UND professor receives $3.7 million grant to research recycling of wind turbine blades
UND Professor of Mechanical Engineering Surojit Gupta has been awarded a $3.7 million grant to study the feasibility of recycling wind turbine blades, a topic of increasing importance with the rise in wind power development.
The grant’s research will be conducted in collaboration with co-principal investigators from UND, including Professor of Chemistry Yun Ji and Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Hallie Chelmo. Beth Klemetsrud, assistant professor of chemical engineering, will lead the project’s life cycle assessment in collaboration with the Idaho National Laboratory.
The grant will cover a period of three years, with $3 million of the funds coming directly from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). An additional $500,000 will come from the North Dakota Industrial Commission, with local sources rounding out the total.
UND will partner with Grand Forks-based Singularity Energy Technologies (SET), led by its founder and President Nikhil Patel. Hasan Jamil, associate professor of computer science at the University of Idaho and Yingqian Lin, researcher of bioenergy at the Idaho National Laboratory, will assist with carrying out the grant’s research activity.
The team will also employ UND graduate students and postdoctoral scholars.
