DOE awards $8.8M to universities for research on hydrogen-fueled turbines

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) awarded $8.8 million to universities for 11 research and development projects to improve the performance of hydrogen-fueled turbines.

The selected projects will develop advanced materials and components that can better withstand the extreme environment generated during hydrogen combustion. This will, in turn, enable the use of up to 100 percent clean hydrogen in gas turbines for low-carbon power generation.

“Advancing hydrogen turbine performance is critical to increasing the use of low-carbon fuels like clean hydrogen to help achieve our climate goals,” Brad Crabtree, assistant secretary of fossil energy and carbon management, said. “Today we are investing in cost-shared, cutting-edge research at U.S. universities that will help make clean hydrogen more affordable and widely utilized, while also expanding the hydrogen workforce.”

The awards went to universities, including six that will perform fundamental materials research to produce knowledge and data that can be used to enable improved capabilities for hot gas path component design in gas turbines using hydrogen-containing fuels. Those six universities are:

• Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of Arizona State University;
• Clemson University;
• Colorado State University;
• Regents of the University of California Davis;
• Regents of the University of Minnesota; and
• Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station.

One funding recipient, Penn State University, will focus on applied research for turbine hot gas path components that will utilize advanced cooling architectures and advanced materials/manufacturing technologies.

Four funding recipients will work on issues related to material fatigue and thermal/mechanical stresses in rotating detonation engines operating on hydrogen fuels and strategies. The four include:

• Purdue University;
• Regents of the University of Michigan;
• The University of Central Florida Board of Trustees; and
• University of New Mexico.

The DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), under the purview of FECM, will manage the selected projects.

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