Launched in 2010, the Precourt Institute seed grant program funds faculty research with potential for high impact on energy supply and use. These “proof of concept” awards, which encourage interdisciplinary research, bridge theory to early experiments and analysis. Positive results allow researchers to proceed to large-scale studies. The grants are supported by the Precourt Energy Fund, the Schmidt Family Foundation and the Stinehart/Reed Donor Advised Fund.

Precourt Institute for Energy Seed Grants

Funding Year Research Topic Description Principal Investigtors
2015 Biosynthetic modification of cellulose for improved cellulose-to-ethanol conversion The goal of this project is to develop a new strategy for modifying plants to produce cellulose with enhanced extractability and conversion...

Lynette Cegelski, Chemistry
2015 ‘Reset’ of America’s nuclear waste-management program The researchers propose a critical analysis of nuclear waste-management policy in the United States and create a handbook to help inform new...

Rodney Ewing, Geological Sciences, Center for International Security and Cooperation
2015 Novel architectural principles for extremely energy-efficient information processing The goal is to develop new theoretical models of energy-efficient data processing that reduce electricity consumption at computer-server farms. 

Hideo Mabuchi, Applied Physics
2015 Towards a U.S.-Mexico research collaborative on the energy-water nexus in the context of climate change Seed money will be used to launch a two-year research project on the water-energy-climate nexus along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Bruce Cain, Political Science, and Robert Jackson, Earth System Science; Co-Investigator: Newsha Ajami, Program on Water in the West
2015 Assessing the effect of post-sale customer service on solar PV product usage and impacts in Sub-Saharan Africa The goal is to gain a better understanding of the factors involved in successful consumer adoption of inexpensive solar-powered lanterns in sub-...

Frank Wolak, Economics, Program on Energy and Sustainable Development (PESD); Co-Investigators: Mark Thurber and Ognen Stojanovski, PESD
2015 Mechanism for broadband white-light emission from two-dimensional hybrid perovskites The goal is to understand the light-emissions characteristics of hybrid perovskites to engineer, optimize and control the efficiency of next-...

Aaron Lindenberg, Materials Science and Engineering, SLAC Photon Science; Hemamala Karunadasa, Chemistry
2015 Defining structure function relationships for di-iron-hydrogenase oxygen tolerance The long-term objective is to engineer a photosynthetic bacterium that efficiently produces clean hydrogen fuel from sunlight and water. 

James Swartz , Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering; Marc Deller, ChEM-H, SLAC
2015 Synthesis, characterization and testing of sorbents for carbon capture The team will synthesize and characterize promising carbon-based materials for capture of carbon dioxide emissions from natural gas- and coal-fired...

Zhenan Bao, Chemical Engineering, and Jennifer Wilcox, Energy Resources Engineering: Dennis Nordlund and Dimosthenis Sokaras, Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource at SLAC
2014 A novel technique for producing high-efficiency photovoltaic devices Solar cells made of gallium arsenide hold the record for photovoltaic efficiency but are extremely expensive to produce. This project proposes using...

Bruce Clemens, Materials Science and Engineering
2014 A new approach to understand and control energy conversion processes at the nanoscale Phonons, quantized collective vibrations of atoms in solids, are the main carriers of heat in non-metallic materials. In this project, researchers...

David Reis, Applied Physics and Photon Science (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory); Arun Majumdar, Mechanical Engineering
2014 Revolutionizing power electronics with 3D-printed, high-frequency power converters Power electronics involves the transformation and control of electrical energy.  The research team will focus on developing power supplies that...

Juan Rivas-Davila, Electrical Engineering
2013 Functionalized Graphene-Platinum Composites for Fuel Cells The investigators plan to use a new material system they have recently developed to reduce dramatically the amount of expensive platinum needed in...

David Goldhaber-Gordon, physics; Fritz Prinz, mechanical engineering and materials science and engineering
2013 Self-Regenerating Fuel Cells Running on Natural Gas Certain types of fuel cells can convert natural gas into electricity and back again with very high efficiency, eliminating the traditional fuel cell...

Robert Sinclair, materials science and engineering; William Chueh, materials science and engineering and the Precourt Institute.
2013 An Electricity/CO2 Market Simulation Incorporating Renewables An Internet-based game in which business students try to maximize profits from power plants is being refined to replicate California's markets...

Mark C. Thurber, Program on Energy and Sustainable Development; Frank A. Wolak, Economics
2013 Making Large Wind Farms More Productive, Less Expensive Power output by large wind farms is typically 25 percent less than what it should be due to rear windmills operating in the turbulent wakes of those...

Sanjiva K. Lele, aeronautics and astronautics, and mechanical engineering; John Weyant, management science and engineering

Funded by the TomKat Center with support from PIE
2012 Polymer Gels for High-Performance Batteries This project explores the use of polymer gels to make high-energy, low-cost, flexible and stretchable batteries. With support from a 2010 PIE seed...

 

Zhenan Bao, chemical engineering; Yi Cui, materials science and engineering (Stanford)/photon science (SLAC)
2012 Ultrathin Light Absorbers for Solar Cells One way to lower the cost of solar power is to dramatically reduce the thickness of light-absorbing layers in solar cells. This project first...

Stacey Bent, chemical engineering; Mark Brongersma, materials science and engineering
2012 Hybrid Minerals for Reversible Capture of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide The project goal is to develop a low-cost technique for capturing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) with the mineral perovskite, or calcium titanium...

Hemamala Karunadasa, chemistry
2012 Water Splitting Using an Inorganic Proton-Conducting Membrane Using excess solar power to produce hydrogen from water could be a good way to store solar energy. Photo-electrochemical cells (PECs) have received...

William Chueh, materials science and engineering/PIE; Nick Melosh, materials science and engineering
2011 Novel Hybrid Materials of Carbon for Lithium-Air Batteries This project is developing multi-walled carbon nanotubes riddled with defects and impurities on the outside to replace platinum and palladium...

Hongjie Dai, chemistry
2011 Designing Micro-Combined Cooling, Heating and Power This project is developing a novel, highly efficient and economical energy system combining heating, cooling and electricity in a small unit for...

 

Lambertus Hesselink, Electrical Engineering
2011 Raising Efficiency in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells At Electrode-Electrolyte Interface Dye-sensitized solar cells use a special dye sandwiched between two semiconductors to convert sunlight into electricity. The technology is promising...

Daniel Stack, chemistry; Michael McGehee, materials science and engineering
2011 Market-Based Valuation of Ecosystem Services for Competitive Large-Scale Solar One of the largest benefits of renewable energy generation is reduced degradation of natural ecosystems as compared to fossil-based energy generation...

Michael Lepech and David Freyberg, civil and environment engineering; John Weyant, management science and engineering; Stefan Reichelstein, Graduate School of Business

Funded by the TomKat Center with support from PIE
2011 Effects of Large-Scale Solar Energy on Land and Water Resources in The Southwest U.S. Some of the world’s highest agricultural yields come from irrigated systems in deserts, which are also attractive sites for large solar power...

Chris Field, Noah Diffenbaugh and David Lobell, environmental Earth system science

Funded by the TomKat Center with support from PIE 
2010 Turning Paper and Textile Into Supercapacitors for Grid-Scale Energy Storage The researchers are coating the fibers in paper and textiles with nano-scale conductive materials to turn low-cost materials into high-performance...

Yi Cui, materials science and engineering; and Zhenan Bao, chemical engineering
2010 Potentially Low-Cost Crystalline III-V Thin Film High Efficiency Solar Cells Current solar photovoltaic cells can be comparatively efficient but expensive, like those using single-crystal silicon, or inefficient and...

Jim Plummer, electrical engineering


 
2010 Better Models for Applying Hydraulic Fracturing to Geothermal Systems This project developed modeling software that simulates hydraulic fracturing of geothermal energy sites more realistically than had previously been...

Roland Horne, energy resources engineering
2010 Solar Fuels: Using Composite Metal/Oxide/Semiconductor Anodes to Split Water Using solar power to produce hydrogen could be a big part of a clean energy future, but the idea has been stymied for decades. This work found a...

Paul McIntyre, materials science and engineering; Christopher Chidsey, chemistry
2010 Surface-Modified Conductive Metal Oxides for Carbon Dioxide Reduction Catalysis The global population currently uses energy at a rate of nearly 16 terawatts, of which more than 80 percent is supplied by fossil fuel combustion. We...

Matthew Kanan, chemistry
2010 Development of a New High-Temperature Proton Exchange Membrance for Fuel Cells This project began the development of a low-cost, high-performance alkaline exchange membrane to replace the conventional water-based membrane for...

Curtis Frank, chemical engineering; Michael Toney, SLAC