$7.3 million for new research centre at Wollongong

Aug 22, 2003

The Federal Government has announced the establishment of a new $7.3 million research centre at the University of Wollongong involving the Bionic Ear Institute and Monash University as key collaborators.

The major funding, over a five-year period, is for the ARC (Australian Research Council) Centre for Nanostructured Electromaterials under the Directorship of Professor Gordon Wallace who is currently the Director of UOW's Intelligent Polymer Research Institute.

The University of Wollongong will be the administering institution for the new centre and collaborating institutions will be the Bionic Ear Institute; Monash University; CSIRO (Molecular Science); CSIRO (Manufacturing Science and Technology); CSIRO (Textile and Fibre Technology); University of Akron, USA; and Massey University, New Zealand.

The Centre aims to study nano (or at the minute level) phenomena in electromaterials.Much scientific understanding of the behaviour of materials breaks down when the material takes on nanodimensions (dimensions involving fewer than approximately 1,000 atoms).

Professor Wallace said that a particularly promising area of research concerns the movement of electrical charges (electrons or ions) through materials structured on nanoscales, such as nanowires, conducting polymers, and carbonnanotubes.

Fundamental research on electrofunctional materials will be applied to invent and improve energy conversion systems (e.g. photovoltaics and electroactuators), energy storage systems (e.g. batteries and hydrogen storage devices), and systems to transfer energy to and from biosystems (e.g. wound healing and electronic nerve stimulators).

For further information contact Professor Gordon Wallace on (02) 4221 3127.

For more information, contact:

media@uow.edu.au
University of Wollongong
Ph: (02) 4221 5942; fax (02) 4221 3128