Four local organizations receive funding for transformational technology efforts
The four are sharing in $136 million for 66 projects to reduce energy demand and improve American productivity in key industrial subsectors.
As the U.S. Department of Energy prepares for the transition to a new administration, it is making significant awards across a number of programs, and several East Tennessee entities are beneficiaries.
Last week, the agency announced more than $136 million for 66 selected projects to support the research and development of transformational technologies essential for reducing energy demand and improving American productivity in key industrial subsectors. These investments will accelerate the development of innovative technologies to ensure the resilience and competitiveness of U.S. industrial supply chains in rapidly changing global markets.
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) received two awards, while UT-Battelle LLC, managing contractor for Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and ORNL were designated as lead on one project each. In addition, ORNL was a collaborator on two other projects, and Knoxville start-up Carbon Rivers was another recipient.
Total value of the local involvement is $11,441,609 or about nine percent of the projects funded.
- ORNL and its partners – Solaronics, Inc., Trimac Industrial Systems, and the New Buildings Institute – were awarded $1 million to develop and demonstrate a hybrid electric-fuel infrared emitting thermal technology specifically designed for commercial kitchens. The project plans to develop and optimize the hybrid system through rigorous testing and refinement for optimal functionality.
- UTK and its partners – Plant Switch, Georgia Institute of Technology, ORNL, and the University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry – were awarded $1 million to identify preferred bioresources and extraction protocols to isolate a ‘near white’ lignin resource with chemical structures optimized for biocomposite production targeted at manufacturing bio‐derived films, bottles, and packages.
- Another UTK project involving SAIREM Corporation and Accelerated Cooking Products was awarded $999,987 for an initiative that seeks to develop and test a set of Intelligent Modular solid-state Microwave (IM2) cooking equipment to perform common foodservice cooking functions in the laboratory environment. The project plans to develop hardware modules for four common foodservice cooking functions and intelligent software modules based on dynamic frequency control strategy with supportive machine learning algorithms.
- UT-Battelle and its partners – Metropolitan State University and Driven Plastics – were awarded $2,893,000 to develop physically‐ and compositionally optimized limestone/activated clay/calcium sulfate (LACCS) blends to be supplied directly to concrete producers to partially replace Portland cement, hence reducing concrete’s carbon intensity compared to conventional concrete produced with ordinary Portland cement (OPC) without significant impact on performance and close proximity of the cost.
- Carbon Rivers Inc., along with partner TPI Composites and Johns Manville, received $868,622 to develop and demonstrate a novel process, Isochoric Thermal Hydrolysis (ITH), for utilizing post-consumer and post-industrial fiberglass waste that either conditions the fiber for remelting or renders it suitable for direct re-use.
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