Our researchers focus on developing strategies for producing and using alternative fuels, including hydrogen, renewable diesel, and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). The projects aim to increase the efficiency and decrease the emissions of conversion systems, identify pathways to convert waste materials into useful fuels, and transform the transportation sector. The work is supported by funding from industry partners and government agencies, including the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy (DOE), the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC), and the Office of Naval Research (ONR). The research is cross-disciplinary and includes experts in chemical engineering, combustion, plasma sciences, environmental chemistry, life-cycle assessment, computational fluid dynamics, and reaction kinetics.

Research Highlights

  • A team of faculty researchers led by Assoc. Prof. Hsi-Wu Wong was recently awarded a three-year grant totaling more than $1.6 million by DOE to help combat waste plastic films through upcycling, which is converting discarded materials into products of higher value than the original. Read more in the article: Researchers Developing Solution to Reduce Waste Plastic Films.
  • The U.S. Department of Energy recently awarded a three-year, $1 million grant to a team of researchers led by Prof. Hunter Mack to work on developing renewable fuel additives from sawdust and other wood byproducts. Sustainably-derived raw material additives will help offset the use of traditional fossil fuels. The team's goal is to increase energy efficiency, reduce emissions and identify other potential sustainable fuels and chemicals of the future. Read more in the article: Researchers: Sawdust is Next Wave in Renewable Energy.
  • Read the report, The Viability of Implementing Hydrogen in Massachusetts (pdf). Findings from this report were presented at the The Future of Hydrogen conference at UMass Lowell in Fall 2021.

    • The overarching goal of Fanglin Research Group is to develop innovative strategies to produce renewable energy, fuel and chemicals via the computational design of efficient thermo- and electro-catalytic processes.
    • The Multiphase and Reacting Flow Laboratory, led by Noah Van Dam, focuses on high-fidelity modeling of multiphase and reacting flows, and verification, validation and uncertainty quantification techniques for computational fluid dynamics models of complex flows.
    • The Energy & Combustion Research Laboratory (ECRL) at the University of Massachusetts Lowell is focused on developing solutions to the energy problems facing our world. Under the direction of Prof. John Hunter Mack, they are exploring a variety of topics ranging from alternative fuels, novel thermodynamic cycles, and combustion-assisted material synthesis.
    • The Sustainability and Reaction Engineering Laboratory (SuREL) at the University of Massachusetts Lowell focuses on utilizing both experimental and theoretical techniques to study modern energy and environmental problems. Key research expertise of our laboratory includes high temperature pyrolysis, gasification, and oxidation experiments and molecular and detailed kinetic modeling.
    • In the Re-Engineered Energy Laboratory (REng|Lab) led by Juan Pablo Trelles researchers re-engineer the use of direct use of renewable energy towards sustainable processes. A special focus of the REng|Lab is the utilization of solar radiation and renewable electricity for chemical synthesis.
    • The Lam Research Group focuses on combining multi-scale chemical simulation, informed experiments, and advanced data analytics for the purpose of understanding chemical structure, reactions and property relationships.
    • The Ross Lab is focused on designing and understanding materials for the efficient electrocatalytic generation of hydrogen in non-traditional media, including from seawater. The approach is interdisciplinary, combining electrocatalysis, materials synthesis and characterization, and material simulations.
    • The Ryan Research Lab works in various interdisciplinary areas and includes research on catalytic Hydrogen production for fuel-celled electric vehicles.

    • Maria Carreon - plasma catalysis and interaction mechanisms between plasma, molten metals and porous materials; growth mechanisms of nanowires; porous crystalline membranes for chemical separations
    • Fanglin Che - methane activation to hydrogen, plasma catalysis, electrocatalysis, machine learning assisted modeling
    • Kwok-Fan Chow - analytical chemistry, electrochemistry, nanomaterials
    • Zhiyong Gu - hydrogen generation reaction from non-previous metals
    • Kelly Hellman - viability of hydrogen in economic models
    • Jayant Kumar -  conversion of CO2 to fuel  and efficient hydrogen generation
    • Stephen Lam - materials chemistry, atomistic simulation, multi-scale modeling, machine learning, predicting engineering properties and thermochemistry from first principles
    • Fuqiang Liu - solar energy conversion through photo-electrochemical reactions, ion-conductive membranes for electrochemical systems, nanostructured materials
    • Hunter Mack - biofuels, combustion, internal combustion engines, reaction kinetics, emissions
    • Christopher Niezrecki - wind energy integration of hydrogen systems
    • David Ryan - thermal catalytic production, solar assisted generation, and chemical storage of hydrogen; hydrogen generation with photocatalysis and thermal catalysis using nano-structured metals
    • Michael Ross - hydrogen generation, electrocatalysis
    • Juan Pablo Trelles - plasmas, semiconductor manufacturing, finite element methods, hybrid fluid - particle methods, turbulence, large eddy simulation, variational multiscale methods, nonequilibrium phenomena
    • Noah Van Dam - computational fluid dynamics, fuel sprays, combustion, combustion modeling, internal combustion engines
    • Hsi-Wu Wong - waste utilization and upcycling; alternative fuels; sustainable processes