Team Based Sustainable Nanotechnology Research for Energy Justice in Materials Science and Engineering

Sustainable nanotechnology is an interdisciplinary field with potential to catalyze innovative solutions to global issues such as climate change and biodiversity loss in areas ranging from science, technology and environment to economics, education, and society. By introducing sustainable nanotechnology to students at many different levels, potential also exists to engage and educate a diverse STEM literate workforce better equipped to tackle society’s most challenging problems. In this talk, a range of activities will be briefly described with focus on methods employing industry-motivated research with important implications for energy justice through technological advancement of sustainable products, and as an educational pathway prioritizing recruitment and training for groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM careers, including women and racial minorities. These activities leverage strong intra- and cross-institutional partnerships to beneficially impact participants at all levels with diverse backgrounds. In particular, the Werth Industry Academic Fellowship (IAF) program at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) will be discussed in detail to demonstrate how a tiered approach to mentorship with industry participation can be applied to optimize societal impact, including deployment of clean energy solutions that improve energy justice for groups disproportionately burdened with pollution or climate risk, <i>and, </i>strong minority recruitment and retention in a rigorous undergraduate and Masters level research training program. The core focus of the Werth IAF is team-based interdisciplinary and industry-motivated research through rigorous research experiences, as well as professional development in business and entrepreneurship topics. A fellowship team is composed of individuals with diverse but complementary interests and typically includes a STEM faculty researcher, a School of Business faculty and industry mentor, as well as undergraduate and graduate students (often pre-service teachers in a 7-12 STEM discipline). To date, 38 students have completed the IAF (31 undergraduate students and 7 graduate students), and the 2023 cohort is the largest to date. Half of all IAF fellows are minorities and 37% are female. Program cohorts are small, providing individualized attention, instruction, mentorship and support to IAF fellows to encourage them with sound preparation for their research journeys. SCSU has a Title III designation because of the large number of low-income students who attend. Current fellowship teams are addressing important sustainability questions from a variety of different avenues including renewable or low carbon energy generation, energy storage, carbon remediation. The primary focus of this presentation will be a well-developed multi-tiered SCSU collaborative partnership with Quantum Biopower – a local Connecticut company that is the first in the state and one of a few in the region to specialize in commercial scale anaerobic digestion of food scrap for producing biogas and sustainable landscape products. In addition to processing SCSU’s food scrap from dining services, Quantum Biopower has partnered in a variety of sustainable nanotechnology research projects with SCSU since 2016. Using biochar as a through line, the collaborative team prioritizes research on a material that has been identified for its flexible application in many industries, and as one of only a small number of technologies with scalable global carbon sink potential necessary for avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. IAF research at SCSU is exploring biochar in applications ranging from water and nutrient retention in soil to supercapacitors, which has strong potential for Quantum Biopower’s future growth as a company.