Category: News

Southern Research develops gasifier technology to unlock coal’s potential

Posted on December 4, 2017

Southern Research has been selected to receive nearly $1.7 million in U.S. Department of Energy funding (DOE) to develop a new, cost-efficient gasifier capable of converting low-grade coal into synthesis gas (syngas) that can be used in a number of applications.

Birmingham-based Southern Research’s gasifier is based on a small-scale, modular design that is simple to deploy at site-specific locations, even at remote spots. The syngas produced can be converted into electricity, heat, chemicals, gasoline and other fuels, or a combination of these products.

The gasifier’s technology could open new markets for domestic coal, providing a boost to a major industry that is struggling with declining demand and massive job losses.

Southern Research coal
Santosh Gangwal and chemist Zora Govedarica examine the TGA gasification results of a Powder River Basin coal.

Southern Research’s novel gasifier will have a number of advantages over existing large-scale systems, said Santosh K. Gangwal, Ph.D., director of business development at the organization’s Energy & Environment (E&E) division and principal investigator on the project.

“Gasifier systems provide product flexibility, but large gasifiers have high capital costs and are complex to operate,” Gangwal said. “Also, the raw syngas produced by many gasifiers contains significant levels of tar that is undesirable and must be separated to prevent damage to downstream process equipment.

“The unique, simple, and modular Southern Research gasifier design has the potential to achieve low capital cost and to produce a nearly tar-free syngas,” he added.

UNLOCKING POTENTIAL

The Southern Research gasifier project is valued at $2.1 million, including $1.7 million in funding from DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy, which is seeking to foster the early adoption of modular coal-gasification technology. Southern Research and its partners on the project will provide $425,000 in cost sharing.

Partners include Murray, Utah-based Reaction Engineering International, which will lead the computational modeling effort on the project, and Mt. Prospect, Illinois-based Unitel Technologies, which will provide technical services on modeling, gasifier design and construction.

The project aims to move the technology through pilot scale development and testing, with the goal of being ready to construct a gasifier for a 1-5 megawatt energy conversion system at the end of the 36-month program. A system producing 1 megawatt of electricity would need to gasify about 1,200 pounds of low-rank coal an hour, Gangwal said.

The Office of Fossil Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory will oversee the project.

FLEXIBLE DESIGN

Advances in gasification technology represent an important facet of unlocking the full potential of domestic coal resources, which will improve U.S. economic competitiveness and contribute to the protection of the global environment.

Gangwal said the small-scale, modular design of Southern Research’s gasifier reduces financial risk while offering a conversion system with new levels of flexibility and affordability.

“Modular systems can be standardized and shop fabricated with standard designs that can allow simple assembly in the field and result in significant cost reduction for small plants,” he said. “Several shop fabricated small gasifier modules can be run in parallel in the field to increase the size of the plant to the desired scale.”

Although the project will target coal gasification, the system’s unique design incorporates operating adjustments to allow it to be used for other solid fuels including wood, agricultural resides and municipal waste, Gangwal said.

Bill Grieco, vice president of E&E at Southern Research, said the gasifier’s versatile design and its ability to produce tar-free, cost-efficient syngas using a variety of raw materials are major advantages.

“The technology being developed by Southern Research has the potential to expand the uses of the nation’s abundant fossil fuel resources by allowing coal to be utilized in new and cleaner forms,” Grieco said. “Developing and deploying lower-cost systems that convert coal cleanly to fuels and chemicals make sense. It helps drive energy independence and offers new opportunities for the coal industry.”

Slightly more than 30 percent of the nation’s electricity was generated from coal in 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Coal production in the United States declined 18 percent in 2016 from the previous year, hitting the lowest level of production since 1978, the agency said.

 

 

The Prosperity Fund works with colleges to stimulate growth in coal region

Posted on November 29, 2017

JASPER, Alabama — The Prosperity Fund, an economic development initiative created by Southern Research, is collaborating with universities and colleges in Alabama’s coal region to help speed recovery in communities rocked by the mining industry’s painful downturn.

Steven Puckett, the fund’s managing director, sees these partnerships as key to advancing the initiative’s goals of increasing entrepreneurial activity and sparking job creation in Walker, Fayette, Tuscaloosa, and Jefferson counties.

“We’re working closely with local universities and colleges as part of this effort,” Puckett said. “Working with companies, students get to attack real-world problems, like finding new markets and carrying out basic market research. These are activities that can help small businesses grow and create jobs.”

The Prosperity Fund and Bevill State Community College have become allies in the effort to replace lost coal jobs and improve economic vitality in Alabama. Puckett is helping the school develop and promote an entrepreneurship program and working to connect students with businesses that need their help.

Kim Ennis, Ph.D., interim president of Bevill State, said the partnership can help rejuvenate the small business environment in Walker and Fayette counties, where two of the college’s campuses are located. Stimulating entrepreneurial activity represents the most effective strategy to add new jobs in communities that have struggled to grow in recent years, she added.

“Small business is what America is built on,” Ennis said. “We realize that smokestack-chasing is not going to change things overnight, especially in our area.”

Prosperity Fund
More than 21,000 coal-related jobs have been lost in Alabama since 2012.

Puckett has also arranged for students in the University of Alabama’s STEM Path to the MBA program to conduct a study that aims to identify ways Walker County’s ailing timber industry can begin growing.

“If you’re in the forest products industry in Walker County, you’ve got access to a lot of raw materials but not a lot of outlets for distribution,” said Paul Kennedy, president of the Walker Area Community Foundation. “So, this has the potential to impact a lot of families if we can come up with new uses for the wood and wood waste.”

Puckett plans to engage other academic institutions throughout the region to develop partnerships that can benefit both their students and businesses, giving a lift to local economies.

HELPING ‘COAL TOWNS’

Many communities in Alabama’s coal counties have seen their economic stability turn fragile since the industry downturn began. To attack this problem, the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) provided Southern Research with a grant to establish The Prosperity Fund, whose total funding is $2.4 million.

The coal industry’s swoon has been damaging to the region. Between 2012 and 2016, the four Alabama counties shed more than 2,500 coal jobs, equal to 10 percent of the all industry employment losses in the nation. Disappearing with those coal mining jobs was an estimated $205 million in annual wages.

As the negative economic ripples have flowed through the entire region, the suffering has been particularly acute in Walker County, whose fortunes have long been tied to the coal industry. During that four-year time frame, the county lost 494 coal jobs with $41 million in wages.

“The impact has really been more far-reaching that just a lost coal job,” said Leslie C. Hartley, Ph.D., Bevill State’s dean of instruction and interim executive vice president. “One coal job impacted so many other jobs. That has been devastating in these counties. A lot these areas have been built around coal – they’re coal towns.”

Like Walker, Fayette County, which lost 383 coal jobs during the four-year period, has been struggling for growth.

The Economic Innovation Group, which studied economic well-being across the nation in an analysis, found that more than 40 percent of adults in each of the counties are not working. More than 20 percent of residents don’t have a high school diploma, and incomes lag the state average.

The number of businesses shrank by 8 percent in Fayette County between 2011 and 2015, according to the group’s 2017 Distressed Communities Index report. In Walker County, the number of business establishments declined by 3 percent over the four years.

CLEARING THE ‘FIRST HURDLE’

The Prosperity Fund and Bevill State are working together to improve the business outlook in the counties. Last year, the school received an ARC grant to establish a workforce training and job placement hub in northwest Alabama.

Fostering the creation of business startups and supporting small business growth are priorities for Puckett and the college’s leadership.

With Puckett’s assistance, Bevill State is working to launch an entrepreneurial program that will help current and future small business owners master the fundamentals they need to better manage their endeavors. The program will start early next year.

“If you don’t know anything about starting a business, it’s intimidating,” said Tana Collins, director of public relations for Bevill State. “Working with The Prosperity Fund, we can provide them with the resources they need to get over that first hurdle.”

Creating an environment where small businesses can thrive is vital to the future of communities in the region, Collins said.

“We need these businesses that are opening up to be successful because as we try to draw in new businesses, if they see one open up and the doors close immediately, they think they can’t be successful,” she said.

The Prosperity Fund offers Jasper firm support amid coal downturn

Posted on November 14, 2017

JASPER, Alabama — A&A Machine & Welding has been operating for nearly four decades, but the last few years have brought challenging times for the family owned business in the heart of Alabama’s struggling coal country.

While A&A never performed much work directly for coal companies, it has felt the impact of the industry’s damaging decline in Walker County. That’s because many other machine shops in the area worked only for mines that shut down, touching off a fierce fight for survival.

“As soon as that work dried up for them, you know what happened? Competition came out for us in every direction,” said Scott Aaron, who operates A&A with his brother, James, and sister, Patty Sanders.

As a result, it became tougher for A&A to win work. And when the company did secure a job, prices were lower, driven down by all the new competition. “Last year was the toughest year we’ve ever had,” Sanders said. “Really, 2015 and 2016 were tough years for our company.”

The siblings who operate A&A are working hard to regain a firm footing for the business founded in 1978 by their father. They have a partner in this undertaking: The Prosperity Fund, an initiative founded by Southern Research to assist small businesses and spur job creation in four Alabama counties hit hard by the coal industry downturn.

“This effort is about getting in the trenches with businesses like A&A, getting out on the shop floor, understanding how their processes work, and finding solutions for them so they can boost productivity,” said Steven Puckett, The Prosperity Fund’s managing director.

“It’s a very hands-on approach to help these businesses reach the next level.”

EMBRACING INNOVATION

A&A Machine & Welding team standing in workshop with Steven Puckett
The Prosperity Fund’s Steven Puckett (far left) with the owners of A&A Machine & Welding: Scott Aaron (L), James Aaron (R), Patty Sanders (top). Puckett has been working with A&A to increase efficiency in its operations.

Though it has been operating for only three months, The Prosperity Fund has become active in the Alabama counties most severely affected by the collapse of the nation’s coal mining industry: Walker, Fayette, Tuscaloosa, and Jefferson.

The negative effects in Alabama’s coal country have been severe. Overall, the industry’s downturn has cost the four counties nearly 16,000 direct and indirect jobs, wiping out more than $800 million in wages.

Since joining The Prosperity Fund in August, Puckett has engaged in discussions with 18 small businesses in the four counties, and he has been working with aspiring entrepreneurs looking to start new businesses.

Puckett has also connected with universities and colleges in the region about getting students directly involved in working with businesses. He’s recruited community organizations and others to lend support as partners throughout the region.

Corey Tyree, Ph.D., director of strategic growth initiatives for Southern Research and a co-founder of The Prosperity Fund, said areas that see their traditional economic base weaken must embrace innovation and new job-creation approaches.

“Alabama knows how to turn its assets into jobs. We did it with coal. Our state’s natural resources fueled massive industries like steel and electric power that were the backbone of America’s growth. Luckily we have other assets that can be a source of job creation. Small businesses like A&A are one of those assets. Let’s invest in them. Let’s deploy resources to serve urban and rural Alabama. That’s what The Prosperity Fund is about,” Tyree said.

Southern Research launched the 30-month, $2.4 million public-private partnership earlier this year with partial backing from the Appalachian Regional Commission.

FINDING SOLUTIONS

At A&A Machine, the owners are encouraged by the assistance they’ve already received from The Prosperity Fund.

Sanders said the early focus of the collaboration has been on introducing efficiency to the company operations, which include precision machining, welding, and fabrication at locations in Jasper and Cordova. The firm has 20 workers and mainly serves customers in the wastewater treatment industry.

“What we’re initially going to do is get a hold on the business and get it working more smoothly,” Sanders said. “After we get through the initial phase, hopefully we’ll be able to grow and find new customers. We have already started working on that.”

Puckett has been working to deploy on a smartphone app that will allow the workers on A&A’s shop floor to record time spent working on a particular project, replacing an inefficient paper-based system. He also plans to line up Bevill State students to help transform A&A’s website into a more effective marketing tool for the company.

Aaron said the fresh ideas are already paying positive benefits.

“This is a family business, so there are limits on where we have gotten our training,” he said. “It’s really been right here between these four walls since we were probably 14 years old. We grew up, and that’s how we did things.”

Puckett has been working with A&A to add new processing capability that they currently sub-contract. Welding or grinding stainless steel can make the material susceptible to corrosion. As a result, customers require machined or welded stainless parts to be passivated before they are shipped.

This could be a burdensome and expensive process for A&A, which sometimes had to ship stainless steel components to a shop in Texas for cleaning. Puckett has identified an environmentally friendly, citrus-based cleaner that A&A can use to make the passivation process more affordable.

The change could result in big savings for the company.

“Some of the stainless products we work on are pretty large, so we were spending a lot on that,” Sanders said. “We felt it was taking customers away from us because we could not come up with a good way of getting it ready to ship.”

In addition, The Prosperity Fund is working to identify new markets and customers for A&A. Procurement agents from new potential customers visited the shop, and the siblings are eager to pursue the potential of winning jobs from these new customers.

“I think Steven and The Prosperity Fund can really help us over the long term,” Aaron said. “He is helping us manage what we have going on in the business now and setting us up for when we can grow. Right now, I think we have the potential for a lot of good growth.”

Southern Research continues decades-long support of veterans and national defense

Posted on November 10, 2017

In the nation’s 99th year of officially commemorating U.S. veterans, Southern Research employees pay tribute to the sacrifices made by brave military men and women to secure and preserve freedom.

Over the past 70 years, the Birmingham-based research organization has supported national defense and protected warfighters serving around the globe through work in materials research and systems engineering. Research for the Department of Defense has been a key component of Southern Research’s engineering work, according to President and CEO Art Tipton, Ph.D.

Since the late 1950s, when Southern Research began work on the High Temperature Materials Characterization Laboratory, it has assisted the U.S. Department of Defense in all branches of the military. Some of the earliest programs for the DoD involved developing high-temperature reentry materials for missile systems reentering Earth’s atmosphere.

Through the decades, the work has included a diverse variety of efforts such as ballistic missile system development, hypersonic vehicle materials and structures analysis, and airborne sensors and stabilized gimbal systems.

“Veterans Day is a special one for Southern Research given the former service members we employ and the highly specialized work we do with the Department of Defense,” Tipton said. “Developing programs that protect the warfighter and keep our country safe from harm help make our mission more significant. And with pride and admiration, we celebrate those who served in defense of our great nation.”American soldier in uniform holding daughter

Tipton acknowledged the many service men and women who have given and who presently give their time, talent and efforts toward Southern Research’s mission. Southern Research is supported by 25 staff members who are U.S. veterans.

“These individuals make our pursuit even more meaningful,” Tipton said.

Two such individuals are Maj. Gen. (Retired) N. Lee S. Price, who serves on Southern Research’s board of directors, and Chief Master Sgt. John C. McCullough, export control specialist for Southern Research.

McCullough has served in the Alabama Air National Guard for 32 years, including 24 years with the civil engineers. He was mobilized in support of Operation Noble Eagle, as well as campaigns Southern Watch and Iraqi Freedom.

Price entered the Army as a Private First Class in 1975, when only 2 percent of the Army workforce was female. In 2014, when she retired as major general, only seven women had exceeded her in the Army ranks. During her nearly four decades of service, she supported the nation’s operators across the globe in multiple combat zones. She was recently recognized by the Birmingham Business Journal as one of the Veterans of Influence.

“Price’s contributions to the Southern Research board are invaluable,” Tipton said. “Beyond her specific technical expertise, her combined focus on people and processes have helped us broadly. And her lessons in leadership have benefited me personally.”

Researcher developing new toxicology test to protect unborn children

Posted on November 2, 2017

Southern Research reproductive toxicology scientist Paul Bushdid, Ph.D., is working to develop a new, cost-efficient laboratory test to evaluate hazards to unborn children posed by potential medicines, chemicals and other agents.

Bushdid’s in vitro toxicology model, based on a chicken embryo, promises to deliver significant benefits. For one thing, the model should produce more rapid hazard assessments of potential threats to a developing fetus. In addition, the model could help trim the costs of drug development projects, he said.

“This in vitro model should give us the ability to assess a lot more compounds and agents at a reduced cost, with reduced animal use, and we should be able to do it faster,” said Bushdid, who is director of the Drug Development division’s Toxicology & Pathology Services and discipline leader for the Developmental & Reproductive Toxicology (DART) program.

Southern Research’s Paul Bushdid, center, and his team are developing a new in vitro toxicology test based on a chicken embryo.

Southern Research’s DART program performs complex preclinical studies to ensure that drug candidates, nutritional supplements, food additives and chemicals don’t endanger unborn children and pregnant women. It also examines whether these substances are negatively affecting fertility in men and women.

Bushdid said in vitro models are gaining momentum in toxicology, which provides scientific analysis of potentially hazardous chemicals and investigates the toxic properties of new substances being used in consumer products and industrial settings.

“If there are ways other than animal studies to get results – in vitro models of toxicity being one of them – we should pursue them,” he said.

CREATING A ‘POWERFUL SCREEN’

Bushdid’s project, funded internally at Southern Research, aims to significantly update and improve an older laboratory technique that was widely used in reproductive toxicology tests until the 1980s. That’s when concerns emerged about whether the chicken embryo model was the best platform for assessing teratogens, or agents that cause malformations in an embryo.

“It fell out of favor because the chicken doesn’t have a placenta, but the data shows that if you are looking at a direct teratogenic assault on an embryo, that chicken embryo model is a great model, with a high degree of predictability of what happens in humans,” Bushdid said.

To improve the in vitro model, Bushdid plans to add other assessments that have not been standard for the assay but have proved useful in animal models. Combining the two will make “a very powerful screen for assessments,” he said.

“With the chicken embryo, we can look at a very wide range of developmental stages, and we can identify potential target organs. It’s important to know if the agent in question is perfectly safe or has the potential to be lethal or cause limb defects like thalidomide did,” Bushdid said.

“That will help provide guidance on what type of further testing is needed to ensure safety for people.”

Paul Bushdid is director of the Drug Development division’s Toxicology & Pathology Services and discipline leader for the Developmental & Reproductive Toxicology (DART) program.

Bushdid believes the in vitro toxicology model could help hold down costs in drug discovery and development programs, which face significant financial hurdles in getting a medicine to market.

“Drug development is extremely expensive, and the cost of that eventually gets relayed to the public,” he said. “How can we help with that? Well, we can work to develop and validate alternate models for safety assessment to help reduce the overall cost of drug development.”

IMPORTANT PROTECTION

Southern Research’s DART program is a key partner of the National Toxicology Program, which is responsible for evaluating the toxic and carcinogenic potential of environmental agents that may pose a health hazard to U.S. citizens.

The NTP is affiliated with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), which awarded Southern Research a 10-year contract to evaluate the long-term effects of early-life exposure to certain chemicals. The NIEHS is part of the National Institutes of Health.

“It’s been my personal goal in life to protect kids, before they’re born or after they’re born,” Bushdid said. “To me, children are sacred in a world that is full of dangers. The whole purpose of everything we’re doing is to make sure they are protected.”

Southern Research’s Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) capabilities put NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE technologies to the test

Posted on October 30, 2017

Over the past year, Southern Research’s Energy & Environment division has partnered with the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE to verify data submitted by competitors. The $20 million global competition is focused on finding new technologies that convert carbon dioxide emissions into useful products.

“XPRIZE is the global leader in designing and implementing innovative competition models to solve the world’s grand challenges,” said Marcius Extavour, Senior Director, Energy and Resources at the non-profit XPRIZE Foundation.

In order to drive and scale positive change, XPRIZE uses a unique combination of resources to inspire technology development that will have an exponential impact on today’s environmental, social, and technological issues.

Southern Research’s Tim Hansen, center, stands with members of the Carbon XPrize team and the Carbon Upcycling UCLA team with samples of UCLA’s innovative concrete product, which captures and sequesters carbon dioxide.

The Carbon XPRIZE has attracted a large range of entries, as the competition’s ambitious focus is on transforming a significant greenhouse gas into innovative new products. It’s up to the Southern Research E&E Measurement & Verification team to make sure those technologies actually work like the developers claim, and beneficially re-use CO2.

“You’re looking at taking CO2, capturing it from flue gas from power generation at a coal-fired power plant or natural gas-fired power plant, and using that CO2 to make something useful, which could be a fuel, chemical, concrete product, algae, or cattle feed,” said Tim Hansen, P.E., Director of Energy & Environment and Measurement & Verification Lead for the project.

Around 20 teams remain in the competition, and are now entering a Round 2 evaluation program. The teams themselves will gather data on their systems, including their carbon conversion performance, land use, water use, and the net value of their products. The information will then be sent to Southern Research for verification. Southern Research verification engineers will perform on-site observations, evaluations, and audits of the team’s pilot scale systems to verify each team’s claims.

ETV CAPABILITIES

The partnership also plays to a long-standing strength at Southern Research. For more than two decades, the non-profit research organization’s scientists have developed protocols for testing new products to provide reliable, verifiable data about novel technologies.

“We’ve got a strong focus on evaluating innovative, clean technologies in a variety of forms,” Hansen said. “These can range from clean vehicles and fuel and clean electricity generation technology to clean, green, and sustainable chemical processes, and renewable energy.”

This range of capabilities is exactly what attracted the Carbon XPRIZE’s interest. XPRIZE first learned about Southern Research’s environmental technology verification services at an industry conference.

“Independent measurement and verification of team technology development is a vital part of the independent judging process,” Extavour said. “The Carbon XPRIZE was looking for a partner who was capable of working with a wide range of competitors, with varied and complex technologies.”

Over the years, the ETV capabilities of Southern Research’s E&E division have expanded to encompass all parts of the technology development process.

“We can test and evaluate while you’re still tinkering with the proof of concept on the laboratory scale all the way through commercial scale technology deployed in the field in a real working environment,” Hansen said. “We have scientists, engineers, facilities, and capabilities to address that whole range of energy and environmental technology development and testing programs.”

Southern Research’s Tim Hansen, Nikki Batchelor (Carbon XPRIZE), Iman Mehdipour and Bu Wang (Carbon Upcycling UCLA) pose at UCLA’s analytical lab during verification of UCLAs carbon utilization technology for the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE.

As a result of their prominence in the field, Hansen was invited to serve on an international panel to establish an international standard for evaluating and verifying environmental technologies. This work resulted in the development and issuance of ISO 14034: Environmental Technology Verification, a standard that was recently adopted by the American National Standards Institute.

In addition to technology verifications, Southern Research’s ETV work also includes managing demonstration and testing of these new technologies.

These demonstration and testing programs collect high-quality, dependable data about a product’s performance. Though the approach to both follows the same general format, with demonstration programs focused on testing a technology’s performance, while verifications focused on validating information, data, test methods, and results of tests performed by other labs.

Typically, the technology demonstration and testing programs have two stages: a controlled test within the lab, and an evaluation in a real-world operating environment.

“The controlled testing lets us run the tech through its paces and evaluate its performance over a wide range,” Hansen said. “We can see how it works under different conditions that we can control. Phase 2 is typically real-world operations for a month, six months, or a year. We deploy the technology, perform measurements, and monitor the performance during its normal daily operation, which can be significantly different than a controlled lab test.”

Extavour said the Southern Research E&E team is playing a critical role in the operations of the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE.

“Southern Research’s breadth and depth of expertise gave us confidence in their ability to work closely with all semifinalist teams to showcase their innovative technologies and deliver high quality verification data,” he said.

Over the next two months, the Southern Research Carbon XPRIZE Measurement & Verification Team will be embarking on visits to more than 25 locations around the globe to verify each innovative CO2 capture and utilization technology. These verification reports will be provided to the Carbon XPRIZE judges, who will then decide which teams advance to the final round of the competition.

Southern Research Oxmoor campus marks 25th anniversary milestone

Posted on October 24, 2017

Southern Research hosted a special event to mark the 25th anniversary of the opening of its Oxmoor campus, where the organization’s staff have tackled complex technical challenges in support of the space program, critical defense systems, and important energy issues.

The event took place Oct. 25 at the facility at 757 Tom Martin Drive off Lakeshore Parkway in Birmingham.

“The opening of the Oxmoor campus represented a milestone for Southern Research because the facility has provided our team with a unique expansion space to help advance important programs in aerospace and defense,” said Art Tipton, Ph.D., the organization’s president and CEO. “And with expansion, it has been a great center for our growing energy and environment focus.”

“The work conducted by Southern Research at the Oxmoor campus has always focused on making discoveries that propel science and technical knowledge forward,” he added. “That mission is going to continue well into the future.”

Largely designed by Southern Research engineers, the Oxmoor facility was set up for flexible lab space to meet the changing demands of the staff’s work. Its labs are packed with one-of-a-kind instruments and devices invented by Southern Research engineers for tasks such as testing materials in extreme environments like those encountered by spacecraft.

In 2016, the organization’s Energy & Environment division moved to the Oxmoor campus, where it is conducting research on solar panels and next-generation energy storage systems, and operating a new economic development-focused initiative called The Prosperity Fund.

IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTIONS

Southern Research officially opened the Oxmoor facility on Oct. 9, 1992, after a dedication ceremony attended by Gov. Guy Hunt and community leaders. “It is most gratifying to see first-hand evidence of Alabama’s growing prominence in high-technology research and development,” Hunt said in his speech.

Visitors entering the main lab on a tour that day saw a giant replica of the Space Shuttle, reflecting Southern Research’s deep involvement in the NASA program.

With activities centered at the Oxmoor facility, Southern Research remains one of the few organizations in the world where the thermal and mechanical properties of materials are routinely studied at temperatures reaching into thousands of degrees.

“One thing that makes this facility unique is that we have been able to assemble under one roof some of the world’s top experts in advanced materials under extreme environments,” said Michael D. Johns, vice president of the Engineering division.

“The facility is full of one-of-a-kind extreme environment test facilities that simulate everything from cryogenic exposure of space telescopes to the extreme heat of earth atmospheric reentry.”

In addition to the Space Shuttle, Southern Research engineers have made significant contributions to the development of spacecraft technology for NASA programs such as the James Webb Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, Johns said.

Other important work at the Oxmoor center has focused on the development of flight systems capable of traveling more than six times the speed of sound, and the creation of an airborne high-altitude video system capable of recording high-definition images at great distances.

The system, called AIRS/DyNAMITE, was deployed on a NASA-sponsored mission to capture unprecedented images of the Sun and Mercury during this year’s total solar eclipse.

Johns said Southern Research engineers will participate in many critical programs in the future. These include developing technologies related to NASA’s planned missions to Mars and next-generation space telescopes. They’ll also be focusing on cyber security, additive manufacturing, and the modernization of the nation’s aging missile fleets, he added.

EXPANDING FOOTPRINT

Meanwhile, the Energy & Environment (E&E) division is expanding its footprint at the Oxmoor campus by moving into a 28,000-square-foot expansion of the site commissioned in 2012, according to Bill Grieco, Ph.D., the division’s vice president.

The Southeast Solar Research Center, located at the Oxmoor site, permits E&E researchers to assess the reliability and cost performance of solar panels under field and lab conditions. Southern Research’s key partners in the project are Southern Company, the Department of Energy, and the Electric Power Research Institute.

E&E also recently launched the Energy Storage Research Center to focus on the integration and testing of advanced energy storage technologies, which promise to bring major changes to industries ranging from automotive to electric utilities.

The Prosperity Fund, whose goals are to foster job creation and spur entrepreneurial activity in four central Alabama counties, is a new initiative for Southern Research’s E&E team. The work will set the stage for future job creation and business consulting opportunities with an initial focus on communities impacted by the loss of coal jobs, Grieco

Southern Research at 75: Ben May’s gift launches a cancer program

Posted on October 18, 2017

Mobile lumber magnate Ben May wanted Southern Research to do something special with his $25,000 gift in early 1946.

The non-profit research organization’s original charter spelled out a mission to support the growth of Southern industry, but May demanded that his donation focus on improving human welfare in the region.

May’s seed money launched Southern Research’s cancer program, which over several decades has contributed to significant advances in cancer treatment and drug discovery.

Southern Research’s work in the 1950s and 1960s defined the fundamentals of effective cancer chemotherapy at a time when there was widespread skepticism about the practice. Led by Dr. Howard Skipper, the team demonstrated the principles of combination chemotherapy to counter resistance to a single drug.

Skipper’s strategy was straightforward. He would harness all of Southern Research’s resources to develop “concepts, hypotheses, theories, rules, laws, principles, mathematical models,” anything that would speed progress in the battle against cancer.

“Trial and error is a slow business,” Skipper recalled later. “But we have helped in forming a number of hypotheses that have withstood the test of time and proved helpful in providing guidance to many of our clinical associates in this country and abroad.”

IMPORTANT BONDS

Early on, Southern Research’s cancer program developed close ties to the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research in New York, whose director, Dr. Cornelius Rhoads, had worked with Skipper in the Army Chemical Warfare Section during World War II. The Sloan-Kettering connection acted as a springboard.

SR 75th_Logo_Horz_RGBIn the 1950s, major funding for Southern Research’s cancer work began flowing in from the National Cancer Institute, a relationship still intact today, and the American Cancer Society, among others. Many individuals followed May’s lead with significant gifts.

Skipper’s cancer research program quickly grew in prominence.

Southern Research’s budget for health-related research in 1950 totaled less than $73,000. Ten years later, the figure was $1.7 million, more than half the entire budget.

Medical research remains a key focus for the organization.

“WHAT HE STARTED HERE”

Ben May
Ben May
May’s involvement with Southern Research didn’t stop with that game-changing $25,000 gift. He joined its board of directors in 1951 and remained a trustee for more than two decades. He also sponsored several research projects and contributed to the capital fund.

May and Skipper remained close over the years, often exchanging letters.

On Feb. 18, 1972, May replied to a letter he had just received from Skipper.

“Dear Howard:

“Thanks a lot for your letter of February 16. I note that you feel that my seed money was not wasted at the time of the Southern Research decisions. If there was success, I figure it was due to your ability and fine work,” May wrote.

In early November that year, May and Dr. Martin Perlman of Mobile traveled to Birmingham to visit Skipper at Southern Research. May sent a letter of thanks to Skipper on Nov. 9. “It was a real pleasure to be with you again,” he wrote, “and I felt fortunate that I could make the trip and see you as I did.”

A few days later, May was dead.

Soon after, Skipper wrote Perlman:

“I loved Mr. May. You may know it. I know that he knew it. I shall always be grateful to you for bringing him to the SRI Dinner not long ago, and for allowing us to have lunch and visit with you just a week before his passing.

“I sensed that he was happy with what he started here and that he was proud, almost as a father would be proud, or what we have been able to do and are trying to do,” Skipper wrote. “This is what I wanted so much for him to feel, but one can never repay the sort of help and inspiration he gave so unselfishly.”

Biotech veteran Jay Liu joins Drug Discovery division

Posted on October 11, 2017

Southern Research announced that Jay Liu, Ph.D., an experienced biotech industry innovator and entrepreneur, has joined its Drug Discovery division as director of technology development and innovation.

In this new role, Liu will seek to expand Southern Research’s drug discovery capabilities in areas that include biologics and monoclonal antibodies, which are revolutionizing the treatment of many serious and chronic diseases.

Liu, who has worked for both biotech startups and pharmaceutical industry giants, will also strive to advance promising projects already in Southern Research’s drug discovery pipeline along the path to product development.

“Southern Research is known for its rich history in drug discovery and its focus on innovative research,” Liu said. “What I want to achieve is to push these projects forward so that a pharmaceutical company or venture capitalist investors will want to work with us so that we can deliver a commercial product.”

Southern Research Drug Discovery
Jay Liu has joined Southern Research’s Drug Discovery division as director of technology development and innovation.

Mark J. Suto, Ph.D., vice president of Southern Research’s Drug Discovery division, said Liu’s scientific background and wide-ranging industry experience in the U.S. and China will bring significant benefits to the Birmingham-based non-profit organization and allow it to move into new research areas.

“One of our most important missions is identifying new therapeutics that will have an impact on people’s lives. Jay’s industry experience in both research clinical development of new concepts will facilitate efforts to move our research from the lab into collaborations that accelerate product development,” Suto said.

EXTENSIVE EXPERIENCE

Before joining Southern Research, Liu served as CEO of China’s Nanjing Galaxy Biotech and Suzhou Galaxy Biopharma, where he directed a team of around 70 scientists developing biologic treatments for cancer, autoimmune disorders and hepatitis C.

In 2010, he co-founded China’s Rugen Therapeutics Inc., where he formed alliances with academic labs and research organizations around the world while also building a drug discovery capability that targeted central nervous system diseases. During his tenure, the Rugen team developed several candidate drugs that were licensed for clinical evaluation as treatments for autism and bipolar disorders.

In 1995, Liu started his career in the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, which included jobs at Merck and AstraZeneca. During this time, he led teams that delivered five investigational new drugs, two of which completed Phase II clinical studies.

Liu holds a doctorate in pharmacology from the State University of New York at Buffalo and also studied at SIMM (Chinese Academy of Sciences) and the University of California, Davis. He received postdoctoral training at the National Institutes of Health, where he focused on new approaches for treating diabetes.

He has published more than 30 research papers and has filed 10 patent applications.

“I have always been interested in discovering new drugs that help patients,” Liu said. “Southern Research is very exciting place for that work, with seven FDA-approved cancer drugs created here. There are not many places that can do that.”

Entrepreneur Steven Puckett joins Prosperity Fund leadership

Posted on October 5, 2017

Business consultant and serial entrepreneur Steven Puckett has been named managing director of Southern Research’s Prosperity Fund, a $2.4 million initiative that seeks to inject economic vitality into four Alabama counties hit hard by the coal industry’s downturn.

Puckett, who has launched several technology companies, is responsible for advancing the Prosperity Fund’s strategic objectives of assisting business growth, stimulating start-up activity, and spurring job creation in Walker, Fayette, Tuscaloosa and Jefferson counties.

Since joining Southern Research in August, Puckett has begun connecting with small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs in the region to develop a deeper understanding of their needs and challenges.

Southern Research Prosperity Fund
As managing director of the Prosperity Fund, Steven Puckett, left, will work to assist small businesses in four hard-hit Alabama coal counties. He’s speaking with Edmon Aaron, founder of A&A Machine in Walker County.

In addition, he is establishing ties with existing businesses, colleges and universities, economic development groups, potential investors, and community leaders throughout the region to harness available resources that can benefit the initiative’s participants.

Corey Tyree, Ph.D., director of Energy & Environment-Alabama for Southern Research and co-founder of the Prosperity Fund, said Puckett’s extensive experience in consulting and launching tech startups makes him an ideal choice for the key role of managing director.

“To create jobs, we need growing companies in this region. Growth is hard and entrepreneurs have to overcome numerous challenges along the way. Steven has been able to quickly identify those challenges and address them himself, or find others in his network to pitch in. Steven started helping small businesses in his first week on the job and it’s exciting to see him making a difference in these four counties.” Tyree said.

“He’s an entrepreneur. He learned to be resourceful and make use of community assets. He’s helping other small enterprises do the same thing in order to grow and create jobs in this region,” he added.

CREATING A MODEL

Southern Research launched the Prosperity Fund this year after receiving a $1.2 million grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) as part of a broader program to strengthen coal-impacted communities in the region. Southern Research and its partners are matching the ARC funding in the initiative.

The four counties being served by the Prosperity Fund represent the backbone of Alabama coal industry, which had its beginnings in the 1850s. The U.S. coal industry’s recent downturn has delivered a staggering blow to these counties, both in terms of lost jobs and vanishing earnings.

Southern Research Prosperity Fund
The Prosperity Fund’s Steven Puckett has experience starting and managing businesses.

Between 2012 and 2016, more than 2,500 coal miners lost their jobs in the Prosperity Fund region, wiping out $206 million in wages. When the ripple effects are considered, the toll on the counties has been significantly worse, with 13,000 additional job losses and another $600 million in lost wages.

“We’re really focused on helping the Alabama communities affected by the coal downturn by trying to replace some of the jobs that were lost,” Puckett said. “Positioning small businesses to thrive will add vitality to entire economies.”

The Prosperity Fund has a set goal of assisting 10 existing businesses and 10 startups, creating at least 80 jobs in the four-county region. The initiative is also seeking to increase business revenue by $11 million and leverage $6 million in private investment in these counties.

Puckett is in the process of assisting businesses in multiple aspects of their operations, ranging from customer discovery and technical processes to software integration. He also plans to develop broader small business programs such as workshops focused on small business procurement, lending, and human resources, and more.

“Our goal is to lend our capabilities as an organization to small business owners in this region to attack the issues that keep them from growing and creating jobs,” Puckett said. “Their success is critical to job growth and diversification of Alabama’s economy.”

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