High Performance Computing for Energy Innovation Summer 2023 Solicitation

Offices: Advanced Materials & Manufacturing Technologies Office, Industrial Efficiency & Decarbonization Office, Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management

Maximum Amount Per Award: Up to $400,000

Description 

On July 21, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a new solicitation to connect industry partners with the high performance computing (HPC) resources and expertise at DOE’s National Laboratories to improve material performance and advance manufacturing processes for an equitable clean energy future.

Through the High Performance Computing for Energy Innovation (HPC4EI) initiative, selected teams will harness the raw processing power of our National Labs’ supercomputers to apply advanced modeling, simulation, and data analysis to manufacturing and materials projects.

HPC4EI is the parent initiative for the HPC4Manufacturing (HPC4Mfg) and HPC4Materials (HPC4Mtls) Programs and the Summer Solicitation will fund projects within both. The HPC4Mfg Program is funded through DOE’s Advanced Materials & Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO) and Industrial Efficiency & Decarbonization Office (IEDO). The HPC4Mtls Program is funded through DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM).

Topic Areas 

Topic 1: HPC4Mfg

AMMTO areas of interest:

• Introduction of new materials or advanced manufacturing processes, as well as improvements in existing ones, that support the transition to the clean energy economy and/or that result in significant lifecycle carbon emissions reduction and energy savings. Examples include:
  • Improvements in materials performance and efficiency (e.g. conductive-enhanced materials, novel composites, functionally-gradient materials, advanced coatings, high-entropy alloys, etc.);
  • Improvements in modeling prediction and closed-loop control for smart manufacturing systems; and
  • Improvements in the performance and scale of advanced manufacturing processes (e.g. additive manufacturing, electrospray deposition, field assisted manufacturing, and alternatives to conventional processing methods) 
• Improvements in the resiliency or circularity of material supply chains (e.g. advanced separations and material processing). Examples include: 
  • Improvements in recyclability or material recovery from systems or components at their end of life, or from waste products generated along the supply chain;
  • Improvements of material quality or purity from materials recovery that facilitate requalification or remanufacturing processes that have lower energy or carbon footprints than mining and refinement of equivalent materials;
  • Improvements in separation and processing for critical materials (e.g., rare earth elements) especially from domestically available and/or unconventional sources; and
  • Development of materials that reduce reliance on Critical Materials without sacrificing performance.
• Improvements in semiconductor technologies that will result in operational energy efficiency improvements, supporting achieving the goals of Energy Efficiency Scaling for 2 Decades (EES2). Examples include:
  • Improvements of advanced materials crucial to more energy efficient semiconductor devices and systems; and
  • Process improvements in semiconductor manufacturing that lower the embodied energy of or otherwise result in more energy efficient semiconductor systems (e.g. improving yield).
• Improvements in manufacturing processes that result in reduced embodied carbon, improved efficiency, or significantly lower cost for energy conversion and storage technologies. Examples include:
  • Improvements in lithium-ion battery material, component, or cell manufacturing processes, including conventional roll-to-roll processes and complementary or alternative processes;
  • Improvements in design and process optimization for battery component manufacturing and system assembly that improve capacity, operational lifetime, or reduce embodied energy/carbon; and
  • Improvements in flow battery material, component, or system manufacturing.
• Improvements in the operational performance or efficiency of energy conversion and storage technologies. Examples include:
  • Improvements in material or component designs to improve the overall efficiency or waste heat recovery for thermal energy storage systems.
• Improvements in system energy density or cost
  • Improvement in thermal management of energy storage systems.

IEDO areas of interest:

• Improvements to industrial process heating applications that achieve drastic efficiency improvements or emissions reductions. Examples include:
  • Electrified core unit operations of industrial processes.
  • Alternative fuels, feedstocks, and energy sources to provide process heat.
  • Processes that significantly reduce or eliminate the heat needed for industrial processes.
  • Advancements in technologies that enable industrial flexibility such as thermal energy storage systems.
  • Effective capture, storage, and/or utilization of waste heat for use in industrial processes.
• Emissions reductions and/or efficiency improvements in core unit operations of energy- and emissions-intensive industries such as chemicals, iron & steel, cement, food & beverage, and forest products.
• Improvements in energy efficiency and/or emissions reductions of water treatment.

Topic 2: HPC4Mtls

FECM areas of interest:

The Carbon Dioxide Removal and Conversion Program funded by DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) is the participating sponsor for this call of the High Performance Computing for Materials Program. Carbon dioxide removal refers to approaches that remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and durably stores the CO2 in geological, terrestrial, or ocean reservoirs, or in the form of long-lived products. This suite of technologies encompasses a wide array of approaches, including direct air capture coupled to permanent geologic storage, soil carbon sequestration, biomass carbon removal and storage, enhanced mineralization, marine carbon dioxide removal, and afforestation/reforestation. Paired with simultaneous deployment of mitigation measures and other carbon management practices, carbon dioxide removal is a tool to address emissions from the hardest to decarbonize sectors—like agriculture and transportation—and to eventually remove legacy CO2 emissions from the atmosphere.

Related to direct air capture, the following topic areas are of particular interest:

• Improving the understanding of the materials design and systems integration considerations on capturing CO2 directly from the air, especially for novel regeneration pathways that reduce overall energy requirements for releasing captured CO2;
• Use of computational databases and machine learning for development of novel CO2 binding materials and/or support structures for effectively capturing CO2 from the air with long term stability;
• Elucidation of the chemical degradation mechanisms of sorbents and solvents used in direct air capture applications under several realistic deployment conditions; and
• Investigation of systems integration considerations such as process control, utility balancing, and/or multi-unit vs. modular design on overall economics and energy requirements.

Related to biomass carbon removal and storage, the following topic areas are of particular interest:

• Elucidating the effects of biomass feedstock properties in biomass carbon removal and storage applications, with consideration of environmental impacts and assessment of carbon removal durability;
• Exploration of biomass feedstock and composition impact (e.g., moisture level, elemental composition, density, high heating value etc.) on downstream processes (e.g., conversion reactor configuration, CO2 capture system etc.) and overall economics and energy requirements;
• Analysis of the impact of CO2 capture technology selection on the environmental impact of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage processes;
• Exploration of the CO2 capture requirements to achieve net-negativity in bioenergy with carbon capture and storage processes;
• Investigation of the permanence of the removed CO2 and/or quantification of reversal risks; and
• Development of monitoring, reporting and verification tools (e.g., sampling algorithms, databases, models etc.) for the cost-effective, accurate and transparent quantification of carbon content in biomass feedstocks and storage/utilization products to reduce uncertainty.

Related to enhanced mineralization, the following topic areas are of particular interest:

• Advancing the understanding of mineral reactivity in enhanced rock weathering applications, with consideration of environmental impacts and assessment of carbon removal permanence;
• In-depth characterization of mineral reactivities during enhanced weathering under different deployment conditions (e.g., temperature, rainfall, particle size, application rate, plant-mineral interactions, pre-treatment steps etc.);
• Evaluation of tradeoffs between process co-benefits and environmental harms in the deployment of enhanced weathering technologies;
• Modeling of heavy metal leaching impacts on ecosystems, with assessment of critical element recovery/extraction for additional revenue generation;
• Investigation of the fate and durability of the removed CO2 and/or quantification of reversal risks; and
• Development of monitoring, reporting and verification tools (e.g., sampling algorithms, databases, models etc.) for the cost-effective, accurate and transparent quantification of carbon drawdown rates associated with enhanced weathering processes to reduce uncertainty.

Related to marine carbon dioxide removal, the following topic areas are of particular interest:

• Improving the understanding of the materials design and systems integration considerations on removing CO2 directly from the ocean;
• In-depth characterization and evaluation of aquatic environmental impacts in response to deployment of marine carbon dioxide removal technologies;
• Establishing tools for identifying optimal marine carbon dioxide removal reactor design and deployment locations, with consideration of process operating requirements, permitting needs, CO2 transport and storage mechanisms and potential co-product generation and integration into existing supply chains and markets;
• Investigation of the permanence of the removed CO2 and/or quantification of reversal risks; and
• Development of monitoring, reporting and verification tools (e.g., sampling algorithms, databases, models etc.) for the cost-effective, accurate and transparent quantification of carbon drawdown rates associated with marine carbon dioxide removal processes to reduce uncertainty.

Key Dates

Current solicitation schedule dates will be posted on the HPC4EI website: www.hpc4energyinnovation.org. Event dates are subject to change.

More Information

• Download the 2023 Summer Solicitation.
• Learn more about AMMTO
• Learn more about IEDO
• Learn more about FECM
• For solicitation-specific support, contact [email protected]
• Please direct media inquiries to the DOE EERE communications team at [email protected].
• Sign up for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) email listto get notified of new EERE funding opportunities. Also sign up for our newsletter to stay current with the latest AMMTO news.