The University of Queensland will lead a large-scale Australia-China partnership on clean energy technologies, targeting clean coal, hybrid and fuel cell vehicles, hydrogen production and energy storage.
Nanomaterials and Fuel Cell Technologies" />Professor Max Lu
Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh, cleared the way for the $3.9 million research partnership by announcing $1.95 million from the National and International Research Alliances Program
Researchers from UQ and the prestigious Chinese Academy of Sciences will develop materials and technologies that may underpin sustainable long-term supplies of global energy .
UQ Vice-Chancellor, Professor Paul Greenfield said the alliance's broad objectives were:
- Cost effective technologies for alternative liquid fuels as well as technologies from solar and clean coal processes that will enable hydrogen production; and
- Materials for storing electricity and hydrogen for the new generation of hybrid vehicles and fuel cell vehicles of the future.
“Queensland Government backing is vital to this three-year research program, which has grown out of more than two years of high-level engagement between the Chinese Academy of Sciences and UQ and the Queensland Government,” Professor Greenfield said.
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor David Siddle said the program's importance from China's perspective is underscored by $1.5 million in cash and $1 million of in-kind support from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.”
All Queensland researchers are associated with the UQ-based Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Funtional Nanomaterials and are led by Professor Max Lu, a two-time ARC Federation Fellow.
The Chinese experts are from the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics and Institute of Metals Research.