The first Vanderbilt recipient of the award, Lukehart was one of five researchers, and the only chemist, selected this year to receive the annual Honda Initiation Grant (HIG) award.

"Our research goal is to achieve more highly performing hydrogen/air fuel cells," Lukehart said.

"We plan to enhance performance by making more highly reactive electro-catalyst materials. These catalysts are platinum metal or platinum metal alloy nanocrystals. The reactivity of these metal nanocrystals is expected to depend on their three-dimensional shape, such as nano-cubes or nano-tetrahedra. By discovering how to prepare shape-specific metal nanocrystals, we hope to achieve enhanced fuel cell performance," Lukehart said.

Lukehart's research group, including graduate student Jason Michel, is currently developing a synthesis strategy for producing metal nanocrystals having different, specific shapes.

The research group will work together with Honda researchers to optimize the synthesis of nano-metal materials to be used as electro-catalysts in automobile fuel cells in the future.

Fuel cells are currently being designed as power sources for automobiles and for a variety of other applications, such as laptops, flashlights and other consumer products.

This technology especially helps the hydrogen economy.

Lukehart's research also assists in the effort to improve air quality. Generation of electrical power for automobiles via fuel cells occurs at a much lower temperature than power production by combustion, thus eliminating the production of air pollutants, such as smog-producing NOx emissions.

Lukehart said he felt "great" about winning the award.

"I hope it opens a door for other Vanderbilt researchers to collaborate with Honda," Lukehart said.

The Honda Initiation Grant, established in 1997, reaches out to the vastly talented professors that exist in academic research communities. The HIG program is highly competitive and the winners are chosen from a large pool of applicants.

The grant is awarded to facilitate collaborations with Honda researchers and provide opportunities to further these valuable relationships.

Other award winners are researchers from Iowa State University, University of Notre Dame, University of Minnesota and Purdue University.