New ARC Carbon Science and Innovation centre awarded funding

The UNSW-led Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Carbon Science and Innovation has been awarded $35 million in federal funding, and aims to “revolutionise carbon science” to create new carbon-based catalysts for use in renewable energy generation, carbon capture and clean chemical production. 

Scientia Professor Liming Dai (pictured), who is also Founding Director of the Centre for Advanced Carbon Materials at UNSW, leads the team behind the new centre.

Carbon-based catalysts are expected to benefit new technologies for energy, environmental, and green chemical industries, said UNSW in an announcement on the funding.

“Our centre team members have made revolutionary discoveries by changing the composition of pure carbon materials through heteroatom-doping,” said Dai in a statement on Monday.

“In particular, carbon catalysts and renewable solar power will be used to produce hydrogen peroxide from air and water for wastewater purification. This will transform the chemical and environmental industries in Australia that are worth more than $60 billion.

“The impact is not just for the environment but will also contribute billions of dollars to Australia through a carbon circular economy. The carbon problem then becomes the solution.”

The new carbon science centre is one of 11 Centres of Excellence announced on Friday, with a combined $384.9 million in research funding for research in areas of national priority over a seven-year period.

Picture credit: Anna Kucera/UNSW