An assistant professor at the West Virginia University has won the prestigious National Science Foundation’s CAREER Award.
Carsten Milsmann, a faculty member at the C. Eugene Bennett Department of Chemistry, received the award for his research that can produce efficient and cheaper solar energy applications.
The NSF gives the award with a funding of nearly $650,000 over a five year period to early career faculty with a potential to serve as academic role models.
“The Milsmann lab is doing important fundamental research on cheap and abundant early transition metals, the chemistry of which is poorly understood,” Gregory Dudley, chair of the Bennett Department of Chemistry, said.
“His [Milsmann’s]work contributes basic knowledge to our field, adds value to cheap raw materials and has the potential to make solar energy cheaper and more abundant. We are pleased that the National Science Foundation has seen fit to support him in these efforts.”
Milsmann is also working on a project to develop new compounds using early transition metals which are easily available and more cost-effective than other costly metals used in solar cell technology. He has teamed up with five university graduates.
“Chemists typically make photoactive molecules based on late transition metals, which are pricey and rare,” Milsmann said.
“When tackling solar energy conversion on a global scale, you don’t want to do it with something that you don’t have very much of and that is expensive,” he added.