DOE Announces $52.5 Million to Accelerate Progress in Clean Hydrogen

July 07, 2021

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(U.S. Department of Energy) Projects Support DOE’s Recently Announced Hydrogen Energy Earthshot to Lower Cost, Advance Breakthroughs for Clean Hydrogen Technology -- The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $52.5 million to fund 31 projects to advance next-generation clean hydrogen technologies and support DOE’s recently announced Hydrogen Energy Earthshot initiative to reduce the cost and accelerate breakthroughs in the clean hydrogen sector. Clean hydrogen is a form of renewable energy that—if made cheaper and easier to produce—can have a major role in supporting President Biden’s commitment to tackling the climate crisis.

“Part of our path to a net-zero carbon future means investing in innovation to make clean energy sources like hydrogen more affordable and widely adopted so we can reach our goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050,” said Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “These projects will put us one step closer to unlocking the scientific advancements needed to create a strong domestic supply chain and good-paying jobs in the emerging clean hydrogen industry.”

Hydrogen is a clean fuel that—when combined with oxygen in a fuel cell—produces electricity with water and heat as by-products. Hydrogen can be produced from a variety of resources, such as natural gas, nuclear power, biomass, and renewable power like solar and wind. These qualities make it an attractive fuel option and input for transportation, electricity generation and industrial applications, such as in trucks, buildings, and manufacturing.

These 31 projects will focus on bridging technical gaps in hydrogen production, storage, distribution and utilization technologies, including fuel cells, thereby paving the way toward decarbonization of the electricity sector by 2035 and creation of good-paying jobs across in the hydrogen sector.

“West Virginia University continues to utilize our state’s vast natural gas resources to tackle some of the toughest challenges in industrial research, including by developing clean, innovative ways to produce hydrogen – a fuel that’s increasingly important to our economy and has potential to decarbonize our energy systems, industrial processes, and the transportation sector,” said U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “Today’s announcement is further acknowledgement of the importance of the groundbreaking research conducted by WVU’s students and faculty and the ongoing partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy and National Energy Technology Laboratory. I’m thrilled to see the National Energy Technology Laboratory continue to invest in WVU and I will continue to push for funding that supports research projects in the Mountain State.”

“It’s critical we support an all-of-the-above approach and invest in a variety of technologies, including hydrogen,” saidU.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito. “West Virginia University’s top-notch facilities, students and faculty, and research capacity make it a perfect place to make the most of this investment to develop and accelerate breakthroughs in clean energy.”

“Next-generation hydrogen technologies, including fuel cells, will be critical to addressing the climate crisis and developing new industries here at home,” said U.S. Representative Marcy Kaptur. “This will help to create and bring back good-paying jobs, and we must continue to innovate and lead in these areas so our nation is not left behind.”

“Clean hydrogen is a flexible low-emissions fuel with countless applications across every sector of our economy. It will be vital to achieving clean energy targets, especially in some of the hardest-to-clean sectors of the American economy,” said U.S. Representative Paul D. Tonko. “These U.S. Department of Energy investments will help in that effort, sparking American innovation and helping translate that innovation into lasting, sustainable American production and jobs. My heartfelt congratulations and thanks to Plug Power for earning this award and for all the work and resources they have put into advancing the use and economic potential of clean hydrogen.”

“Advancing hydrogen technologies is critical to lowering emissions here at home and around the world,” said U.S. Representative David B. McKinley. “West Virginia University and National Energy Technology Laboratory are at the forefront of hydrogen research and development. Moving forward we must continue to empower our scientific communities through initiatives like the Hydrogen Energy Moonshot to lower the cost of hydrogen and other clean energy technologies.”

“In our fight against climate change, it is critical we invest in the development and deployment of innovative alternative energy technologies,” said U.S. Representative Scott Peters. “The research funding awarded to Solar Turbines Incorporated and The Regents of the University of California, San Diego will go a long way in advancing clean hydrogen technology as an accessible, cost-effective, and potentially game-changing fuel source to power our country while also helping to ensure we reach our climate goals.”

“I am excited that Tallgrass Energy has been selected as one of 31 companies to receive federal funding for their next-generation clean energy project. The Kansas Third District is an engine of innovation, and these funds will improve access to carbon-neutral fuel, create good-paying jobs, and help tackle climate change,” said U.S. Representative Sharice Davids. “Congratulations again to Tallgrass Energy for their selection by the Department of Energy’s Hydrogen Energy Earthshot initiative, and I look forward to seeing their progress.”

“We need to invest in clean energy technologies now to be a net zero emissions country by 2050,” said U.S. Representative Nikema Williams. “Today’s announcement from the Department of Energy shows that Georgia Tech and the Fifth District are leading the way to achieve that goal. This federal funding will bolster the Georgia Institute of Technology’s project to reduce the commercial costs of renewable hydrogen fuel and make clean energy more accessible for ALL. The Fifth District will continue innovating and creating new technologies to create good-paying jobs while addressing the climate crisis head-on.”

DOE funding includes $36 million from the Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) and $16.5 million from the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM).

EERE-supported efforts under this announcement include 19 projects on the following topics:

Electrolysis, a process to produce hydrogen using electricity and water, with improved manufacturing methods and streamlined assembly to reduce cost.
Clean hydrogen production, including biological and electrochemical approaches.
Fuel cell subsystems and components that are more efficient, durable, and designed for heavy-duty applications.
Domestic hydrogen supply chain components and refueling technologies.
Analyses to assess the cost and performance of fuel cell systems, hydrogen production pathways, and hydrogen storage technologies.

FECM-supported efforts under this announcement include 12 projects on the following topics:

Degradation mechanisms and pathways in high temperature reversible solid oxide cells (SOC) materials that helps assess metrics about cost, performance, durability.
Performance, reliability, and durability for hydrogen production using reversible solid oxide cells (R-SOC) systems.
Cost reductions via improvements in materials, manufacturing and microstructure improvements in R-SOC technologies for hydrogen production.
Initial engineering design of a commercial-scale advanced carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) system from steam methane reforming plants.
Initial engineering design of a commercial-scale advanced CCUS system from autothermal methane reforming plants
Development of a gas turbine combustion system for 100 percent hydrogen fired and mixtures of hydrogen and natural gas.

Learn more about specific selections supported by EERE and by FECM, and how the DOE Hydrogen Program is working to support DOE’s mission to address the climate crisis and deliver a clean and equitable energy future for all. READ MORE

U.S. Department of Energy Selects 12 Projects to Improve Fossil-Based Hydrogen Production, Transport, Storage and Utilization (U.S. Department of Energy)

DOE funds 2 biomass-to-hydrogen projects (Biomass Magazine)

Excerpt from U.S. Department of Energy:

AOI 5: Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cell (SOEC) Technology Development for Hydrogen Production

Durable and High-Performance SOECs Based on Proton Conductors for Hydrogen Production — Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, GA) will assess the degradation mechanisms of the electrolyte, electrode and catalyst materials under electrolysis conditions to gain insights for rational design of better electrode and catalyst materials. The project’s main objective is to demonstrate the commercial feasibility of a low-cost, highly efficient reversible solid oxide cell (RSOC) system based on proton conductors for hydrogen (H₂) and electricity generation.

DOE Funding: $1,000,000; Non-DOE Funding: $250,000; Total Value: $1,250,000

Durable and High-Performance SOECs Based on Proton Conductors for Hydrogen Production — Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA) will research the degradation pathway that couples surface chemistry to impurity poisoning on perovskite oxygen electrodes, taking (La0.6Sr0.4)0.95Co0.2Fe0.8O3- (LSCF) as a model, state-of-the-art oxygen electrode. Project goals are to 1) improve the chemical and electrochemical stability of LSCF as a state-of-the-art oxygen-electrode, against dopant (Sr) segregation and the consequent poisoning by chromium (Cr) and sulfur (S); 2) develop infiltration chemistries to enable the surface modifications in the most effective, efficient and economical way, to suppress the Sr segregation and the Cr- and S-poisoning processes; and 3) advance understanding of the role of operational parameters on oxygen electrode performance.

DOE Funding: $1,000,000; Non-DOE Funding: $250,000; Total Value: $1,250,000

Development of Stable Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cell for Low-Cost Hydrogen Production — OxEon Energy LLC (North Salt Lake, UT) OxEon Energy LLC will operate a solid oxide electrolysis cell stack in a laboratory test bed showing improved performance over baseline stacks exhibiting robustness, reliability, endurance, H₂ purity, and producing H₂at elevated pressure of 2 to 3 bar. At the conclusion of the project, the team will operate a short stack of 6-cells under various steam conversion conditions for at least 500 hours and then an additional 300 hours in SOFC mode to verify reversible operation. A separate short stack will be tested for a period of 100 hours to produce H₂at a pressure of 2 to 3 bar.

DOE Funding: $999,526; Non-DOE Funding: $250,000; Total Value: $1,249,526

Development of Novel 3D Cell Structure and Manufacturing Processes for Highly Efficient, Durable and Redox Resistant Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cells — The Regents of the University of California, San Diego (La Jolla, CA) will evaluate and demonstrate a highly efficient, durable and reduction-oxidation (redox) resistant solid oxide electrolysis cell technology for H₂production. This project focuses on the development of a novel cell design and its corresponding manufacturing processes and will culminate in the demonstration of a scaled-up SOEC featuring a design with improved performance, enhanced redox resistance and increased durability under conditions suitable for H₂production from steam. The results of the project could form the basis for further development to advance the technology for practical applications and commercialization.

DOE Funding: $999,913; Non-DOE Funding: $250,956; Total Value: $1,250,869

Development of High-Performance Metal-Supported SOECs and Innovative Diagnostic Methodologies — University of Louisiana at Lafayette (Lafayette, LA) will develop high-performance metal-supported solid oxide electrolysis cells and innovative diagnostic methodologies to achieve net-zero or negative emissions. The team plans to fabricate metal-supported solid oxide electrolysis cells (MS-SOECs) to improve the electrolysis performance while maintaining mechanical strength for the stack assembly; develop accelerated test protocols for SOECs and apply theoretical analysis to improve its stability and suppress oxygen electrode declamation; and use machine learning to study the dependence of electrochemical performance on microstructural details of an electrode.

DOE Funding: $1,000,000; Non-DOE Funding: $250,000; Total Value: $1,250,000

Developing Stable Critical Materials and Microstructure for High-Flux and Efficient H₂ production through Reversible Solid Oxide Cells — University of South Carolina (Columbia, SC) will advance RSOC technology for standalone or hybrid power and H₂ production by addressing critical and unsolved issues through foundational materials and microstructure innovations. The impact of the project could assist the commercialization course of RSOC technology and expands it to utility markets such as distributed standalone or hybrid power and H₂generation as a means of energy storage.

DOE Funding: $1,000,000; Non-DOE Funding: $250,301; Total Value: $1,250,301

Designing Internal Surfaces of Porous Electrodes in Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cells for Highly Efficient and Durable Hydrogen Production — West Virginia University Research Corporation (Morgantown, WV) will develop and implant highly active and robust nano-scale coating layers to the internal surface of a porous electrode. The coating layer will be developed using the additive manufacturing process of atomic layer deposition (ALD) and will be implanted on the internal surface of porous electrodes of the as fabricated commercial cells directly. The project will provide a simple solution to various materials challenges at the cell level and could further enable extensive and more efficient SOEC stacks and systems.

DOE Funding: $1,000,000; Non-DOE Funding: $250,000; Total Value: $1,250,000

Heterostructured Cr Resistant Oxygen Electrode for SOECs — Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Worcester, MA) will design, test, and validate oxygen electrode materials for SOECs that maintain high performance and low degradation rates in the operation conditions with the presence of Cr-containing gas impurities using a combined integrated computational materials engineering (ICME) and lab-scale testing approach. The recipient believes that when fully optimized, this oxygen electrode material would have an intrinsic, long-term degradation rate of less than 0.3%/1000 hours at 700^oC.

DOE Funding: $999, 973; Non-DOE Funding: $250,786; Total Value: $1,250,759

AOI 7A: Advanced CCUS Systems from Steam Methane Reforming Plants

Engineering Study of Svante’s Solid Sorbent Post-Combustion CO₂ Capture Technology at a Linde Steam Methane Reforming H₂ Plant — Linde Inc. (Danbury, CT) will complete an initial engineering design of a commercial-scale carbon dioxide (CO₂) capture plant for a steam methane reformer (SMR), using the Svante VeloxoTherm™ solid adsorbent CO₂ capture technology to make blue H₂. The overall system would be designed to capture approximately 1,100,000 tonnes/year net CO₂ with 90% or greater carbon capture efficiency while producing H₂ with 99.97% purity, from an existing Linde SMR H₂ plant along the US Gulf Coast. The project is intended to achieve the overall DOE performance goals of a 90% CO₂ capture rate with 95% CO₂ purity from a SMR plant producing 99.97% H₂ from natural gas.

DOE Funding: $1,498,778; Non-DOE Funding: $374,695; Total Value: $1,873,473

Initial Engineering Design Study for Advanced CO₂ Capture from Hydrogen Production Unit at Phillips 66 Rodeo Refinery — Phillips 66 (Houston, TX) will complete an initial engineering design of a commercial scale, advanced CO₂ capture and sequestration (CCS) plant that separates and stores ~190,000 tons/year net CO₂ with more than 90% carbon capture efficiency from an existing steam reforming plant at Phillips 66 Rodeo Refinery, California. The goal of this project is to advance the CCS technology for commercialization in a steam reforming plant application.

DOE Funding: $959,089; Non-DOE Funding: $242,106; Total Value: $1,201,195

AOI 7B: Advanced CCUS Systems from Autothermal Methane Reforming Plants

Blue Bison ATR Advanced CCUS System — Initial Engineering of a 1.66MTPY CO₂ Capture Unit from Tallgrass Planned Blue Bison ATR Producing 220 MMSCFD of Pure Hydrogen — Tallgrass MLP Operations LLC (Johnson, KS) will design a commercial-scale carbon capture unit capable of separating and storing 1.66 million tonne/year of 95% pure CO₂ with more than 97% carbon capture efficiency. As designed, the Blue Bison plant will, for the first time, combine carbon capture, pure H₂ production (220 MMSCFD at 99.97% purity), and H₂ combustion in auxiliary burners. This project would act as a precursor to the proposed development of a replicable world scale ATR blue H₂ plant that could produce a cost competitive, carbon-neutral fuel that can significantly decarbonize the energy economy while simultaneously capitalizing on the nation’s vast natural resources.

DOE Funding: $1,499,374; Non-DOE Funding: $375,496; Total Value: $1,874,870

AOI 9C: Hydrogen Combustion Systems for Gas Turbines – Industrial Class

Development of a Retrofittable Dry Low Emissions Industrial Gas Turbine Combustion System for 100% Hydrogen and Natural Gas Blends — Solar Turbines Incorporated (San Diego, CA) will develop a retrofittable dry low emissions gas turbine combustion system for 100% hydrogen and hydrogen/natural gas blends. This project would enable industrial gas turbines to provide carbon free, rapidly dispatchable power that is vital to grid stability. The proposed work will advance an existing, early development stage hydrogen combustion technology to an engine-ready design. Overall project objectives include construction and rig testing of a complete combustion system capable of functioning in 100% hydrogen and natural gas blends, demonstrating prototype feasibility and combustion performance, developing engine control algorithms and hydrogen flame detection methodologies, formulating reduced kinetic mechanisms for use with CFD/LES analysis followed by bench-scale and rig test validations, and performing techno-economic analyses for gas turbine power plants and pipeline compressor stations fueled with hydrogen.

DOE Funding: $4,500,000; Non-DOE Funding: $1,125,000; Total Value: $5,625,000