Electrochemistry

Betul Akkopru-Akgun, assistant research professor in Penn State's Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Materials Research Institute, has received an Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Program award to investigate how electricity and heat move through materials used in extreme environments.

An international team, led by Penn State’s Institute of Energy and the Environment Director Bruce Logan, has developed a new reactor design that efficiently converts carbon dioxide and renewable electricity into methane — the primary component of natural gas — while scaling the system up by roughly an order of magnitude without sacrificing performance.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A new twist on a classic material could advance quantum computing and make modern data centers more energy efficient, according to a team led by researchers at Penn State.   

Barium titanate, first discovered in 1941, is known for its powerful electro-optic properties in bulk, or three-dimensional, crystals. Electro-optic materials like barium titanate act as bridges between electricity and light, converting signals carried by electrons into signals carried by photons, or particles of light.