The Daily Campus

Issue date: 10/9/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Erik Kong Solar panels, such as these outside the Towers Residence Halls help UConn use alternative energy.

UConn has become a leader in alternative energy research with its eminent faculty initiative, which began in July.

The initiative, passed by the state legislature, enabled the university to hire new faculty members to conduct alternative energy research. UConn's Engineering Department will receive $2 million every year from the state for the program. FuelCell Energy, Northeast Utilities and UTC Power are one-time match companies for the program.

According to Mehdi Anwar, the associate dean of the School of Engineering, provost Peter Nichols decided the funds would be allocated to Anwar's department.

"This allowed us to add about 25 new faculty members to the Engineering Department," he said.

The research is being conducted at the Connecticut Global Fuel Cell Center on the Depot Campus, where Anwar is interim director. The center, which was set up in 2001, currently receives over $9 million in federal, state and private funding, according to its Web site.

UConn, which had taken the lead in stem cell research in recent years, is the first state to have an eminent faculty initiative.

"As far as I know, there are no alternative energy programs like this in the country," Anwar said.

Independent of the eminent faculty initiative, the BioFuels Consortium is another alternative energy effort on campus. The consortium, made up of faculty members from the chemical engineering, chemistry, plant science, and economics departments, along with some from other departments, focuses on BioDiesel fuel research.

Chemical engineering students are producing BioDiesel fuel as part of their senior unit operations lab course. The fuel is made from recycled vegetable oils that the engineering department acquires from the campus dining halls and from Pratt and Whitney.

Richard Parnas, a professor of chemical engineering, and Jim Stewart, a professor of chemistry, oversee the production of the fuel. According to Parnas, the department produces about 50 gallons of BioDiesel fuel a week. The shuttle buses began using the fuel a year ago and regular production began last spring.

The BioDiesel lab, sponsored by Pratt and Whitney, is supported by state, federal and internal university funding. The engineering department hopes to increase production in the future.

"We have planned to ramp up production to 200,000 gallons per year if we are able to work out arrangements with the university to place a pilot scale production unit on campus," Parnas said.

A patent is pending for the production unit, which will produce BioDiesel at a rate of 20 gallons per hour. The unit has already been built and is in the process of being tested.

As a leader in BioDiesel fuel research, UConn will host its third BioDiesel fuel symposium this year. The symposium, which will be run by the BioFuel Consortium, is tentatively scheduled for March.



Contact Michelle Firestone at

Michelle.Firestone@UConn.edu.

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