proposed circular use of water for fuel by renewable energy and extraction of critical materials for renewable energy production has broad societal impacts for a sustainable future. This project integrates multidisciplinary thinking into the undergraduate and K-12 curriculum, producing future engineers and scientists with skills and interests to work on multidisciplinary problems. This research supports and benefits the local community, such as the Oregon Coast?s Blue Sector Partnership Network consisting of partners from workforce development, school districts (CTE), industry, government, research, maritime, municipalities, and blue technology.

This proposal aims to demonstrate the sustainable mining of green hydrogen in parallel with value-added critical elements from hypersaline brines (e.g., seawater) for clean energy applications. Motivated by the global goal of Net-Zero Emissions by 2050, circular economy principles guide our development of sustainable processes for materials/fuels production, utilization, and recycling. Seawater represents the most abundant resource on the earth, with immense surface accessibility and large amounts of solubilized elements imperative for clean energy technologies. Seawater can also be split using renewable energy (e.g., solar) to obtain hydrogen fuel, with benign oxygen gas as a byproduct. Hydrogen presents a zero-emission fuel (producing water in a fuel cell), part of a circular sustainable process. Developing an integrated solution for extracting hydrogen and critical elements from seawater requires a multidisciplinary team from universities, industry partners, government agencies, and students/trainees. With our patented technologies and research results in critical areas, we aim to integrate multidisciplinary knowledge, tools, and modes of thinking under the guidance of circular economy principles to accelerate and converge our research to two integrated prototypes: a mineral-water separation reactor and downstream electrolyzer (producing hydrogen from the reduced-saline effluent). In addition to this prototyping, we will also identify in Phase 1 additional areas of expertise through team activities to prepare our Phase 2 project. In parallel, we will engage local stakeholders (focused on the Oregon Coast with our local expertise) and create training programs to educate next-generation workforces with innovative circular concepts in both Phases.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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Bushagour, Amira and Hassan, Hadear and Layton, Astrid "Cyclicity and Strongly Connected Actors As a Set of Early Circular Economy Design Tools for Emerging Technologies" , 2024 https://doi.org/10.1115/MSEC2024-125107 Citation Details
Vitale-Sullivan, Molly E. and Chang, Alvin and Chou, Kuan-Hsun and Feng, Zhenxing and Stoerzinger, Kelsey A. "Surface transformations of electrocatalysts during the oxygen evolution reaction" Chemical physics reviews , v.4 , 2023 Citation Details
Yang, Dongqi and Andreas, Nicolai and Yadav, Ankit_K and Stylianou, Kyriakos_C and Feng, Zhenxing "Enhancing the acidic oxygen evolution reaction efficiency of solgel synthesized SrCo0.5Ir0.5O3 catalysts through optimized ball milling and acid leaching" APL Energy , v.3 , 2025 https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0242496 Citation Details

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

The overall objective of this proposal is to demonstrate a sustainable process for mining green hydrogen (GH2) in parallel with value-added critical material, lithium, from hypersaline brines (salty water, such as desalinated seawater waste) for clean energy applications. Throughout the 9-month project (Phase 1), we used human-centered design to examine accessible water resources and identify potential end users. One significant learning was to prioritize wastewater (hypersaline brines) from desalination plants and/or semiconductor industries rather than seawater (initial intent). These brines are economically viable input streams for our proposed technology platform to extract Li, copper (Cu), and GH2. Through our customer discovery training, we decided to focus on proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzers instead of alkaline one since the former has several advantages (e.g., high pressure durability and matured membrane technology) and less competition in electrolyzer market compared to that for alkaline-based ones. We further developed new methods for scaling up our electrocatalysts using less precious metal, iridium, thus bringing down the cost of capital expenditure and operating expenditure of PEM electrolyzers and moving the production costs of GH2 towards the ~$2/kg target. With results from lithium-water separation demonstrated in our lab-scale and the test of our catalysts in 5×5 cm2 electrolyzer for hydrogen production, we have presented a low-fidelity prototype of our platform technology to potential users and customers for next-stage commercialization.

 


Last Modified: 03/19/2025
Modified by: Zhenxing Feng

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