Research in Energy and the Environment

Several important problems face us in transitioning to a more sustainable energy system. One set of problems relates to the environmental impacts created by the current approach, which relies heavily on fossil fuels -- these range across scales from local to regional effects caused by particulate, sulfur and nitrogen oxide emissions from combustion to global concerns over carbon dioxide. Another important aspect is the maldistribution and depletion of fossil resources (oil, natural gas, and coal).

All of this suggests that we should diversify our energy supply options while we seek to minimize the environmental effects associated with fossil fuel use. So far, progress has been slow, in part because the technologies associated with renewable energy capture and recovery cannot compete economically with today's low-cost fossil fuels. Much of the research in our group focuses on these problems. For example, investigations are aimed at producing cleaner fuels and renewable biomass and geothermal energy systems, and ohters are focused on processes to remediate environmentally contaminated areas.

Professor Tester's research group has been developing a range of experimental and theoretical methods to probe kinetics, phase behavior and transport phenomena in compressed and supercritical media. For example, measurements of reaction rates and product distributions have successfully been linked to ab initio quantum chemical calculations to quantify the effectiveness of reforming and oxidation processes in supercritical water to detoxify chemical and military wastes. Improved fundamental understanding of the role of supercritical water, both as a solvent and as a reactant, has been obtained for a number of model wastes ranging from methylene chloride to methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) to methyl phosphoric acid.