IUPUI Startup Lands NSF Grant

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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe National Science Foundation has awarded a $225,000 grant to an IUPUI-based startup. Peter Schubert, founder of Green Fortress Engineering Inc., says the company will use the one-year grant to develop technology that will more efficiently store solid-state hydrogen fuel.
Schubert, who is also a professor of electrical and computer engineering and the director of the Richard G. Lugar Center for Renewable Energy, says hydrogen fuel is a clean fuel that is key to reducing carbon and methane emissions. He says, however, that traditional methods used to store hydrogen have their drawbacks.
"They store hydrogen as a compressed gas or as ultra-cold, cryogenic liquids, both of which are inefficient energy sources," said Schubert. "The high pressures used to compress gas pose a mechanical risk, and cryogenic liquids boil off even with the best insulation."
Schubert says his company’s technology loses those disadvantages. He adds the NSF grant will be used to not only to test the new system, but also explore the use of lower-cost materials, which will made the technology affordable in all markets.
IUPUI says the grant includes the university as a subcontractor and the School of Engineering and Technology will perform the deep technical research for the project. The technology was licensed to Green Fortress Engineering by the Indiana University Research and Technology Corp.
Green Fortress was launched in the 2015-2016 fiscal year as part of the IURTC’s Spin Up entrepreneurial program.