Manufacturing Efficiency

North Carolina State University (NC State) will develop transformative, autothermal Redox-Dehydrogenation (RDH) technology to flexibly produce a variety of alkenyl benzenes in modular packed beds with integrated air separation and greatly simplified product separation. Styrene alone represents a market of over $50 billion/year and its production emits more than 27 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2).

Sublime Systems will develop the first platform technology that uses electrochemistry to upcycle waste products and low-value minerals into valuable, CO2-neutral materials. The technology consists of an impurity-tolerant renewable electricity-powered electrochemical reactor. It generates strong acids and bases to separate, extract, and purify the elements contained in the input materials. The focus is on recovering magnesium, silica, and valuable metals from waste products (coal bottom ash and demolition waste concrete) and highly abundant but low-value mafic or ultramafic rocks.

Precision Combustion (PCI) proposes an innovative modular array to eliminate the release of ventilation air methane (VAM) associated with coal production. The team’s technology combines (1) a short contact time, low thermal mass reactor design to achieve high methane conversion in a small volume, (2) catalyst formulation and loading to minimize the required operating temperature of the oxidation reactor, and (3) system design and architecture to maximize the degree to which released heat is retained and recirculated.

Cimarron Energy aims to develop a cost-competitive flare and control system to achieve over 99.5% methane destruction and removal efficiency (DRE) from the current 98% DRE. The proposed system will include a novel flare apparatus to overcome all observed difficulties in achieving high DRE for flares, a microprocessor based electronic controller, an image-based closed-loop feedback system, and flow meters for high-pressure (HP) and low-pressure (LP) flare gas streams sent to the flare. The HP gas is associated with oil extraction and contains a large fraction of methane.

Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT) proposes an innovative Swiss-roll incinerator that effectively recuperates the heat from combustion products to fully combust the flare gas over a wide range of flow rates and concentrations. ACT's design comprises a spiral heat exchanger surrounding the incinerator, which effectively minimizes the heat losses from flue gas, incinerator wall convection, and radiation. The excess enthalpy in the reactants significantly extends the range of flammable mixtures to provide a complete methane combustion.

The Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) will develop a novel electrochemical process for electrochemically synthesizing C2+ alcohols, i.e., ethanol and propanol from captured CO2, at high rates in a laboratory-scale zero-gap flow electrolyzer. The IIT team will study the effects of flue gas composition and operating conditions on the reaction kinetics parameters and mass transport rate of the flue-gas-based CO2 reduction reaction.

The University of Houston aims to develop Miniaturized Pulsed Power System (Mini-PulPS) architectures to improve the power density (with 10-X reduction in capacitor size) and the life of converters used in pulsed power supplies. The University of Houston will perform multi-disciplinary research with Harvard University and Schlumberger-Doll Research Center for high- and low-power NMR applications. These technologies will improve the power converter system efficiency and reliability and reduce the risks of equipment or formation failures.

Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) will demonstrate a novel process for reducing iron ore to iron that reduces cost, eliminates CO2 emissions, and increases efficiency. ANL’s process uses hydrogen (H2) plasma instead of carbon-rich coke or natural gas to reduce iron ore in a rotary kiln furnace, which will improve the thermodynamics and kinetics of iron ore reduction, potentially eliminate the need for iron ore pelletizing, and enable the process to run at a lower temperature.

Synteris will use additive manufacturing to print transformative 3D ceramic packaging for power electronic modules. Existing power modules contain flat ceramic substrates that serve as the electrically insulating component and thermal conductor that transfer the large heat outputs of these devices. Synteris will replace the traditional insulating metalized substrate, substrate attach, and baseplate/heat exchanger with a ceramic component that acts an electrical insulator and heat exchanger for a dielectric fluid.

Siemens aims to develop a multi-physics, multi-material topology optimization approach to rapidly generate improved HX designs that can operate at high temperature and high pressure. Siemens will address the comprehensive multi-physics structural, fluid dynamics, and thermal aspects of HXs; parameterize the design with a multi-phase interpolation scheme that handles four material phases; and account for additive manufacturing (AM) constraints to ensure that the final HX design can be manufactured via the chosen AM technique.