UMD Strengthens International Collaboration in Energy Science

MEI2 leads U.S. side of $18.4M U.S.-Israel Energy Center focused on Energy Storage

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  March 11, 2020

CONTACT:
Catherine Stephens
301 405 9378
csteph5@umd.edu

Project will Develop Lithium and Sodium Metal Solid State Batteries for Advanced Energy Storage Applications

The Maryland Energy Innovation Institute (MEI²) will lead the U.S. side of a $18.4M, five-year, U.S.-Israel Energy Center awarded by the Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation. The goal of the U.S.-Israel Energy Center is to promote energy security and economic development through the research and development of innovative technologies. The Energy Center is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and by the Israel Ministry of Energy, jointly with the Israel Innovation Authority.  Partners in the U.S. other than MEI² include Saft and Forge Nano.  In Israel, academic partners include Bar Ilan and Tel Aviv Universities, and company participants include 3DB and Materials Zone.  MEI² participants include University of Maryland Professors Eric Wachsman, Sang Bok Lee, Gary Rubloff, and Paul Albertus.

This award was initially stimulated from one of the UMD NanoCenter's international research collaboration activities with Bar-Ilan Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced materials (BINA), Bar Ilan University (BIU), Israel on energy in 2019.  UMD and BIU held the first teleconference on broad energy research in June, 2019, and agreed enthusiastically to pursue the US-Israel Energy Center program that the BIRD Foundation announced early last year.  

"We are delighted to serve as the U.S. lead for one of the first consortia funded by the U.S.-Israel Energy Center," says Eric Wachsman, the Director of MEI² and the lead Principal Investigator for the U.S. portion of the BIRD Energy Center.  "Our industrial and academic partners, in both Israel and the U.S., are leaders in the development of battery materials, components, and cells, as well as materials informatics, and we look forward to addressing the research and development challenges associated with solid state batteries with them through our Energy Center.”

For more information on the BIRD Foundation award, click here for their award announcement. 

 

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MEI² brings together science, industry, government and economic leaders to develop solutions to global and local energy problems (i.e. cleaner and renewable energy solutions; more efficient use and storage of energy) and assist the transfer of knowledge and resources to the public in addition to transitioning the research into marketable products and services through locally based entrepreneurial ventures.