Houston scientist earns nanocarbon research award named after fellow Rice chemist

full circle

Bruce Weisman's career has come full circle with a recent award. Photo via rice.edu

Rice University chemist Bruce Weisman has been awarded the Richard E. Smalley Research Award for his decades of nanocarbon research, according to a statement from the university.

The honor is a full circle moment for Wiseman, as the award is named after Weisman's long-time Rice colleague and friend, Rick Smalley, who Wiseman said helped shape his career.

“It changed my career,” Weisman said in a statement from Rice about his work with Smalley. “Everything I’ve done in the last 20 years has been an outgrowth, a consequence of that.”

Still, Weisman has earned many achievements of his own. He joined Rice's faculty in 1979 as a spectroscopist and first began working with Smalley in 1985 after Smalley's groundbreaking discovery of carbon 60, or buckyballs. The discovery proved that carbon could take on other forms and it won Smalley and his teammates the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Weisman and Smalley then collaborated on experiments to measure the electronic spectra of carbon 60 and carbon 70. In the early 2000s, they published two seminal nanotube studies in Science in which Weisman shared his new faster, simpler and cheaper spectrometric method of assaying nanotubes, according to Rice.

In 2004 Weisman founded a company, Applied NanoFluorescence, to commercialize the technology. The company still exists and continues to research the optical properties of carbon nanotubes.

He is also an elected fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the the Electrochemical Society (ECS) and former chair of the ECS Nanocarbons Division. The ECS will present Weisman with the 2024 Smalley Research Award in May. The award is given every two years to recognize “outstanding achievements in, or scientific contributions to, the science of fullerenes, nanotubes and carbon nanostructures.”

Earlier this month, another Rice professor won a highly competitive award. Assistant professor Amanda Marciel, the William Marsh Rice Trustee Chair of chemical and biomolecular engineering, was granted a National Science Foundation's CAREER Award that comes with $670,406 over five years to continue her research in designing branch elastomers.

The grant will also create opportunities in soft matter research for undergraduates and underrepresented scientists. Click here to learn more.

Meanwhile, another Houston-based chemist was also recently recognized for their work. Baylor College of Medicine's Livia Schiavinato Eberlin was named the 2024 recipient of the Norman Hackerman Award in Chemical Research in December.

The award from the Houston-based Welch Foundation recognizes the accomplishments of chemical scientists in Texas who are early in their careers. Eberlin will be granted $100,000 for this honor.

UH's Jian Shi recently received the NSF's CAREER award, which will dole out $500,861 in funding through February 2029. Photo via UH.edu

Houston researcher scores $500,000 award to continue on work on energy transition

zeroing in on zero emissions

A University of Houston professor and researcher is laser focused on his work within the energy transition, and National Science Foundation has taken note, awarding him over half a million dollars in funding.

Jian Shi, an assistant professor within the Cullen College of Engineering, recently received the NSF's CAREER award, which will dole out $500,861 in funding through February 2029.

The award was granted for his research, entitled “A Unified Zero-Carbon-Driven Design Framework for Accelerating Power Grid Deep Decarbonization.”

“One of the most major challenges inherent in energy transition is the cost. While reducing carbon emissions serves the best interest of society in the long run, the short-term financial burdens also need to be carefully evaluated to ensure that we have a safe, affordable, reliable and just transition for all,” Shi says in a UH news release. “This challenge has inspired me to work on the innovative framework of “ZERO-Accelerator.”

Shi's ZERO-Accelerator is focused on taking standard carbon-driven tools and integrating them into current power grid operational practices. Shi is the director and founder of SOAR, or the Smart and ZerO-Carbon Energy Analytics and Research Lab.

“It synthesizes interactions from multiple key stakeholders involved in the electricity ecosystem,” says Shi. “The framework considers how to manage carbon allowance allocation and trading for electricity producers, how to maintain a 24/7 zero-carbon power grid for power grid operators and how to enable consumers to understand their carbon footprint and participate in the zero-carbon grid operation.”

In his CAREER proposal, Shi explains that he is also contributing to training the future energy workforce. He adds that he shares this award with his colleagues.

“I believe no accomplishment is truly individual,” he says. “Rather, it is a collective triumph achieved through collaboration, support and shared dedication. As I reflect on the milestones I've reached, I am compelled to express my deepest gratitude to my esteemed colleagues whose unwavering commitment has been instrumental in not just my collective success, but our collective success as well."

Last summer, Shi mentored a UH team in the inaugural American-Made Carbon Management Collegiate Competition, hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management. The team, GreenHouston, took third place in the competition, securing a $5,000 cash prize.

Ad Placement 300x100

Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Texas solar set to overtake coal for first time in 2026, EIA forecasts

solar on the rise

Solar power promises to shine even brighter in Texas this year.

A new forecast from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) indicates that for the first time, annual power generation from utility-scale solar will surpass annual power generation from coal across the territory covered by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).

Solar generation is expected to reach 78 billion kilowatt-hours in 2026 in the ERCOT grid, compared with 60 billion kilowatt-hours for coal, the EIA forecast says. The ERCOT grid supplies power to about 90 percent of Texas, including the Houston area.

“Utility-scale solar generation has been increasing steadily in ERCOT as solar capacity additions help meet rapid electricity demand growth,” the forecast says.

Although natural gas remains the dominant source of electricity generation in ERCOT, accounting for an average 44 percent of electricity generation from 2021 to 2025, solar’s share of the generation mix rose from four percent to 12 percent. During the same period, coal’s share dropped from 19 percent to 13 percent.

EIA predicts about 40 percent of U.S. solar capacity, or 14 billion kilowatt-hours, added in 2026 will come from Texas.

Although EIA expects annual solar generation to exceed annual coal generation in 2026, solar surpassed coal in ERCOT on a monthly basis for the first time in March 2025, when solar generation totaled 4.33 billion kilowatt-hours and coal’s totaled 4.16 billion kilowatt-hours. Solar generation continued to exceed that of coal until August of that year.

“In 2026, we estimate that solar exceeded coal for the first time in March, and we forecast generation from solar installations in ERCOT will continue to exceed that from coal until December, when coal generation exceeds solar,” says EIA. “We expect solar generation to exceed that of coal for every month in 2027 except January and December.”

For 2027, EIA forecasts annual solar generation of 99 billion kilowatt-hours in the ERCOT grid, compared with 66 billion kilowatt-hours of annual coal generation.

In April, ERCOT projected almost 368 billion kilowatt-hours of demand in ERCOT’s territory by 2032. ERCOT’s all-time peak demand hit 85.5 billion kilowatt-hours in August 2023.

“Texas is experiencing exceptional growth and development, which is reshaping how large load demand is identified, verified, and incorporated into long-term planning,” ERCOT President and CEO Pablo Vegas said. “As a result of a changing landscape, we believe this forecast to be higher than expected … load growth.”

Houston startup raises $12M to commercialize quantum energy chip technology

seed funding

Houston-based Casimir has emerged from stealth with a $12 million seed round to commercialize its quantum energy chip.

The round was led by Austin-based Scout Ventures. Lavrock Ventures, Cottonwood Technology, Capital Factory, American Deep Tech, and Tim Draper of Draper Associates also participated in the round. The oversubscribed round exceeded the company’s original $8 million target, according to a news release.

Casimir’s semiconductor chips can generate power from quantum vacuum fields without the need for batteries or charging. The company plans to commercialize its first-generation MicroSparc chip by 2028.

The MicroSparc chip measures 5 millimeters by 5 millimeters and is designed to produce 1.5 volts at 25 microamps, comparable to a small rechargeable battery, without degradation and no replacement cycle.

“Casimir represents exactly the kind of breakthrough dual-use technology Scout Ventures was built to back,” Brad Harrison, founder and managing partner at Scout Ventures, said in the release. “This is based on 100 years of science and we’re finally approaching a commercial product … We’re proud to lead this round and support Casimir’s journey from applied science to deployed technology.”

Casimir says it aims to scale its technology across the ”full power spectrum,” including large-scale energy systems that can power homes, commercial infrastructures and electric vehicles.

Casimir's scientific work has been supported by DARPA-funded nanofabrication research and its technology was incubated at the Limitless Space Institute (LSI). LSI is a nonprofit that works to innovate interstellar travel and was founded by Kam Ghaffarian. Technology investor and serial entrepreneur Ghaffarian has been behind companies like X-energy, Intuitive Machines, Axiom Space and Quantum Space.

Harold “Sonny” White, founder and CEO of Casimir, believes the technology can power devices for years without replacements.

“Millions of devices will operate for years without a battery ever needing to be replaced or recharged because we have engineered a customized Casimir cavity into hardware capable of producing persistent electrical power,” White added in the release. “I spent nearly two decades at NASA studying how we power humanity’s future. That work led me to the Casimir effect and the quantum vacuum, where new tools have allowed us to build on a century of scientific knowledge and bring abundant power to the world.”

---

This article originally appeared on our sister site, InnovationMap.com.

Electric truck charging network expands to Houston-Dallas freight corridor

electric trucking

Greenlane Infrastructure, an electric public charging station developer and operator, is expanding outside of its home state of California and into Texas.

The Santa Monica-based company plans to launch its high-power charging sites along the Dallas–Houston I-45 corridor, which is one of the highest-volume commercial trucking routes in the country, according to a news release from Greenlane.

The sites will feature 6-8 pull-through lanes with chargers supporting combined charging system (CCS) and megawatt charging system (MCS) connectors that allow electric truck drivers to recharge their vehicles during standard rest periods. They will also offer tractor parking and charging, as well as operations that will allow for overnight stops.

Drivers can reserve chargers in advance, monitor charging activity in real time, and manage billing from the Greenlane Edge platform.

“Our customers are making commitments to electrify their fleets, and they need a charging network that can grow alongside them,” Patrick Macdonald-King, CEO of Greenlane, said in the release. “This is the first leg of the Texas triangle, one of the more important freight arteries in the country, so bringing high-power charging there is the next logical step in building a network that serves how freight moves across America.”

Greenlane is also expanding across the West Coast, with five locations under development in California and Nevada. It opened its flagship Greenlane Center in Colton, California, in April 2025. The company plans to open locations in Blythe, California, and Port of Long Beach this year.

Greelane was founded in 2023 as a joint venture between Daimler Truck North America, NextEra Energy Resources and BlackRock. It has secured partnerships with electric long-haul truck developer Windrose Technology, Velocity Truck Centers and Volvo Trucks North America.

View All Listings

ENERGYCAPITALHTX EMAILS ARE AWESOME