As the Panda Faculty Scholar in Sustainability in Engineering and Design, Prof. Bergthorson is leading an international research effort around the concept of metals as sustainable carbon-free fuels, with the support of the European and Canadian Space Agencies. The European Space Agency highlighted our work on the fundamental and applied aspects of metal combustion
Prof. Bergthorson’s team at McGill is working to improve our understanding of both the fundamentals of metal-fuel combustion science and the development of novel metal-fuel technologies. His team is also developing a technology to generate hydrogen on demand from the reaction of metal fuels with water.
Prof. Bergthorson is also co-leading a McGill Sustainability Systems Initiative Theme on CleanTech for Climate Action and is leading a project on metal fuels that includes researchers across the Faculty of Engineering, as well as Management and Economics. This project aims to address both the technical and the socio-economic barriers to achieving a carbon-free energy system based, in part, on metal fuels.