KU receives $26 million grant to create new research center to make coolants more environmentally friendly | News, Sports, Jobs

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Mark Shiflett, Foundation Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering and director of the Wonderful Institute for Sustainable Engineering at the University of Kansas, will lead the EARTH Center.

Story updated on August 21 at 5:12 p.m.:

The University of Kansas has received a $26 million federal grant—one of the largest ever—to help the university develop new technologies to make everything from air conditioners to refrigerators more environmentally friendly.

The National Science Foundation has awarded KU $26 million to develop a Center for Green Refrigerant Technology. The state-of-the-art research center will work on developing new types of refrigerants that are kinder to the environment.

“This is going to be a major research center,” said Mark Shiflett, who will serve as the center’s director and is currently a distinguished professor of chemical and petroleum engineering at KU.

Work is already underway worldwide to develop and introduce a new class of refrigerants that do not contribute to global warming in the same way as the current class of products. Refrigerants – the liquids used in all types of refrigeration equipment – are currently estimated to be responsible for around 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The development of these new products is expected to make the refrigerant business a trillion-dollar industry in the future, Shiflett said in an interview with the Journal-World. KU is now well positioned to become one of the leading U.S. research companies in this huge field.

According to Shiflett, 28 private heating and cooling companies have already expressed their desire to join the center because they believe that KU and its partners will play a key role in increasing the sustainability of the industry.

“And these are major heating, ventilation and air conditioning companies,” Shiflett said of the industry partners, whose names have not yet been publicly announced.

The center, which KU calls by the acronym EARTH, will be housed in existing space within the engineering school complex on KU’s main campus, Shiflett said. The center, which will begin operations in the fall, will employ at least 12 faculty and research staff on the KU campus. In addition, the university will hire several administrative staff members to oversee the entire program, which includes work being conducted at six partner research institutions across the country.

While KU is the lead institution on the project, it has partners at the University of Notre Dame, the University of Maryland, the University of Hawaii, the University of South Dakota and Lehigh University. Shiflett said the entire project is expected to involve 42 faculty members from 16 academic disciplines. It will also work with 22 community colleges and technical schools to train future employees for the refrigeration industry. The KU campus will serve as the company’s headquarters, Shiflett said.

At the helm of the company will be Shiflett, already a pioneer in the industry. Shiflett spent nearly 30 years at chemical giant DuPont, where he invented a new coolant used in supermarket freezers around the world. That product generated over a billion dollars in sales for DuPont when Shiflett left the company in 2016 to teach at KU.

Shiflett is currently director of the Wonderful Institute for Sustainable Engineering, another KU center that has been in the news recently. As the Journal-World reported in November, KU named the center after The Wonderful Company, the $5 billion privately held California company that is, among other things, the world’s largest pistachio grower, owner of the tangerine brand Halo and the water brand Fiji.

Importantly, the owners of the Wonderful Company – Stewart and Lynda Resnick – are among the largest university donors in the country, with a particular focus on funding sustainability projects. The couple pledged a $750 million donation in 2019 to the California Institute of Technology, which houses a sustainability institute named after the family.

KU already has its own Institute for Sustainable Engineering and is now receiving additional funding through the NSF grant, which over a hundred other universities applied for, for a series of challenging research projects.

The KU and the state leaders emphasized on Wednesday the importance of awarding the federal grant.

“Working closely with industry partners, EARTH will have the resources and expertise to solve the technical, environmental and economic challenges needed to create a sustainable refrigerant lifecycle that benefits Kansans, the nation and the world,” KU Chancellor Douglas Girod said in a press release. “With this work, the center is a prime example of how the University of Kansas is driving economic development in Kansas.”

U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which funds the NSF, said the grant is important to maintaining U.S. competitiveness in a key industry.

“This new research center will enable Kansas residents to lead the development of the next generation of refrigerant technologies, increasing U.S. competitiveness in a critical technology and industry,” Moran said in a press release.

For Shiflett, the scholarship is an important milestone that he has worked years to prepare for, he told the Journal-World.

“It’s a dream come true,” Shiflett said. “I really love working with students and helping them get into their careers.”

Some of these students will work to replace the very invention that Shiflett brought to the industry during his time at DuPont. While this class of refrigerant represented a major environmental improvement at the time, new technologies can likely produce even more environmentally friendly products. In addition, the center will explore new ways to recycle refrigerants and reduce energy use in the industry, among other things.

Shiflett now looks forward to the center’s students becoming the highlight of his career, even beyond the 46 patents he has received for inventions.

“I see that earlier in my career I was fortunate to be able to invent and develop products,” Shiflett said. “And now, in the later part of my career, I’m fortunate to be able to develop people.”