DOE Announces $3 Million for New Projects through the RAPID Manufacturing USA Institute

The Department of Energy (DOE) has made $3 million available the Rapid Advancement in Process Intensification Deployment (RAPID) Manufacturing USA institute to address barriers to modular chemical process intensification to enable development of breakthrough technologies that can boost energy productivity and energy efficiency in industries such as oil and gas, pulp and paper, and chemical manufacturing.

The $3 million will fund up to six research and development (R&D) projects that align with RAPID’s research focus areas in chemical and commodity processing, natural gas upgrading, renewable bioproducts, intensified process fundamentals, modeling and simulation, and module manufacturing.

RAPID’s project call seeks proposals that align with RAPID’s research focus areas, including:

• Double energy productivity through a process intensification technology;
• Intensify process modules with 10x reduction in capital cost, 20% improvement in energy efficiency, and 20% lower emissions/waste;
• Reduce manufacturing costs of process intensified modules by 20% with each doubling cumulative module production; and
• Reduce the cost of deploying modular chemical process intensification by 50%.

As with all projects funded through Manufacturing USA institutes, a minimum cost-share ratio of 1:1 is required and projects should include collaborations among industry, academia, national laboratories, non-profit research institutes, industry consortia, and other stakeholders. The project length should be approximately 18 months, with the federal portion of the project budget falling in the range of $300,000 to $500,000.

Proposals are due on January 15, 2020. To learn more about proposal submission requirements, please visit RAPID’s website.