Monday, Mar. 02, 2009

The researchers

USC has attracted some of the world’s top researchers in hydrogen fuel cells.

Brian Benicewicz

Benicewicz, 54, joined the University of South Carolina in 2008 as the holder of the endowed chair in the Center of Economic Excellence for Polymer Nanocomposite Research. He is a former professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Benicewicz’s research funding includes grants from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy and private industry — most recently BASF.

He also is collaborating with researchers in the university’s College of Engineering and Computing, a leader in alternative-fuels research and home to the nation’s only Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Fuel Cells funded by the National Science Foundation.

Kenneth Reifsnider

Reifsnider is a professor of mechanical engineering at USC and director of the Center for Future Fuel Initiative. He is also director USC’s Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Center of Excellence.

Reifsnider has 40 years of teaching in a wide range of courses in mechanics and materials.

He held the Pratt & Whitney Chair at the University of Connecticut, and his research interests include durability, damage tolerance and strength-life, as well as relationships in material systems, performance and life prognosis, aging, material state changes, long-term behavior and fuel cell science and engineering.

John Van Zee

Van Zee, 52, joined USC in 1984 and has been working on electrochemical engineering for more than 25 years. He created and now serves as the director of the National Science Foundation Center for Fuel Cells, which is part of the Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers program. This is the foundation’s only center for fuel cells, and it has 24 dues-paying companies as research partners.

In 2005 he helped form the S.C. Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Alliance, a state organization with wide participation from small businesses, universities, national laboratories and government agencies.

In 2006 and 2007, he served as founding director of the Future Fuels initiative at USC, establishing international research relationships for USC professors and students with the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy and the Korea Institute for Energy Research.

SOURCE: University of South Carolina

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