IUCRC Phase I: South Dakota School of Mines and Technology: Center for Solid-State Electric Power Storage (CEPS)

The NSF Industry-University Cooperative Research Center for Solid-State Electric Power Storage (CEPS) is comprised of three university sites: South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SD Mines) as the lead university and partner universities: Northeastern University (NU) and Syracuse University (SU). CEPS is established to provide integration between academia and industry in the pursuit of research focused energy storage innovations.

The Center enables industries, government, and national laboratories to meet the challenges of safe, efficient, and environmentally-friendly energy storage by adopting critical solid-state energy systems and enabling translation into industrial use driven by upstream basic research. As a multi-disciplinary collaborative consortium, CEPS will acquire long-term sustainability through strong support from stakeholders and leveraging partnerships at the state and national level.

CEPS's intellectual merit is in addressing significant challenges in energy storage. The Center seeks to create and provide U.S. leadership in energy storage research closely linked to green technologies and environmental sustainability.

The CEPS SD Mines site is built research and infrastructure in materials design and testing as well as advanced manufacturing capabilities to produce solid-state battery components. These manufacturing capabilities include physical vapor deposition, supersonic cold spray, and aerosol-jet deposition technologies to produce 3D solid-state batteries. The SD Mines capabilities will be synergistically integrated to embrace atomic-level modeling, environmental analysis, design of advanced battery management systems, and performance evolution processes using artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Guided by industry, CEPS will expand these areas through industry-driven research projects leading to safe and sustainable solid-state next-generation energy storage for portable, automotive, and electric power grid applications. The Center will seek to foster an inclusive learning environment where all faculty, staff, and students can grow and succeed.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.