Illinois Tech’s Wanger Institute for Sustainable Energy Research (WISER) has announced the FY 2019 /2020 Cross-disciplinary Seed Funding Grants (CSFG) program award winners. Initiated in 2009, the CSFG program is designed to provide funding for a one-year period to support and enhance new and innovative cross-disciplinary research concepts that are expected to attract major external funding in areas of national interest related to energy and sustainability. The following proposal topics and researchers were selected for funding:

PI: Mohammad Asadi (ChBE), Co-PIs: Wei Chen (MMAE), Reza Shahbazian-Yassar, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Dept., University of Illinois-Chicago
Project Title: “Developing Bi-Functional Heteratom Catalysts for High Efficiency and Long Cycle Life Lithium-Air Batteries”

PI: Baisravan Homchaudhuri (MMAE), Co-PI: Tomoko Ichikawa (ID)
Project Title: “Driver Assistance Control and Human-Automation Interface Design for Energy-Efficient Semi-Automated Hybrid Electric Vehicles”

PI: Braja Mandal (CHEM), Co-PI: Leon Shaw (MMAE)
Project Title: “Novel Polymer Electrolytes to Prevent Dendrites in Lithium Metal Batteries”

PI: Andrey Rogachev (CHEM), Co-PIs: Braja Mandal (CHEM), Carlo Segre (PHYS)
Project Title: “Theoretically Pre-Designed Supercapacitors with the Energy Density of Li-Ion Batteries”

With the addition of these new awards, a total of 28 projects will have been conducted to-date under the auspices of the WISER CSFG Program. The 2019 projects are funded for one year and will be completed by May 31, 2020.