DOE Invests $29 Million to Reduce Carbon Emissions

October 16, 2024

Print This Article Share it With Friends

(U.S. Department of Energy) Projects Will Help Advance Carbon Dioxide Capture and Conversion Technologies -- The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) today announced $29 million for 12 research and development projects to fund two carbon management priorities—the conversion of carbon dioxide (CO₂) into environmentally responsible and economically valuable products and the development of lower-cost, highly efficient technologies to capture CO₂ from industrial sources and power plants for permanent storage or conversion. Accelerating the development of these technologies will advance the Biden-Harris Administration’s ambitious climate goals of achieving a carbon-neutral power sector by 2035 and net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and help establish the foundation for a successful carbon capture, storage, and conversion industry in the United States.

“The deployment of carbon capture and storage creates an opportunity to reduce emissions of additional pollutants beyond carbon dioxide, as well as to convert captured carbon emissions into environmentally beneficial products,” said Brad Crabtree, Assistant Secretary of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management. “The projects announced today leverage university and industry expertise to help advance the commercialization of transformational carbon capture and conversion technologies that have the potential to deliver cleaner and more sustainable energy and products.”

Seven projects selected under this funding opportunity will focus on technologies that utilize CO₂from sources such as industrial and power generation facilities, as well as from legacy CO₂ emissions captured directly from the atmosphere. Each of these projects will produce value-added products while simultaneously reducing CO₂ emissions:

Air Protein (San Leandro, California) will develop a low-carbon footprint protein ingredient to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture industry.
Kiverdi (Pleasanton, California) will advance technology to transform waste carbon from a variety of abundant, low-cost CO₂ feedstocks into industrially important fatty acids.
LanzaTech Inc. (Skokie, Illinois) will advance a new process to convert industrial waste CO₂ into isopropanol, a precursor to the propylene value chain of chemicals.
Auburn University (Auburn, Alabama) will develop a process to convert CO₂ to polyethylene plastic using flue gas from the pulp and paper industry.
Quasar Energy Group LLC (Independence, Ohio) will develop a technology to produce a type of polyurethane plastic from algae that are grown on an industrial waste stream of CO₂.
TDA Research Inc. (Golden, Colorado) will develop an efficient process to produce graphitic carbon compounds from CO₂ captured from industrial/power sources or directly from ambient air.
Washington University in St. Louis (St. Louis, Missouri) will develop a low-carbon process to convert CO₂ to high-quality carbon nanotubes, which will be tested for use as anodes for lithium-ion batteries.

Five projects will focus on development and testing of enabling technologies such as engineering and advanced process control approaches to address non-greenhouse gas emissions in the context of carbon capture. Specifically, these projects will seek to develop technologies that enable scale-up testing and demonstrations of carbon capture systems and assure their responsible deployment:

American Air Liquide Inc. (Newark, Delaware) will develop a technology to reduce nitrogen oxides to enable cold membrane CO₂ capture from flue gases.
InnoSepra LLC (Middlesex, New Jersey) will demonstrate a flue gas purification process for the removal of acids, acid gases, and acid aerosols responsible for emissions.
RTI International (Research Triangle Park, North Carolina) will test an acid wash recovery process to reduce secondary emissions from a broad set of CO₂ capture technologies.
University of Kentucky Research Foundation (Lexington, Kentucky) will add a polishing CO₂ capture loop with hydrogen production to a post-combustion CO₂ capture technology.
University of Kentucky Research Foundation (Lexington, Kentucky) will test approaches to remove and capture secondary emissions, including volatile compounds.

DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), under the purview of FECM, will manage the selected projects. A detailed list of the selected projects can be found here.

To support the goal of building a clean and equitable energy economy, selected project teams were required, as part of their applications, to submit a Research and Development Community Benefits Plan. These plans provide details on their commitments to quality job creation; diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility; and benefits to disadvantaged communities as part of the President’s Justice40 Initiative.

FECM minimizes environmental and climate impacts of fossil fuels and industrial processes while working to achieve net-zero emissions across the U.S economy. Priority areas of technology work include carbon capture, carbon conversion, carbon dioxide removal, carbon dioxide transport and storage, hydrogen production with carbon management, methane emissions reduction, and critical minerals production. To learn more, visit the FECM website, sign up for FECM news announcements, and visit the NETL website. READ MORE

Related articles

LanzaTech Awarded $3 Million from U.S. Department of Energy to Advance Conversion of Waste CO2 into Valuable Chemicals (LanzaTech)

Excerpt from LanzaTech: Project uses waste CO2 as a feedstock to produce sustainable isopropanol, a common alcohol found in everyday products

CHICAGO, Oct. 16, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- LanzaTech Global, Inc. (NASDAQ: LNZA) (“LanzaTech” or the “Company”), the carbon recycling company transforming waste carbon into sustainable fuels, chemicals, materials, and protein, has been awarded $3 million by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM), as part of a broader $29 million investment program to advance its carbon management priorities. LanzaTech’s Project ADAPT (“Accelerating Decarbonization via Advanced Production Technologies”) was selected to address FECM’s priority of converting carbon dioxide (CO2) into environmentally responsible and economically valuable products.

LanzaTech’s Project ADAPT builds upon the Company’s existing capabilities of using CO2 as a feedstock to produce isopropanol at a pilot scale and aims to advance the process and platform with the following key focus areas:

Versatility in Feedstock Use: Enhancing the platform's ability to process a range of gas mixes with CO2
Microbial Strain Optimization: Employing advanced gene-editing techniques to develop tailored microbial production strains for making isopropanol and other prevalent chemicals
Cost and Efficiency Improvements: Refining the end-to-end process to be more cost-effective, efficient, and more robust

Isopropanol is a common alcohol used in an array of everyday products such as cleaning agents and is also a precursor to the propylene value chain. Propylene, which is a building block for packaging, medical supplies, automotive products, among many other applications, has a thriving demand market that is projected to approach $150 billion and 180 million tons by 2030. Importantly, isopropanol production has the ability to achieve greenhouse gas savings of over 200% when produced from recycled CO2 instead of fossil carbon, and a non-fossil commercial production pathway does not exist today.

Project ADAPT will primarily be funded by the FECM investment of $3 million and includes a Company funded cost share portion of approximately $0.8 million, totaling an estimated project cost of $3.8 million. Revenue and costs related to this project will be reported as Joint Development Agreement and Contract Research results for LanzaTech, and the majority of revenue is expected to be received and benefit financial results in 2025 and 2026.

"We are thrilled to receive this support from the U.S. Department of Energy to progress our work around scaling the conversion of waste CO2 to make some of the world’s most needed chemicals," said Dr. Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTech. “CO2 is an essential feedstock of today and the future, and Project ADAPT leverages our expertise and existing operations to accelerate the commercialization of transformational carbon capture and utilization technologies that deliver cleaner and more sustainable energy and products.”

The projects supported by FECM’s investment program are in keeping with the Biden-Harris Administration’s aggressive climate ambitions of reaching a carbon-neutral power sector by 2035 and net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

About LanzaTech
LanzaTech Global, Inc. (NASDAQ: LNZA) is the carbon recycling company transforming waste carbon into sustainable fuels, chemicals, materials, and protein for everyday products. Using its biorecycling technology, LanzaTech captures carbon generated by energy-intensive industries at the source, preventing it from being emitted into the air. LanzaTech then gives that captured carbon a new life as a clean replacement for virgin fossil carbon in everything from household cleaners and clothing fibers to packaging and fuels. By partnering with companies across the global supply chain like ArcelorMittal, Zara, H&M Move, Coty, On, and LanzaJet, LanzaTech is paving the way for a circular carbon economy. For more information about LanzaTech, visit https://lanzatech.com. READ MORE