Materials

Solution: To Meet the Demand for Safe, Reliable Energy

Battelle and the National Laboratories it manages or co-manages for the U.S. Department of Energy are at the cutting edge of developing materials to secure our energy future.

Fuel cells promise clean energy for automobiles, and Battelle’s extensive knowledge base in materials synthesis, testing, design optimization, fuel processing, and catalysis provides the foundation for solving the technical and economical challenges faced by fuel cell system developers. Researchers are working with industrial partners to develop and test advanced membranes and advanced cell and stack designs, component materials and low-cost fabrication processes to accelerate the development of low-cost systems.

Hydrogen-powered vehicles, which would reduce both pollution and the need for foreign oil, will be made possible through ongoing Battelle/National Lab research into improving the properties of chemical compounds currently known to hold hydrogen and discovering entirely new materials in which to store hydrogen.

Solid-state lighting technology, based on our expertise in materials design and synthesis, thin film deposition, and modeling and testing of molecular structures and light-emitting devices, will transform the way we provide lighting to homes and buildings while reducing energy consumption. Using Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLED) for solid-state lighting involves direct light emission from a semiconductor material rather than conventional thermal sources, such as the light bulb.

Converting wasted heat into useful energy is being made possible through Battelle/National Lab use of a thermoelectric device that uses nanoscale materials to harvest and recover waste heat from diesel and gasoline engines, exhaust systems and industrial processes, such as glass, aluminum and chemical manufacturing. Their goal is to achieve 20 percent efficiency that will make thermoelectric power generation using waste heat economically feasible.