Manufacturing Efficiency

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will lead a team including Georgia Tech, Louisiana Tech, and the Idaho National Lab in developing multimetallic layered composites (MMLCs) for advanced nuclear reactors and assessing how they will improve reactor performance. Rather than seeking complex alloys that offer exceptional mechanical properties or corrosion resistance at unacceptable cost, this team will develop materials with functionally graded layers, each with a specific function. The team will seek general design principles and engineer specific MMLC embodiments.

This CarbonHouse project seeks to validate that carbon derived from methane pyrolysis can be used as both structural and non-structural building materials. Carbon composites already offer an alternative material paradigm for large, lightweight, high-performance structural uses such as boats and aircraft. CarbonHouse targets gas-pyrolysis production of carbon nanotube (CNT) threads and sheets, with hydrogen co-generated as a supplemental high-energy fuel, which would offer an essentially benign new building logic if it can be managed economically and at vast scale.

Neuvokas Corporation will develop an energy-efficient CBF manufacturing process. The project will focus delivering a filament-forming extrusion bushing capable of supporting the production of low-cost, high-quality CBF at scale. Using CBF instead of steel to reinforce concrete can reduce capital expenses, greenhouse gases, and operating expenses, and increase concrete service life and time to major maintenance by more than 30 years, saving greater than 0.5 quad (146,535,500,000 kWh) of energy per year.

The Colorado School of Mines will develop a more efficient method for both the conversion of hydrogen and nitrogen to ammonia and the generation of high purity hydrogen from ammonia for fuel cell fueling stations. Composed of 17.6% hydrogen by mass, ammonia also has potential as a hydrogen carrier and carbon-free fuel. The team will develop a new technology to generate fuel cell-quality hydrogen from ammonia using a membrane based reactor.

INFINIUM will convert low-grade magnesium scrap into material of sufficient purity for motor vehicle components by a novel high-efficiency process using less than 1 kWh/kg magnesium product. Other magnesium purification technologies such as distillation and electrorefining use 5-10 kWh/kg, and primary production uses 40-100 kWh/kg. This is also a high-speed continuous process, with much lower labor and capital costs than other batch purification technologies.

Boston Electrometallurgical Corporation will develop and scale a one step molten oxide electrolysis process for producing Ti metal directly from the oxide. Titanium oxide is dissolved in a molten oxide, where it is directly and efficiently extracted as molten titanium metal. In this process, electrolysis is used to separate the product from the solution as a bottom layer that can then be removed from the reactor in its molten state. If successful, it could replace the multistep Kroll process with a one-step process that resembles today’s aluminum production techniques.

The team led by Gas Technology Institute (GTI) will develop a conventional automotive engine as a reactor to convert ethane into ethylene by using a new catalyst and reactor design that could enable record-breaking conversion yields. The technology proposed by GTI would use a reciprocating engine as a variable volume oxidative dehydrogenation (ODH) reactor. This means a conventional engine would be modified with a new valving mechanism that would take advantage of high flow rates and high pressure and temperature regime that already exists in an internal combustion engine.

The team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) will develop new cast alumina-forming austenitic alloys (AFAs), along with associated casting and welding processes for component fabrication. ORNL and its partners will prototype industrial components with at least twice the oxidation resistance compared to current cast chromia-forming steel and test it in an industrial environment.

The University of Minnesota (UMN) is developing an ultra-thin separation membrane to decrease the cost of producing biofuels, plastics, and other industrial materials. Nearly 6% of total U.S. energy consumption comes from the energy used in separation and purification processes. Today’s separation methods used in biofuels production are not only energy intensive, but also very expensive.

United Technologies Research Center (UTRC) is using additive manufacturing techniques to develop an ultra-high-efficiency electric motor for automobiles. The process and design does not rely on rare earth materials and sidesteps any associated supply concerns. Additive manufacturing uses a laser to deposit copper and insulation, layer-by-layer, instead of winding wires. EV motors rely heavily on permanent magnets, which are expensive given the high concentrations of rare earth material required to deliver the performance required in today’s market.