History
The EFRC program commenced in 2009; 46 Centers were selected based on scientific peer review and funded at $2-5 million per year for a five-year initial award period. Altogether, the DOE Office of Science invested $777 million in the first five years, of which $277 million were from one-time American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds. An open recompetition of the program in 2014 resulted in four-year awards to 32 centers, 22 of which are renewals of existing EFRCs and 10 of which are new EFRCs for an additional investment of $400 million. In 2016, DOE added 4 new four-year centers to accelerate the scientific breakthroughs needed to support the Department’s environmental management and nuclear cleanup mission for an investment of $40 million. An open recompetition in 2018 resulted in 42 awards for an anticipated total of $380 million: 11 two-year extensions of existing EFRCs, 9 four-year renewals of existing EFRCs, and 22 four-year awards for new EFRCs. A targeted competition in environmental management, microelectronics, polymer upcycling, and quantum information science in 2020 resulted in 10 awards for an anticipated total of $100 million: 2 two-year extensions of existing EFRCs, 2 four-year renewals of existing EFRCs, and 6 four-year awards for new EFRCs. The 2022 recompetition targeted clean energy sciences, transformative manufacturing, microelectronics, polymer upcycling, carbon dioxide reduction, and quantum information science. 16 new four-year centers, 17 four-year renewal, and 10 two-year extension awards to existing centers were made for an anticipated total of $420 million. The 53 non-renewing EFRCs appear in the History pages.
| Years | Lead Institution | Director(s) | Center Name |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009-2014 | Argonne National Laboratory | Christopher L. Marshall | Institute for Atom-efficient Chemical Transformations (IACT) |
| 2009-2014 | Arizona State University | Devens Gust | Center for Bio-Inspired Solar Fuel Production (BISfuel) |
| 2009-2014 | Columbia University | James Yardley | Re-Defining Photovoltaic Efficiency Through Molecule Scale Control (RPEMSC) |
| 2009-2014 | Cornell University | Hector D. Abruna | Energy Materials Center at Cornell (emc2) |
| 2009-2014 | Donald Danforth Plant Science Center | Richard Sayre (8/2009 - 9/2011); Jan Jaworski (10/2011 - 7/2014) | Center for Advanced Biofuel Systems (CABS) |
| 2009-2014 | General Electric Global Research | Grigorii Soloveichik | Center for Electrocatalysis, Transport Phenomena and Materials for Innovative Energy Storage (CETM) |
| 2009-2014 | Idaho National Laboratory | Dieter Wolf (9/2009 - 5/2010); Todd Allen (6/2010 - 7/2014) | Center for Materials Science of Nuclear Fuel (CMSNF) |
| 2009-2014 | Los Alamos National Laboratory | Michael Nastasi (8/2009 - 11/2011); Amit Misra (12/2011 - 7/2014) | Center for Materials at Irradiation and Mechanical Extremes (CMIME) |
| 2009-2014 | Louisiana State University | James Spivey | Center for Atomic-Level Catalyst Design (CALCD) |
| 2009-2014 | Michigan State University | Donald T. Morelli | Revolutionary Materials for Solid State Energy Conversion (RMSSEC) |
| 2009-2014 | National Renewable Energy Laboratory | Alex Zunger (8/2009 - 5/2011); William Tumas (6/2011 - 7/2014) | Center for Inverse Design (CID) |
| 2009-2014 | Oak Ridge National Laboratory | G. Malcolm Stocks | Center for Defect Physics in Structural Materials (CDP) |
| 2009-2014 | Princeton University | Chung K. Law | Combustion Energy Frontier Research Center (CEFRC) |
| 2009-2014 | Sandia National Laboratories | Jerry Simmons (8/2009 - 10/2011); Michael E. Coltrin (11/2011 - 7/2014) | EFRC for Solid State Lighting Science (SSLS) |
| 2009-2014 | Stanford University | Fritz Prinz and Stacey Bent | Center on Nanostructuring for Efficient Energy Conversion (CNEEC) |
| 2009-2014 | University of Arizona | Neal R. Armstrong | Center for Interface Science: Solar Electric Materials (CISSEM) |
| 2009-2014 | University of California, Los Angeles | Vidvuds Ozolins | Molecularly Engineered Energy Materials (MEEM) |
| 2009-2014 | University of California, Santa Barbara | John Bowers | Center for Energy Efficient Materials (CEEM) |
| 2009-2014 | University of Massachusetts | Thomas P. Russell and Paul Lahti | Polymer-Based Materials for Harvesting Solar Energy (PHaSE) |
| 2009-2014 | University of Michigan | Peter F. Green | Center for Solar and Thermal Energy Conversion (CSTEC) |
| 2009-2014 | University of South Carolina | Kenneth Reifsnider | Heterogeneous Functional Materials Center (HeteroFoaM) |
| 2009-2014 | University of Southern California | P. Daniel Dapkus | Center for Energy Nanoscience (CEN) |
| 2009-2014 | University of Texas, Austin | Paul Barbara (8/2009 - 10/2010); Xiaoyang Zhu (11/2010 - 5/2012); Peter Rossky (6/2012 - 7/2014) | Understanding Charge Separation and Transfer at Interfaces in Energy Materials (CST) |
| 2009-2014 | University of Virginia | T. Brent Gunnoe | Center for Catalytic Hydrocarbon Functionalization (CCHF) |
| 2009-2018 | Brookhaven National Laboratory | Seamus Davis (8/1/2009 - 7/31/2014); Peter Johnson (8/1/2014 - 7/31/2018) | Center for Emergent Superconductivity (CES) |
| 2009-2018 | California Institute of Technology | Harry Atwater (8/1/2009-1/30/2015); Ralph Nuzzo (2/1/2015 - 7/31/2018) | Light-Material Interactions in Energy Conversion (LMI) |
| 2009-2018 | Carnegie Institution of Washington | Ho-kwang Mao (8/1/2009 - 7/31/2014); Russell Hemley (8/1/2014 - 7/31/2018) | Energy Frontier Research in Extreme Environments (Efree) |
| 2009-2018 | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory | Donald DePaolo | Center for Nanoscale Control of Geologic CO2 (NCGC)(8/1/2009 - 7/31/2014);Center for Nanoscale Controls on Geologic CO2 (NCGC)(8/1/2014 - 7/31/2018) |
| 2009-2018 | Los Alamos National Laboratory | Victor Klimov | Center for Advanced Solar Photophysics (CASP) |
| 2009-2018 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Marc Baldo | Center for Excitonics (CE) |
| 2009-2018 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Gang Chen | Solid-State Solar-Thermal Energy Conversion Center (S3TEC) |
| 2009-2018 | Purdue University | Maureen McCann | Center for Direct Catalytic Conversion of Biomass to Biofuels (C3Bio) |
| 2009-2018 | University of Notre Dame | Peter Burns | Materials Science of Actinides (MSA) |
| 2009-2018 | University of Texas at Austin | Gary Pope (8/1/2009 - 6/30/2013); Steven Bryant (7/1/2013 - 8/30/2014); Larry Lake (9/1/2014 - 7/31/2018) | Center for Frontiers of Subsurface Energy Security (CFSES) |
| 2009-2018 | Washington University in St. Louis | Robert Blankenship | Photosynthetic Antenna Research Center (PARC) |
| 2014-2018 | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | Robert Finley (8/1/2015 - 4/15/2015); Scott Frailey (4/16/2015 - 7/31/2018) | Center for Geologic Storage of CO2 (GSCO2) |
| 2009-2020 | Argonne National Laboratory | Michael Thackeray (8/1/2009 - 7/31/2014); Paul Fenter (8/1/2014 - 7/31/2020) | Center for Electrical Energy Storage (CEES) (8/1/2009 - 7/31/2014); Center for Electrochemical Energy Science (CEES)(8/1/2014 - 7/31/2020) |
| 2009-2020 | Northwestern University | Michael Wasielewski | Argonne-Northwestern Solar Energy Research Center (ANSER) (8/1/2009 - 7/31/2018); Center for Light Energy Activated Redox Processes (LEAP)(8/1/2018 - 7/31/2020) |
| 2009-2020 | Stony Brook University (8/1/2009 - 7/31/2014); Binghamton University (8/1/2014 - 7/31/2020) | Clare Grey (8/1/2009 - 6/17/2011); M. Stanley Whittingham (6/18/2011 - 7/31/2020) | NorthEast Center for Chemical Energy Storage (NECCES) |
| 2009-2020 | University of California, Berkeley | Berend Smit (8/1/2009 - 7/31/2014); Jeffrey Long (8/1/2014 - 7/31/2020) | Center for Gas Separations (CGS) |
| 2009-2020 | University of Maryland | Gary Rubloff | Nanostructures for Electrical Energy Storage (NEES) |
| 2009-2020 | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | Thomas J. Meyer (8/1/2009 - 7/31/2018); Gerald Meyer (8/1/2018 - 7/31/2020) | Center for Solar Fuels (UNC) (8/1/2009 - 7/31/2018); Alliance for Molecular PhotoElectrode Design for Solar Fuels (AMPED)(8/1/2018 - 7/31/2020) |
| 2014-2020 | Montana State University (8/1/2014 - 7/31/2018); Washington State University (8/1/2018 - 7/31/2020) | John Peters | Biological Electron Transfer and Catalysis Center (BETCy) |
| 2014-2020 | National Renewable Energy Laboratory | William Tumas | Center for Next Generation of Materials Design (CNGMD) |
| 2014-2020 | Oak Ridge National Laboratory | Yanwen Zhang | Energy Dissipation to Defect Evolution (EDDE) |
| 2014-2020 | Temple University | John Perdew | Center for the Computational Design of Functional Layered Materials (CCDM) (8/1/2014 - 7/31/2018); Center for Complex Materials from First Principles (CCM)(8/1/2018 - 7/31/2020) |
| 2014-2020 | University of California, Riverside | Jing Shi | Spins and Heat in Nanoscale Electronic Systems (SHINES) |
| 2009-2022 | Oak Ridge National Laboratory | Shang Dai | Fluid Interface Reactions, Structures and Transport Center (FIRST) |
| 2009-2022 | University of Delaware | Dionisios Vlachos | Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation (CCEI) |
| 2014-2022 | Harvard University | Cynthia Friend | Integrated Mesoscale Architectures for Sustainable Catalysis (IMASC) |
| 2014-2022 | University of California, Riverside | Laura Gagliardi | Inorganometallic Catalyst Design Center (ICDC) |
| 2016-2022 | Florida State University | Thomas Albrecht-Schoenzart | Center for Actinide Science & Technology (CAST) |
| 2016-2022 | Ohio State University | Gerald Frankel | Center for Performance and Design of Nuclear Waste Forms and Containers (WastePD) |
