CENTERS

Direct Air Capture Center (DirACC)

For more than a decade, Georgia Tech researchers have worked to develop materials and processes that extract carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. With a recent spate of new awards, Georgia Tech researchers — with the support of Georgia Tech’s Strategic Energy Institute (SEI) — have launched the Direct Air Capture Center (DirACC), under the guidance of Professors Christopher W. Jones and Matthew J. Realff.

DirACC is a forum for collaborative research on negative emission technologies and direct air capture, bringing together researchers from across the Institute working in energy, sustainability, policy, and related fields.

Separations Science and Engineering Center (SSEC)

Separations account for 40-60% of the energy used in chemical processes. Through the collaborative research efforts of the Separations Science and Engineering Center, we are discovering new materials and technologies that make separations more energy efficient. In addition, we are developing scalable solutions to extract carbon from the atmosphere to help address climate change.

Our SSEC projects target a wide variety of applications, from chemicals to pharmaceuticals to energy technologies. Our goal is to collaborate and innovate on sustainable, effective, and economical separations processes.

Center for Understanding & Controlling Accelerated and Gradual Evolution of Materials for Energy (UNCAGE-ME) 

The focus of the UNCAGE-ME EFRC is to advance the understanding of how porous and electrochemical materials used for hydrogen production and carbon dioxide capture and conversion evolve and degrade when exposed to emerging contaminants. Established in 2014, the Center for Understanding and Control of Acid Gas-Induced Evolution of Materials for Energy (UNCAGE-ME) was one of 10 new Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) financed with a four-year $11.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). In 2018, the U.S. DOE renewed funding for UNCAGE-ME with an additional $12 million. And in 2022, the DOE renewed funding for UNCAGE-ME with an additional $13.2 million through 2026 and is a part of 42 other EFRCs focused on scientific breakthroughs.

Current research goals include: (1) elucidating the overarching relationships for process-induced structure and property evolution of functional materials with a focus on separations media and (electro)catalysts, (2) leveraging and advance computational and machine learning techniques to enable fundamental molecular and electronic level predictions of materials interacting with complex mixtures of targeted gases and contaminants, and (3) demonstrating accelerated materials discovery for clean energy technologies via process-materials coupled research.