ICCE Adds Partners, Sharpens Scope of Collaborations

(March 2011)

Photo credit: Scott Butner.

The International Consortium for Clean Energy (ICCE) has added three new signatories to the collaborative effort between United States and Chinese research organizations. Joining the ICCE were two Chinese Academy of Sciences organizations: the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology and the Shanghai Advanced Research Institute. The University of Delaware Energy Institute also signed on to the collaborative agreement.

The new relationships were codified during a memorandum of understanding renewal signing held at the 2010 International Chemical Congress of Pacific Basin Societies (Pacifichem) in December. The three organizations join the original signatories of the ICCE MOU: the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Dahlian Institute of Chemical Physics and Institute of Coal Chemistry. 

"The new collaborators expand the direction we can take with our research agenda," said Rod Quinn, who is the PNNL point of contact for the relationship development activity. "From our perspective, the ICCE now is more aligned with the broader strategic direction of the Laboratory."  Quinn added that all collaborators are committed to the goal of making fundamental discoveries and accelerating progress toward the use of renewable and unconventional energy resources. 

Specific areas of focus for the expanded Consortium will be chemical conversions of biomass for fuel production; energy storage for stable delivery; clean conversion of coal to electricity and fuels including carbon capture, storage and conversion; and fundamental understanding of process science, scalable synthesis, and catalysis.

"We envision the new ICCE to be a way for us to benefit both nations' research progress," concluded Quinn.