of Cementitious Composites for EGS
The mission of the Center for Coupled Chemo-Mechanics of Cementitious Composites for EGS (C4M) is to help the United States leverage its abundant geothermal energy by elucidating and controlling the chemical transformations and mechanical properties of sustainable cement-like composite materials used to construct geothermal wells.
Objectives
Cost-effective cementitious composites to be designed for long-term operation under very high temperatures and pressures and chemically aggressive environments will have mineral or waste-product precursors with zero-net CO2 release. To ensure well durability, materials with geologically stable mineral phases will be targeted, and inorganic coatings resistant to high temperatures and aggressive environments will be investigated.
The Center has assembled a multi-disciplinary team of leading researchers including a minority-serving institution. The Center’s experimental and modeling capabilities complement each other to elucidate and predict the performance of cementitious materials from the atomic to the macroscopic scale and for a time span ranging from seconds to years. Artificial intelligence and high-performance computing make possible the design of advanced materials with long durability under extreme conditions. In addition to their own capabilities, the C4M groups take advantage of the unique user facilities housed in the partner national laboratories, including advanced light sources and nanoscience centers. Operationally, the Center is organized with a simple and agile structure that facilitates decision-making and reduces bureaucratic burdens to achieve the goal of cutting the cost of enhanced geothermal systems by 90% by 2035.
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Anastasia Ilgen
Sandia National Laboratories
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Jiaqi Li
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
The climate crisis calls for a different kind of moonshot. Energy Earthshots will accelerate breakthroughs of more abundant, affordable, and reliable clean energy solutions within the decade. They will drive the major innovation breakthroughs to solve the climate crisis, reach our 2050 net-zero carbon goals, and create the jobs of the new clean energy economy. Energy Earthshots target the remaining solution points of the most challenging technical problems across our energy economy.
C4M is an Energy Earthshot Research Center (EERC) led by Brookhaven Lab and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, which is working to understand multi-component reactive systems at a fundamental level to enable the design of cost-effective, sustainable well construction materials.
C4M Partner Institutions
