ADVANCED FOSSIL ENERGY AND CARBON MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH

The Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) Research, Development, Demonstration, and Deployment (RDD&D) program conducts research that focuses on early-stage technologies that help to ensure clean and affordable energy for all Americans, facilitate the transition towards a carbon-pollution-free economy, rebuild a U.S critical minerals (CM) supply chain, and retain and create good paying jobs with a free and fair chance to join a union and collectively bargain. FECM's priorities include: Reduce Methane Emissions; Accelerate Carbon-Neutral Hydrogen (H2): Develop Low-Carbon Supply Chains for Industries; Advance Carbon Dioxide Removal Technologies; Invest in Thoughtful Transition Strategies to a net-zero carbon economy in coal and fossil-based power plant communities; Demonstrate and Deploy Point Source Carbon Capture and Storage to meet net-zero emissions goals by 2050; Advance CM, Rare Earth Elements (REE), Coal Waste to Products and Mine Remediation; Increase Efficient Use of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI); Address the Energy Water Nexus. Please note: following award, all DOE SBIR/STTR grant projects requiring high performance computing support are eligible to apply to use the DOE National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) resources. NERSC is the primary scientific computing facility for the DOE. If you think you will need to use the computing capabilities of NERSC during your Phase I or Phase II project, you may be eligible for this free resource. Learn more about NERSC and how to apply for NERSC resources following the award of a Phase I or Phase II project at http://www.nersc.gov/users/accounts/allocations/request-form/. For this topic, the National Energy Technology Laboratory is not eligible to act as a subawardee. Grant applications are sought in the following subtopics: a. Advanced Technology Development of High Purity Oxygen Separation from Air The Gasification Systems Program, conducted under the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM), is developing innovative, flexible, and small-scale, modular systems for converting diverse types of wastes such as waste plastics, municipal solid waste (MSW), waste biomass, and waste coal into clean hydrogen with carbon capture and storage to achieve net-zero carbon emissions [1,2]. The small-scale modular systems offer distinct advantages against big commercial scales, expediting technology development, cutting capital investment and operating costs, improving availability, and offering flexibility in meeting location-specific needs. Since gasification is the partial oxidation of combustible materials and operates in an oxygen-lean environment, oxygen can be provided by either air or high-purity oxygen produced by an oxygen separation unit from air. Air-blown gasifiers avoid the large capital cost of an oxygen separation from air but produce a much lower hydrogen content after WGS (water gas shift) reactions than oxygen-blown gasifiers due to nitrogen in air. Air-blown gasifiers also have much bigger systems than oxygen-blown gasifiers due to high volume of nitrogen in air. Because of the dilution effect of the nitrogen, the partial pressure of CO2 in airblown gasifier syngas will be one-third of that from an oxygen-blown gasifier. This increases the cost and decreases the effectiveness of the CO2 removal. Commercially available cryogenic distillation-based oxygen separation from air is costly and energy-intensive, and these systems cannot be scaled down cost-effectively because of huge balance of plant costs. Development of an innovative technology for oxygen separation from air for use in small-scale, modular gasification systems is encouraged to increase deployment opportunities. Grant applications are sought for research and development of innovative systems to generate high-purity oxygen (above 95%) from air that can show significant capital cost reduction compared with commercial/conventional cryogenic distillation-based oxygen separation technology. Areas of interest are limited to any technology whose operation temperature is lower than 150 C (302 F). However, electrochemical membrane, MOF (metal-organic framework), distillation-based technologies, polymer membrane technologies, and magnetic technologies will not be accepted. The applicant must provide how their proposed technology would reduce capital cost and improve performance to obtain at least 95% oxygen purity from air. Phase I effort should demonstrate the feasibility of the concept in lab-scale testing. Phase II effort should demonstrate oxygen generation at pilot scale.