UNIVERSITY OF CUKUROVA (CU)

DESCRIPTION

University of Çukurova (CU) founded in 1973 is a public, co-educational research University. The 2000 hectare main campus located in Adana, Turkey provides everything and more expected from such an institute: a teaching hospital, academic and administrative buildings, sports fields, conference facilities, libraries, research farm, techno-park plus many recreational areas. It is one of the top 15 Universities in Turkey that has been rewarded the research university title by Turkish Higher Education Council. About 45000 students are enrolled for undergraduate education in 16 faculties from medicine to engineering, basic sciences, social studies and arts. Science, Social and Health Institutes offer graduate studies to currently 5000 students in more than 200 programs.

Faculty of Arts and Sciences has the highest number of scientific articles in the university. Currently, there are 233 masters and 135 PhD students at the faculty studying on a wide range of R&D topics. Thermal energy storage and electrochemistry research groups at Chemistry Department have been involved in several renewable energy projects on sustainable solutions for buildings, industry, domestic appliances, greenhouses, hybrid electric vehicles, fuel cells and hydrogen funded by EU, US NSF, TUBITAK and Ministry of Science and Technology. Chemistry Department has also been awarded with 20 PhD student scholarships in the fields of energy storage and hydrogen-fuel cells by Turkish Higher Education Council within the “100/2000 YOK PhD Scholarship Program in 2017-2018 academic year. This is a prestigious program awarded to departments with skills of excellence in high priority R&D fields. CU represents Turkey in International Energy Agency Technology Collaboration Program on Energy Conservation Through Energy Storage (IEA ECES) since 1995. This collaboration between 18 countries allowed scientists at CU to carry out R&D on different aspects of thermal energy storage for sustainable renewable energy solutions. In 2018, CU hosted the 14th International Conference on Energy Storage-EnerSTOCK2018 that brought researchers and industries from 24 countries together.

Departments involved in the Project include:

• The Chemistry Department offers education at undergraduate and postgraduate levels (Master and Doctorate -PhD programs). The Department has 11 professors and 1 associated professor.
  Chemistry department in cooperation with Center for Environmental Research leads the activities with IEA ECES;
• Center for Environmental Research brings together experts from Engineering, Agriculture, Fisheries, Economics and Administrative Sciences Faculties of the university to work on interdisciplinary projects on regional and global environmental issues;
• Thermal Energy Storage Research Group - 6 professors and 10 graduate students are currently working on projects for renewable energy use in food industry, passive heating/cooling of buildings, mobile heating/cooling solutions for shelters, building materials for sustainable future and green chemistry for energy storage materials;
• Electrochemistry Research Group – 3 professors, 1 associate professor and 39 graduate students are working on the corrosion of the metals and the synthesis of the electrocatalytic materials for different processes such as water splitting, fuel cells and battery;
• Central Research Laboratories (CUMER) - CU has recently built this central laboratory with top-notch infrastructure for all major chemical and thermal analysis equipment.

ROLE

• To coordinate WP 4 (Dissemination and Exploitation);
• To take part in the Project Network development;
• To take part in the modernisation and enhancing course structures at Bachelor, Master and PhD levels and of syllabus of the selected modules on Integration of Sustainable Renewable Energy Solutions into the Built Environment with the aim to re-focus on teaching students modern and future advanced technologies, taking into account the latest developments at the international level. Also CU will play a significant role in the distance improvement of Skills Development of PhD students in Integration of Renewable Energy Technologies into Buildings.
• To assist partners in setting up teaching laboratories and deriving the Laboratory work notes;
• To take part in the teaching process;
• To participate in quality assurance of all teaching materials, methods and processes;
• To coordinate the promotion of project and dissemination of its results at national and international levels.