Brennecke receives $2.5 million energy research grant | News | Notre Dame News | University of Notre Dame Skip To Content Skip To Navigation Skip To Search University of Notre Dame Notre Dame News Experts ND in the News Subscribe About Us Home Contact Search Menu Home › News › Brennecke receives $2.5 million energy research grant Brennecke receives $2.5 million energy research grant Published: May 28, 2010 Author: William G. Gilroy Joan M. Brennecke, Keating-Crawford Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Notre Dame, is the recipient of a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) grant for research that could fundamentally change the way the country uses and produces energy. Brennecke received the $2.5-million grant through the department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to study how solid compounds will turn into an ionic liquid when they react with CO2 and turn back into a solid when the CO2 is released. Ionic liquids require less energy than today’s approaches to capturing CO2. In 2004, as part of a project sponsored by the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, a research team led by Brennecke and Edward J. Maginn, a Notre Dame professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, demonstrated that ionic liquids have the potential to efficiently capture CO2 from the flue gas of coal-fired plants. Ionic liquids, they believe, are a potentially pivotal component of an integrated system that can safely and economically sequester combustion-generated CO2, thereby mitigating its impact on climate change. Internationally known for her research in the development of solvents, specifically supercritical fluids and ionic liquids, Brennecke’s research interests include supercritical fluid technology, ionic liquids, thermodynamics, environmentally benign chemical processing, and carbon dioxide separation, storage and usage. Throughout her career, Brennecke has received numerous awards for her research, as well as for her contributions in the classroom. Most recently, she was chosen to receive the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award from the DOE. She also was selected as the 2008 Julius Stieglitz Lecturer Award by the American Chemical Society (ACS). She also has received the 2007 John M. Prausnitz Award for outstanding achievement in applied chemical thermodynamics from the Conference on Properties and Phase Equilibria for Product and Process Design, the Professional Progress Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and the 2001 Ipatieff Prize from the ACS in recognition of her high-pressure studies of the local structure of supercritical fluid solutions and the effect of this local structure on the rates of homogeneous reactions. In 1991, the National Science Foundation honored her with the Presidential Young Investigator Award. A member of AIChE, the ACS and the American Society for Engineering Education, Brennecke is past chair of the Council for Chemical Research and currently serves on the editorial board of the journal Green Chemistry. A graduate of the University of Texas, Brennecke received her master’s and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois. She has served as a Notre Dame faculty member since 1989. Posted In: Research Home Experts ND in the News Subscribe About Us Related October 05, 2022 Astrophysicists find evidence for the presence of the first stars October 04, 2022 NIH awards $4 million grant to psychologists researching suicide prevention September 29, 2022 Notre Dame, Ukrainian Catholic University launch three new research grants September 27, 2022 Notre Dame, Trinity College Dublin engineers join to advance novel treatment for cystic fibrosis September 22, 2022 Climate-prepared countries are losing ground, latest ND-GAIN index shows For the Media Contact Office of Public Affairs and Communications Notre Dame News 500 Grace Hall Notre Dame, IN 46556 USA Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube Pinterest © 2022 University of Notre Dame Search Mobile App News Events Visit Accessibility Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube LinkedIn