Department of Energy awards $3.15 million to Argonne to support collaborations with industry

Awards come from DOE’s Technology Commercialization Fund.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced more than $33 million in funding for 82 projects aimed at advancing commercialization of promising energy technologies and strengthening partnerships between DOE’s National Laboratories and private-sector companies to deploy important technologies to the marketplace.

The awards are supported by the Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF), which is managed by DOE’s Office of Technology Transitions (OTT). All the TCF awards will be matched by funds from the private-sector partners.

“When we allow the nation’s entrepreneurs and creators to harness the full power of our National Lab complex, we build strong connections that energize this process and bolster American competitiveness.” — Conner Prochaska, Department of Energy’s Chief Commercialization Officer and Director of DOE’s Office of Technology Transitions

DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory received $3.15 million to fund eight projects.

“In order to maintain America’s technological leadership on the global stage, the Trump Administration has tapped an unprecedented response from government, academia, and our mission-critical, private-sector innovators to advance U.S. technology,” said Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette. ​“The Technology Commercialization Fund is a critical component of the Department’s commercialization strategy, meant to provide a bridge that connects America’s innovators to the research and expertise of our world-class National Lab system.”

The full list of this year’s TCF selections and the private-sector partners can be found on the OTT website.

“The TCF model is an important link in the U.S. energy innovation ecosystem, beginning at basic science research and development and reaching maturity in the form of commercial products and services,” said DOE Chief Commercialization Officer and OTT Director Conner Prochaska. ​“When we allow the nation’s entrepreneurs and creators to harness the full power of our National Lab complex, we build strong connections that energize this process and bolster American competitiveness.”

Argonne researchers whose projects received 2020 funding are:

• Moinuddin Ahmed: A comprehensive validation methodology for benchmarking wide bandgap power devices for aerospace applications and improving manufacturing processes. ($250,000; in partnership with Kyma Technologies, Raleigh, North Carolina)
• Essam El-Hannouny: Dual-fuel technology for diesel combustion engines. ($650,000; in partnership with Progress Rail, A Caterpillar company, La Grange, Illinois)
• Aaron Greco: Advanced drivetrain lubricants for enhanced reliability in harsh conditions. ($1,000,000; in partnership with Exxon Mobil, Annondale, New Jersey; GE Renewable Energy, Schenectady, New York; National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado; Pixelligent Technologies, Baltimore, Maryland; and University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia)
• Jie Li: Preparing large area of thermochromic nanocomposite films for smart window application. ($250,000; Anton Moisseytsev: Extending Plant Dynamics Code (PDC) capabilities to TerraPower direct-cycle supercritical CO₂ (“Pascal”) nuclear reactor concept. ($250,000; in partnership with TerraPower, Bellevue, Washington)
• Subramanian Sankaranarayanan: A user-friendly AI manufacturing toolkit for generation of metastable phase diagram ($250,000; in partnership with Sentient Science, West Lafayette, Indiana and United Technologies Research Center, East Hartford, Connecticut)
• Dileep Singh:
  • Binder jet additive manufacturing of nickel-alloy-based, low-cost heat exchangers for harsh environments. ($250,000; in partnership with ExOne Company, St. Clairsville, Ohio)
  • Demonstration of Ceramicrete® as a robust geothermal well cement. ($250,000)

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America’s scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://​ener​gy​.gov/​s​c​ience.

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