The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Industrial Technologies Office (ITO) announced the selection of 20 projects to develop technologies designed to enhance the competitiveness of the U.S. industrial sector and support the onshoring of American manufacturing.
Topic Areas
Award and cost share amounts are subject to change pending negotiations.
The selected projects will address critical industrial challenges in the following areas:
Cross-Sector Technologies:
Project Title: Heating, Baking, and Drying with Laser Technology for Food and Pulp and Paper Industry Sectors
Project Lead: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Project Partners: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (IL); RAPID Manufacturing Institute (NY); Reading Bakery Systems (PA); Electric Power Research Institute (NC); Alliance for Pulp and Paper Technology Innovation (GA); IPG Photonics (MA)
City/State: Worcester, MA
Federal Funding: $2,800,000
Project Description: Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and partners aim to develop and demonstrate laser-based process heating in combination with other heating and drying technologies such as ultrasonic and infrared. The projects will include development of physics-based artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) frameworks, coupled with multiple fiber optic sensors, to create a smart pilot-scale dryer testbed capable of optimal process control. These innovative approaches address challenges inherent in conventional process heating—such as non-uniform distribution and limited real-time quality control—by enabling precise energy delivery and dynamic process adjustments. The project will leverage the existing drying pilot-scale testbed at WPI to demonstrate energy savings of up to 40% in food applications and 20% in paper applications while improving or maintaining product quality and reducing manufacturing costs.
Project Title: Low-Energy Porcelain and Paint Curing for Scaled Industrial Manufacturing
Project Lead: Lawrence Technological University
Project Partners: IPG Photonics (MA); PPG Industries (PA); Whirlpool Corporation (MI)
City/State: Southfield, MI
Federal Funding: $1,203,971
Project Description: Lawrence Technological University and partners aim to validate and fully pilot a lower-energy, diode laser-based powder coat curing technology for lower-temperature coating systems (<250°C) such as powder paint systems, as well as higher-temperature systems (>400°C), targeting applications including porcelain enamel, dish racks, and specialty coatings. The project specifically addresses challenges in traditional curing methods such as the difficulty in uniformly heating complex shapes and the significant energy wasted by conventional ovens. These innovations will enable volumetric heating, a technique that heats materials throughout their entire volume instead of just the surface. This will reduce curing times from minutes to seconds for typical powder coatings and allow for precise process control with real-time temperature feedback, creating a competitive advantage for American industry.
Project Title: Thin Film Composite Membranes for Removal, Purification, and Recovery of Unsaturated Hydrocarbons
Project Lead: University of Texas Austin
City/State: Austin, TX
Federal Funding: $2,371,167
Project Description: The objective of this project is to develop a facilitated transport membrane capable of separating high-value unsaturated hydrocarbons from feedstock streams. Unsaturated hydrocarbons are vital starting materials to create products valuable in various industries like polymers, petrochemicals, fuels, and food production. The innovation will use membranes designed to operate with ionic liquid anions, which has the potential to protect the active parts of these membranes from breaking down, increasing their lifespan and improving performance. Lowering the cost of purifying these hydrocarbons opens up new opportunities to more efficiently use energy and feedstocks, increasing industrial cost savings.
Project Title: Solvent- and Heat-resistant Carbon-Doped Titanium Oxide (CDTO) Membranes for Highly Energy-Efficient and Precise Organic Solvent Nanofiltration in Harsh Industrial Conditions
Project Lead: SUNY University Buffalo
City/State: Amherst, NY
Federal Funding: $3,000,000
Project Description: This project aims to develop solvent- and heat-resistant membranes for low-energy intensity organic solvent recovery in harsh industrial conditions, which is helpful in the food, pharmaceuticals, and chemicals industries. The innovation is a process that can produce these ceramic membranes with high porosity and precise control over pore size, which is essential for developing a commercially viable product. Lowering the temperatures needed to recover solvents can reduce energy costs for manufacturers and potentially avoid damaging products with heat, giving American manufacturers a competitive advantage.
Project Title: Distillation with Elastocaloric Active Regenerator Bending for Process Efficiency
Project Lead: Ames Laboratory
Project Partners: G.RAU Inc. (CA); Southwest Iowa Renewable Energy (IA); TauMat, LLC (MD); ATI Special Metals and Alloys (AL); Barrow Green, LLC (MD); Iowa State University (IA)
City/State: Ames, IA
Federal Funding: $2,600,000
Project Description: Ames National Laboratory and partners aim to design, fabricate, and demonstrate a lab-scale elastocaloric process heating technology, an emerging technology, that overcomes the limitations of systems that rely on volatile liquid refrigerants and mechanically complex configurations. The key innovation is identification and validation of materials, components, and configurations that can operate at industrial temperatures and optimize heat transfer performance. This work is a step toward commercially viable elastocaloric systems and will demonstrate application to ethanol distillation, reducing energy consumption and improving the competitiveness of industrial operations.Project Title: Efficient, High-Temperature Radiative Exchanger with Secondary Emitters
Project Lead: Institute of Gas Technology
Project Partners: Bloom Engineering (PA); Pre-Heat Inc. (WI)
City/State: Des Plaines, IL
Federal Funding: $3,000,000
Project Description: The Institute of Gas Technology and partners will design, build, and demonstrate an industrial Radiative Exchanger with Secondary Emitters (RESE) heat exchanger (HX) capable of preheating combustion air up to 500°C and operating in corrosive exhaust gases of up to 900°C. This innovative technology can be used in high temperature processes such as glass melting furnaces and aluminum die casting furnaces, allowing a single pass of combustion products. By improving industrial efficiencies and simplifying maintenance, this project will help reduce capital costs and boost the global competitiveness of American industry.
Project Title: A High-Performance and Cost-Effective Polymer Composite Heat Exchanger for Energy Recovery Applications
Project Lead: University of Maryland, College Park
City/State: College Park, MD
Federal Funding: $1,468,298
Project Description: This project aims to develop a cost-effective heat exchanger—a device that transfers heat between fluids without mixing them—for low-temperature waste heat recovery applications such as data centers. The innovation is a 3D-printed composite material that combines the low cost and corrosion resistance of polymers with the high thermal conductivity of metals. This heat exchanger technology achieves superior performance, longer lifespans, and lower costs, helping to boost business productivity.
Project Title: Aqueous-Phase Roll-to-Roll Continuous Manufacturing of Robust and Tunable Graphene Oxide Membranes for Fractionation of Complex Feedstocks
Project Lead: Georgia Tech Research Corporation
City/State: Atlanta, GA
Federal Funding: $2,126,875
Project Description: The objective of this project is to scale up a membrane-based nanofiltration system that can function in harsh conditions, such as high pH, high temperature, and high solid content. This technology will be useful across industrial sectors, including the paper production and petrochemicals industries. The key innovation is to make this technology more affordable by using water-based solvents and a continuous, high-speed manufacturing process for the reduced graphene oxide membranes. Onshoring the production of the membranes in American facilities creates global supply chain advantages while simultaneously generating an industrial process to reduce direct heating costs for industrial users.Project Title: Nanobubble-Enabled High-Mass Transfer Aeration for Suboxic Biological Process
Project Lead: University of Tennessee: Knoxville
Project Partners: Carollo Engineers, ORNL, First Utility District of Knox
City/State: Knoxville, TN
Federal Funding: $2,500,000
Project Description: The University of Tennessee and its partners are developing an innovative new wastewater treatment method using oxygen nanobubbles (NB). These nanobubbles will be used in aeration processes at water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs) to more efficiently supply oxygen to microorganisms that break down contaminants. By harnessing the unique buoyancy of nanobubbles, the project aims to improve oxygen transfer, reducing energy consumption for aeration by an estimated 70% and for mixing by 30%. The project seeks to successfully pilot test (200 L/day for 6 weeks) and validate the proposed NB-suboxic biological nutrient removal process at a WRRF with at least 50% overall energy and cost savings compared to common activated sludge processes in the industry.
Energy-Intensive Industries:
Project Title: Single-Pass Ammonia Synthesis
Project Lead: Ammobia Inc.
Project Title: Single-Pass Ammonia Synthesis
Project Partners: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, National Lab of the Rockies
City/State: San Francisco, CA
Federal Funding: $ 3,000,000
Project Description: Ammobia Inc. and its partners seek to develop and scale a new ammonia production technology based on a novel reactor that operates at approximately 10 times lower pressure and 150oC lower temperature than traditional processes. This innovative technology, operating at milder conditions, has the potential to substantially reduce the cost of production for one of the world’s largest-volume chemicals, including a twofold reduction in capital expenditure, creating a competitive advantage in this critical global market.
Project Title: A Compact, Modular Membrane Reactor for Ammonia (NH3) Synthesis at Moderate Temperatures and Pressures
Project Lead: E2H2NANO, LLC
Project Partners: Johnson Matthey, SUNY University at Buffalo, University of South Carolina
City/ State: Buffalo, NY
Federal Funding: $3,000,000
Project Description: E2H2NANO and partners are working to scale a novel membrane-based reactor for ammonia production—one of the largest-volume chemicals which is necessary for agricultural fertilizers, coolants, and industrial explosives. This technology integrates reaction and membrane separation steps to avoid traditional thermodynamic barriers to greatly increase conversion. This breakthrough technology can help reduce energy costs by more than 70%, strengthen the domestic supply chain, and reduce water consumption and production costs.
Project Title: Biomanufacturing Process for Ethyl Acrylate Production
Primary Partner: Bluestem Biosciences
City/State: Omaha, NE
Federal Funding: $2,400,000
Project Description: Bluestem Biosciences seeks to optimize and scale fermentation of underutilized domestic biomass resources (for example, corn and agricultural byproducts) into ethyl acrylate via 3-hydroxypropionic acid. The proposed technology has the potential to create a competitive advantage in the $9 billion paint, coating, plastic, and personal care products industries relative to current ethyl acrylate production routes. The project has the potential to reduce energy costs by 40%, leverage existing infrastructure, and support American farmers through increased demand for their agricultural products and byproducts.Project Title: Iron Production by Molten Sulfide Electrolysis
Project Lead: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Project Partners: Rio Tinto
City/State: Cambridge, MA
Federal Funding: $5,600,000
Project Description: Massachusetts Institute of Technology and partners seek to scale up a revolutionary ironmaking process to reduce the cost for ironmaking by using low-cost feedstocks. The process can also be integrated with steelmaking to remove undesirable copper impurities from steel scrap, which no existing process can do. The innovative practice will first convert ore and scrap to iron sulfide, then reduce it electrolytically to molten iron using low-cost inputs like high-copper scrap and lower-grade ores to produce high-margin steel products, creating a higher profit margin for American steel manufacturing.
Project Title: Transformative Taconite Beneficiation Flowsheet of the Future
Primary Partner: The University of Minnesota
Project Partners: National Lab of The Rockies, US Steel
City/State: Minneapolis, MN
Funding Amount: $3,100,000
Project Description: The University of Minnesota and partners aim to develop an engineering flowsheet for a new series of process to separate valuable ore from waste rock, thereby upgrading lower-grade, taconite ores to higher, 'direct reduction’ (DR) grade. The project will do so by leveraging state-of-the-art separation technologies including High Pressure Grinding Rolls, Vertical Stirred Mills, Hydrofloat, and Jameson Floatation technologies. This new process will lower production costs by reducing energy use, yield loss, and grinding intensity. This will reduce the overall energy demand of DR grade pellet production by 25% and increase iron recovery by 3 – 5%, while also improving pellet quality. If successful, this process will enable the cost-effective use of domestic, readily-available iron ore resources.
Project Title: Modular Sorting System for Removing Copper Contaminants from Steel Scrap Using Artificial Intelligence
Project Lead: Sortera Technologies, Inc
Project Partners: Purdue University, ThermOhm, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Pennsylvania State University
City/State: Markle, IN
Federal Funding: $3,000,000
Project Description: Sortera Technologies and partners will demonstrate an innovative scrap processing technology to address copper contamination in steel scrap supply, a major issue in the production of American steel. This improved process will subject shredded scrap to a two-stage separation: an artificial intelligence-assisted first pass image recognition sorting technology, followed by use of a novel thermo-mechanical separation process where copper is selectively reacted to aid in mechanical separation. The innovative technology will generate high-value steel scrap and reduce manufacturing costs for high-value steel products, strengthening the global competitiveness of American industry.Project Title: Demonstration of Innovative Low-Cost Processing for Industrial Poultry Rendering
Project Lead: Wilson Engineering Technologies, Inc
Project Partners: Tyson Foods, Haarslev USA, Axiom, Spurt Electric and Controls LLC, Oestergaard Inc.
City/State: Pleasant Hill, CA
Federal Funding: $2,300,000
Project Description: Wilson Engineering Technologies and partners will develop an Energy Flows Redistribution Process (EFRP) for industrial poultry rendering. This innovative technology can convert byproducts into usable materials twice as fast as traditional methods and at half the cost, with the ability to scale affordably across many food and beverage subsectors. These advancements will deliver a 45% reduction in energy waste per unit of output, increase production capabilities by 125%, and cut operating expenses by 45% to ultimately increase global competitiveness.
Project Title: Next Generation Concrete: Leveraging Byproducts of Lithium Industry as High Performance Supplementary Cementitious Materials
Project Lead: Oregon State University
Project Partners: Albemarle Corporation, Amrize
City/State: Corvallis, OR
Federal Funding: 1,800,000
Project Description: Oregon State University and partners aim to replace a substantial portion of cement with delithiated aluminosilicate (DLAS), a by-product from lithium battery production, as a supplementary cementitious material (SCMs). Optimized grinding techniques and thermodynamic simulation will improve DLAS reactivity, maximizing performance in concrete blends and turning waste into a valuable feedstock. By lowering the amount of clinker in cement, this approach can increase the use of readily-available domestic resources to meet domestic cement demand, reducing reliance on imports and better positioning the U.S. against overseas competitors.
Project Title: AI-Powered Blending Strategies for Supplementary Cementitious Materials for Enhanced Domestic Cement Supply Chain
Project Lead: Missouri University of Science and Technology
Project Partners: Cleveland-Cliffs, Inc., Reserve Management Group, Ecocem Americas, Quapaw Nation, Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc.
City/State: Rolla, MO
Federal Funding: $2,000,000
Project Description: Missouri University of Science and Technology and partners will expand the inventory of alternative supplementary cementitious materials (ASCMs), supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), and fillers by deploying an artificial intelligence-powered platform. This platform will enable rapid and accurate performance predictions and optimize concrete blends with high volumes of substitutions (60-80%), leveraging a comprehensive database of over 20,000 data points. A key objective is to integrate locally available and waste-derived SCMs, aiming for a tool that delivers 90% accuracy. This will help to maximize the cement supply and accelerate exploration of new blends across the U.S., strengthening domestic supply chains.Project Title: High-flux Graphene Oxide Membranes for Kraft Black Liquor Dewatering and Integration with Advanced Chemical Recovery Loop
Project Lead: Georgia Tech Research Corporation
Project Partners: Rayonier Advanced Materials, Mott Corporation
City/State: Atlanta, GA
Federal Funding: $2,700,000
Project Description: Georgia Tech Research Corporation and its partners aim to develop a suite of high-flux reduced graphene oxide nanofiltration membranes and evaluate their performance in dewatering kraft black liquor (a byproduct of the paper-making process) in a single-pass slipstream at a pulp mill site. Proposed innovations will reduce the energy used in the most energy-intensive operation in a pulp mill and recover low molecular weight organic acids, which are essential, widely used chemicals. The project will demonstrate significant energy savings compared to the current thermal evaporation process for black liquor concentration.
Project Title: Peroxyacid Pulping and Bleaching (PPB) to Replace Prehydrolysis Kraft (PHK) Process for Dissolving Pulp Production
Project Lead: Washington State University
Project Partners: Idaho National Laboratory, Rayonier Advanced Materials (RYAM), University of Cincinnati, Auburn University
City/State: Pullman, WA
Federal Funding: $3,000,000
Project Description: Washington State University and partners aim to effectively and efficiently produce wood fibers through a peroxyacid pulping and bleaching (PPB) process to replace the commonly used pre-hydrolysis kraft process for dissolving pulp production in the forest products industry. The traditional process requires extended cooking and severe bleaching conditions, a resource-heavy and energy-intensive process. Peracetic acid (PAA) had been shown to selectively depolymerize, or break down, lignin into valuable phenolic compounds, and its use in pulp bleaching provides environmental advantages over chlorine dioxide. Based on initial estimates, PPB can reduce energy intensity by 50% and lower toxicity compared to traditional chemistries. This will reduce energy costs and give the U.S. forest products industry a competitive edge in global markets.