Oct 18 2008
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has selected 20 project proposals for funding following its Nanomanufacturing for Energy Efficiency 2008 Research Call. The projects promise to make revolutionary improvements in a broad range of energy production, storage, and consumption applications that will reduce energy and carbon intensity in industrial processes.
Nanotechnology, the understanding and control of matter at the atomic or molecular level, has the potential for major improvements in energy applications. Over the past 7 years, the U.S. Government has invested $8.3 billion in nanotechnology and made great strides in gaining fundamental knowledge at the nanometer scale.
An important next step in realizing the promise of nanotechnology is to improve production and manufacturing techniques for nanomaterials and nano-enabled products, many of which are “stuck at the lab scale.” The selected projects will advance the state of nanomanufacturing by improving the reliability of nanomaterials production and scaling-up manufacturing processes that use nanomaterials.
DOE national laboratories participated in the research call intending that innovative technologies developed will be further developed and deployed commercially by industry. The research call was geared toward “quick-win” nanomanufacturing projects with a realistic path to commercialization in 3–5 years.
The 20 research projects, focused in the two technical areas of concept definition studies and nanomanufacturing process development, total over $17 million in DOE funding. An additional 13 projects were selected as alternates to be developed if funding allows.
The National Energy Technology Laboratory manages the Nanomanufacturing Program and will oversee the selected projects for the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Industrial Technology Program.