The awards are part of a $15 billion investment strategy aimed at positioning the US as the world leader in clean energy research and development.

“Advancing the development of clean coal technologies is an important part of President Obama’s strategy to develop every source of American energy and ensure the United States leads the world in the global clean energy race and continues to take advantage of domestic resources here at home,” US Energy Secretary Steven Chu said.

“These university research projects will help build on extensive progressive made by this administration to promote innovative technologies that help make coal-fired energy cleaner and more cost-competitive, while training the next generation of scientists and engineers in cutting-edge clean coal technologies.”

The government said the research grants show a growing momentum for CCS in the US, citing CPS Energy of San Antonio’s purchase of low-carbon power from a CCS plant earlier this year and the upcoming Texas Clean Energy coal plant scheduled to fire up in 2015.

Projects funded by the awards are intended to focus on the development of high-temperature, high-pressure corrosion-resistant alloys, protective coatings and structural materials for advanced coal-fired power plants and gas turbines.

Research projects will also develop new processes and computational design methods to develop these materials, improve efficiency and reduce the costs of cleaner power generation systems.

The following universities will receive $300,000 each under the program:

Brown University (Providence, RI)

Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH)

Indiana University, in partnership with Purdue University and Praxair Surface Technologies (Indianapolis, IN)

Ohio State University (Columbus, OH)

Southern Illinois University (Carbondale, IL)

Texas Engineering Experiment Station (College Station, TX)

University of North Texas (Denton, TX), in partnership with University of Idaho (Moscow, ID)

University of Tennessee (Knoxville, TN)

University of Toledo (Toledo, OH)