Funding Opportunities

This announcement is purposely broad in scope, and will cover a wide range of topics to encourage the submission of the most innovative and unconventional ideas in energy technology. The objective of this solicitation is to support high-risk R&D leading to the development of potentially disruptive new technologies across the full spectrum of energy applications. Topics under this FOA will explore new areas of technology development that, if successful, could establish new program areas for ARPA-E, or complement the current portfolio of ARPA-E programs.

Targeted Topics:

A. Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions
Closed- FA Deadline 9:30 AM ET 11/15/2022

B. INcreasing Transportation Efficiency and Resiliency through MODeling Assets and Logistics (INTERMODAL)
Closed - FA Deadline 9:30 AM ET 4/11/2023

C. Creating Revolutionary Energy And Technology Endeavors (CREATE)
Closed - FA Deadline 9:30 AM ET 3/21/2023

D. Predictive Real-time Emissions Technologies Reducing Aircraft Induced Lines in the Sky (PRE-TRAILS)
Closed - FA Deadline 9:30 AM ET 4/25/2023

E. Critical Mineral Extraction from Ocean Macroalgal Biomass (Algal Mining)
Closed - FA Deadline 9:30 AM ET 5/31/2023

F. Novel Superconducting Technologies for Conductors (Superconductors)
Closed- FA Deadline 9:30 AM ET 7/25/2023

G. Production of Geologic Hydrogen Through Stimulated Mineralogical Processes
Closed - FA Deadline 9:30 AM ET 10/24/2023

H. Subsurface Engineering for Hydrogen Reservoir Management
Closed - FA Deadline 9:30 AM ET 10/24/2023

I. Field Evaluations of Vehicle Energy Efficiency for NEXTCAR Phase II Technologies
Closed- FA Deadline 9:30 AM ET 4/10/2024

J. RESERVED

K. RESERVED

L. Plant HYperaccumulators TO MIne Nickel-Enriched Soils (PHYTOMINES)
Closed - FA Deadline 9:30 AM ET 5/7/2024

M. H2SENSE
Closed - FA Deadline 9:30 AM ET 6/7/2024

This announcement is purposely broad in scope, and will cover a wide range of topics to encourage the submission of the most innovative and unconventional ideas in energy technology. The objective of this solicitation is to support high-risk R&D leading to the development of potentially disruptive new technologies across the full spectrum of energy applications. Topics under this FOA will explore new areas of technology development that, if successful, could establish new program areas for ARPA-E, or complement the current portfolio of ARPA-E programs.

Targeted Topics:

A. Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions
Closed - FA Deadline 9:30 AM ET 11/15/2022

B. RESERVED

C. Creating Revolutionary Energy And Technology Endeavors (CREATE)
Closed - FA Deadline 9:30 AM ET 3/21/2023

D. Predictive Real-time Emissions Technologies Reducing Aircraft Induced Lines in the Sky (PRE-TRAILS)
Closed - FA Deadline 9:30 AM ET 4/25/2023

E. RESERVED

F. Novel Superconducting Technologies for Conductors (Superconductors)
Closed - FA Deadline 9:30 AM ET 7/25/2023

G. Production of Geologic Hydrogen Through Stimulated Mineralogical Processes
Closed - FA Deadline 9:30 AM ET 10/24/2023

H. Subsurface Engineering for Hydrogen Reservoir Management
Closed - FA Deadline 9:30 AM ET 10/24/2023

I. RESERVED

J. RESERVED

K. RESERVED

L. Plant HYperaccumulators TO MIne Nickel-Enriched Soils (PHYTOMINES)
Closed - FA Deadline 9:30 AM ET 5/7/2024

M. H2SENSE
Closed - FA Deadline 9:30 AM ET 6/7/2024

ARPA-E’s REFUEL (Renewable Energy to Fuels through Utilization of Energy-dense Liquids) program is investing in the development of scalable technologies for conversion of electrical or thermal energy from renewable sources into chemical energy contained in energy dense Carbon-Neutral Liquid Fuels (CNLFs), such as ammonia, that can be stored, transported, and later converted into hydrogen or electricity to provide power for transportation, distributed energy generation or other uses.

Projects funded under the ARPA-E REFUEL program, and related awards from other ARPA-E programs, have developed technologies that facilitate the synthesis and use of ammonia at a scale of up to 10 kg per day. In order to mitigate the substantial energy usage and environmental footprint associated with the current standard Haber-Bosch process to synthesize ammonia, ARPA-E is funding a pre-production, integrated system involving a skid-mounted ammonia synthesis system connected to an intermittent renewable energy source at a production scale of 1 metric ton of ammonia per day. Specifically, ARPA-E aims to support the integration and scaling of multiple ammonia synthesis steps being advanced by several technology developers under a single project led by a single awardee ("integrator").

The NOFO was modified and an updated SF-424A/Budget Justification Workbook was uploaded February 6, 2026.

Encourage/Discourage notification letters were released and the Full Application NOFO was posted January 26, 2026.

The Catalytic Application Testing for Accelerated Learning Chemistries via High-throughput Experimentation and Modeling Efficiently (CATALCHEM-E) program aims to disrupt and accelerate the design and development cycle for heterogeneous catalyst R&D workflows. The program will span from rational material discovery to synthesis and final reactor testing. These novel workflows will be developed by coupling the latest advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) with high-throughput experimentation (HTE) to verifiably complete 10–15 years of traditional catalysis R&D work within 12–18 months, thus achieving more than a ten-time acceleration in the catalyst development cycle. The program will then use these new tools to discover and optimize catalytic chemistries relevant to ARPA-E’s goals. These new chemistries will ultimately help advance the objective of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Innovations developed under the CATALCHEM-E program will involve:

Future refinery relevant or other next-generation feedstocks such as hydrogen (H₂), nitrogen (N₂), oxygen (O₂), water (H₂O), carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), ammonia (NH₃), methanol (MeOH), ethanol (EtOH), bio-intermediates (C_xH_yO_z), waste plastics, and triglycerides (TAGs); and

Products like ethylene (C₂⁼) and propylene (C₃⁼) as low carbon monomers, and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), diesel, and syngas as distillate range hydrocarbons.

The NOFO was modified and an updated SF-424A/Budget Justification Workbook was uploaded February 6, 2026.

Encourage/Discourage notification letters were released and the Full Application NOFO was posted January 26, 2026.

The Catalytic Application Testing for Accelerated Learning Chemistries via High-throughput Experimentation and Modeling Efficiently SBIR/STTR (CATALCHEM-E SBIR/STTR) program aims to disrupt and accelerate the design and development cycle for heterogeneous catalyst R&D workflows. The program will span from rational material discovery to synthesis and final reactor testing. These novel workflows will be developed by coupling the latest advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) with high-throughput experimentation (HTE) to verifiably complete 10–15 years of traditional catalysis R&D work within 12–18 months, thus achieving more than a ten-time acceleration in the catalyst development cycle. The program will then use these new tools to discover and optimize catalytic chemistries relevant to ARPA-E’s goals. These new chemistries will ultimately help advance the objective of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Innovations developed under the CATALCHEM-E program will involve:

Future refinery relevant or other next-generation feedstocks such as hydrogen (H₂), nitrogen (N₂), oxygen (O₂), water (H₂O), carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), ammonia (NH₃), methanol (MeOH), ethanol (EtOH), bio-intermediates (C_xH_yO_z), waste plastics, and triglycerides (TAGs); and

Products like ethylene (C₂⁼) and propylene (C₃⁼) as low carbon monomers, and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), diesel, and syngas as distillate range hydrocarbons.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA–E) intends to issue a new Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to use advanced synthetic biology tools to engineer novel bioconversion platforms and systems capable of using and incorporating external energy inputs to substantially increase carbon utilization, flux, and efficiency while driving towards and achieving industrially relevant productivities. Successful platforms would offer fundamentally new capacities for the bioeconomy by allowing for fully carbon optimized renewable fuel and chemical synthesis with maximal carbon and resource efficiency. Proposed systems of interest include, but are not limited to (1) carbon-optimized fermentation strains that avoid CO₂ evolution, (2) engineered mixotrophic consortia or systems that avoid CO₂ evolution, (3) biomass derived sugar or carbon oxide gas fermentation with internal CO₂ utilization, (4) cell-free carbon optimized biocatalytic biomass conversion and/or CO₂ utilization, (5) cross-cutting or other proposed carbon optimized bioconversion schemes. All systems will need to demonstrate the capacity to accommodate external reducing equivalents to optimize the carbon flux and efficiency of the system as compared to a traditional fermentation system or bioconversion pathway (i.e. the sum of the recoverable energy contents of the products is greater than the energy content of the biomass or primary carbon feedstock). Allowable external reducing equivalents are limited to those that can be produced electrocatalytically using H₂O, CO₂, or both.

ARPA-E programs are pursuing transformational technologies up-and-down the bioeconomy supply chain to increase the sustainability of renewable fuel and chemical synthesis and to enable industrial scale carbon management and CO₂ emissions mitigation. The program outlined in this FOA will build on these innovations by funding the development of (i) hydrogen accommodating non-oxidative glycolytic strains of industrial relevance for immediate enhancement of first generation biofuel production – corn starch ethanol , (ii) external energy accommodating carbon optimized platforms of industrial relevance for advanced and cellulosic fuel and fuel relevant intermediate biosynthesis, (iii) new tools and engineered approaches to optimize fermentation and biosynthesis for carbon efficiency, and (iv) advanced tools to decouple key biochemical pathways from the limitations of cell growth and maintenance by promoting the design and engineering of robust and industrially relevant cell-free bioconversion and biocatalytic platforms.

ARPA-E will provide financial support to teams proposing to develop novel carbon-optimized bioconversion systems that meet the metrics specified in the FOA. If successful, the technologies funded by this carbon optimized bioconversion program are expected to catalyze new conversion platforms for biofuels and other high-volume bioproducts that are capable of avoiding 100% of carbon loss to CO₂, enabling greater than 40% increases in recoverable bioproduct from the same feedstocks. Additionally, this program will fund cutting-edge technologies to de-risk gas-fed fermentation feedstocks and cell-free bioconversion systems. ARPA–E held a workshop on these topics in September 2019. Information on this workshop can be found at the event webpage (https://arpa-e.energy.gov/?q=events/carbon-optimized-bioconversion).

As a general matter, ARPA–E strongly encourages outstanding scientists and engineers from different organizations, scientific disciplines, and technology sectors to form new project teams. Multidisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration spanning organizational boundaries enables and accelerates the achievement of scientific and technological outcomes that were previously viewed as extremely difficult, if not impossible. Furthermore, ARPA-E strongly encourages involving industry partners to advise and collaborate with teams, with the ultimate goal of achieving successful industry adoption and integration of a new risk-driven operational and planning paradigm.

The Teaming Partner List is being compiled to facilitate the formation of new project teams. ARPA-E intends to make the Teaming Partner List available on ARPA–E eXCHANGE (https://ARPA–E-foa.energy.gov), ARPA–E’s online application portal, in July 2020. Once posted, the Teaming Partner List will be updated periodically, until the close of the Full Application period, to reflect new Teaming Partners who have provided their information.

Any organization that would like to be included on the Teaming Partner list should complete all required fields in the following link: https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/ApplicantProfile.aspx. Required information includes: Organization Name, Contact Name, Contact Address, Contact Email, Contact Phone, Organization Type, Area of Technical Expertise, and Brief Description of Capabilities.

By submitting a response to this Announcement, you consent to the publication of the above-referenced information. By facilitating this Teaming Partner List, ARPA–E does not endorse or otherwise evaluate the qualifications of the entities that self-identify themselves for placement on the Teaming Partner List. ARPA–E will not pay for the provision of any information, nor will it compensate any respondents for the development of such information. Responses submitted to other email addresses or by other means will not be considered.

This Announcement does not constitute a FOA. No FOA exists at this time. Applicants must refer to the final FOA, expected to be issued by the end of August 2020, for instructions on submitting an application, the desired technical metrics, and for the terms and conditions of funding.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) is considering issuing a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to support the development of renewables-to-liquids systems capable of converting intermittent energy inputs into easily transportable, carbon-containing liquids. As described in more detail below, the purpose of this announcement is to facilitate the formation of new project teams to respond to the potential FOA. The FOA will provide specific program goals, technical metrics, and selection criteria. The FOA terms are controlling.

For purposes of this Teaming Partner List, the program is interested in systems that achieve 80% multi-pass carbon conversion to liquids with at least 50% electricity-to-liquid efficiency at the lowest possible cost.

Currently, ARPA-E anticipates that these systems would require:

1. The development of new reactors capable of being operated dynamically to decrease the system capital expenditure (CAPEX) required for hydrogen storage;
2. Small-scale reactor systems compatible with renewable energy systems;
3. Reactor designs that include manufacturability within defined design criteria;
4. The development of new catalysts optimized for carbon dioxide hydrogenation pathways;
5. Reactor systems that enable process intensification that minimize CAPEX; and
6. Modelling and optimization to determine optimum sizing and anticipated CAPEX.

Expertise in the following areas may be useful in responding to the potential FOA:

• Chemical engineering
• Mechanical engineering
• Chemistry
• Carbon conversion
• Hydrogen production
• Reactor engineering
• Catalysis
• Manufacturing
• Modelling
• Technoeconomic analysis
• Lifecycle assessment

As a general matter, ARPA-E strongly encourages outstanding scientists and engineers from different organizations, scientific disciplines, and technology sectors to form new project teams. Interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration spanning organizational boundaries enables and accelerates the achievement of scientific and technological outcomes that were previously viewed as extremely difficult, if not impossible.

The Teaming Partner List is being compiled to facilitate the formation of new project teams. The Teaming Partner List will be available on ARPA-E eXCHANGE (http://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov), ARPA-E’s online application portal, starting in October 2023. The Teaming Partner List will be updated periodically until the close of the Full Application period to reflect new Teaming Partners who have provided their information.

Any organization that would like to be included on this list should complete all required fields in the following link: https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Applicantprofile.aspx. Required information includes the following: Organization Name, Contact Name, Contact Address, Contact Email, Contact Phone, Organization Type, Area of Technical Expertise, and Brief Description of Capabilities.

By submitting a response to this Notice, you consent to the publication of the above-referenced information. By facilitating this Teaming Partner List, ARPA-E does not endorse or otherwise evaluate the qualifications of the entities that self-identify for placement on the Teaming Partner List. ARPA-E will not pay for the provision of any information, nor will it compensate any respondents for the development of such information. Responses submitted to other email addresses or by other means will not be considered. This list is completely voluntarily to participate in and utilize. ARPA-E will not identify or facilitate connections through the teaming list and participation in the list has no bearing whatsoever on the evaluation of applications submitted to the potential FOA.

This Notice does not constitute a FOA. No FOA exists at this time. Applicants must refer to the FOA, expected to be issued by November 2023, for instructions on submitting an application and for the terms and conditions of funding.

The FOA associated with this Teaming Partner List can be found at: https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Default.aspx?foaId=cea4b541-156c-49ce-ad51-e4b6b5ee81aa

The purpose of this RFI is solely to solicit input for ARPA-E's consideration and to inform the possible initiation of an R&D program on stationary hydrogen storage technologies. In particular, ARPA-E is interested in information regarding safe, low-cost, flexible scale from large to small, transportable, and widely deployable hydrogen storage technology for ultralong-duration seasonal energy storage. The hydrogen storage systems of interest are turn-key systems ready to be integrated with hydrogen fuel cell power generation, hydrogen capable CHP, microgrid, and other distributed power generation systems. The goal is to develop technologies and validate their reliability under variable conditions, manufacturability, and favorable economics at scale.

The growth of renewable energy is gaining momentum. Power generation from solar panels, wind turbines, and other renewable sources in the first five months of 2020 reached 25% in the US. However, the continued growth and deep penetration of renewable energy to greater than 50% require long-duration energy storage on a massive scale. While battery technologies can meet applications requiring hours of energy storage, and novel technologies such as those being developed in the ARPA-E DAYS program can satisfy applications requiring a day or more of storage, a need remains for energy storage technologies can dispatch over weeks or even months. Current technologies for long-duration energy storage, such as pumped hydro, are usually geographic location limited and require ultra-large-scale infrastructure investment and long-term commitments.

One of the options for large scale renewable electricity storage is to produce hydrogen using the surplus renewable electricity that would otherwise be curtailed or when electricity is available at low cost. Hydrogen, however, must be stored before it can be converted back to electricity or used for other purposes. Methods for hydrogen storage have their own challenges, from geographic location requirements to capital costs to conversion efficiency. If low-cost hydrogen storage can be achieved, however, it can contribute to enabling a deeply decarbonized power grid.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) of the US Department of Energy seeks information that could inform ARPA-E's potential research and development (R&D) funding for safe, low-cost, flexible scale, transportable, and widely deployable hydrogen storage technologies for ultralong-duration, especially seasonal, energy storage. The hydrogen storage systems of particular interest should be turn-key systems ready to be integrated with hydrogen fuel cell power generation, hydrogen capable CHP, microgrid, and other distributed power generation systems.

This is a request for information only.  This notice does not constitute a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA).  No FOA exists at this time.  

Responses to this RFI should be submitted in PDF format to ARPA-E-RFI@hq.doe.gov by 5:00 PM Eastern Time on March 15, 2021.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) has issued a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to support the development and validation of technologies that can detect the release of hydrogen from production, transportation, and storage infrastructure. As described in more detail below, the purpose of this announcement is to facilitate the formation of new project teams to respond to the Exploratory Topic M: H2SENSE FOA. The FOA provides specific program goals, technical metrics, and selection criteria. FOA terms are controlling.

For the purposes of this Teaming Partner List, the overall H2SENSE program goal is to develop technologies that can lead to hydrogen emissions detection at costs amenable to widespread deployment. Technologies of interest should comprise of fully integrated systems that incorporate sensors, data transmission, hydrogen dispersion and quantification analyses, and any peripheral components and modeling necessary for operation and calibration. Hydrogen emissions detection systems may rely on a single or multiple sensors. Both active sensors and passive sensors may be considered.

Expertise in the following areas may be useful in responding to the FOA:

• Active and Passive Sensors: Active sensors are defined as those which involve the projection of energy (e.g., light or sound) into the environment and detect changes caused by the presence of hydrogen. Passive sensors are those which monitor the environment without emitting energy into the monitored area.
• Sensor Deployment Methodologies: Fixed, drones, vehicular, etc.
• Modeling: Capabilities including data analytics, site modeling, weather data integration, transport modeling, inversion calculations, emissions localization, and error quantification.
• Systems Integration: Packaging and integration of sensors and supporting hardware, and modeling and analysis capabilities to create an end-result measurement of quantified, localized hydrogen emissions.

As a general matter, ARPA-E strongly encourages outstanding scientists and engineers from different organizations, scientific disciplines, and technology sectors to form new project teams. Interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration spanning organizational boundaries enables and accelerates the achievement of scientific and technological outcomes that were previously viewed as extremely difficult, if not impossible.

The Teaming Partner List is being compiled to facilitate the formation of new project teams. The Teaming Partner List will be available on ARPA-E eXCHANGE (http://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov), ARPA-E’s online application portal, starting on April 30. The Teaming Partner List will be updated periodically until the close of the Full Application period to reflect new Teaming Partners who have provided their information.

Any organization that would like to be included on this list should complete all required fields in the following link: https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Applicantprofile.aspx. Required information includes the following: Organization Name, Contact Name, Contact Address, Contact Email, Contact Phone, Organization Type, Area of Technical Expertise, and Brief Description of Capabilities.

By submitting a response to this Notice, you consent to the publication of the above-referenced information. By facilitating this Teaming Partner List, ARPA-E does not endorse or otherwise evaluate the qualifications of the entities that self-identify for placement on the Teaming Partner List. ARPA-E will not pay for the provision of any information, nor will it compensate any respondents for the development of such information. Responses submitted to other email addresses or by other means will not be considered. This list is completely voluntarily to participate in and utilize. ARPA-E will not identify or facilitate connections through the teaming list and participation in the list has no bearing whatsoever on the evaluation of applications submitted to the FOA.

This Notice does not constitute a FOA. Applicants must refer to the Exploratory Topic M: H2SENSE FOA, issued on April 25, 2024, for instructions on submitting an application and for the terms and conditions of funding. Questions about the FOA should be directed to ARPA-E-CO@hq.doe.gov.

Introduction:

The purpose of this Request for Information (RFI) is to solicit input for a potential ARPA-E program focused on identifying transformative technologies across the helium-4 (“helium”) supply chain to decrease the delivered cost of helium from processes not dependent on natural gas production. ARPA-E is seeking information regarding alternative methods to safeguard future helium production in the United States and ensure helium availability for next-generation energy technologies. Specifically, ARPA-E is interested in identifying potentially disruptive concepts to: 1) develop innovative mapping technologies to locate new helium sources; and 2) produce helium using advanced separation technologies designed for novel sources and/or the enhancement of helium recovery and recycling.

ARPA-E is seeking input from analytical chemists, chemical engineers, geochemists, geophysicists, geologists, materials scientists, petroleum engineers, process engineers, subsurface engineers, and others with potentially relevant expertise. ARPA-E is also seeking input from prospective end-users of helium, including semiconductor manufacturers, welding technologists, and scientists and engineers working with superconducting materials (e.g., physicists, electrical engineers, biomedical engineers, aerospace engineers). This RFI is focused on soliciting input on methods that decouple helium production from natural gas production. The questions toward the end of this document are intended to assist relevant stakeholders in providing input on:

1. Advanced identification, mapping, and quantification of new sources of helium, including co-locating potential geologic sources of hydrogen, subsurface seeps, geothermal reservoirs, and engineering methods to increase helium recovery from geologic sources;
2. Potential separation methods for helium sources (e.g., membranes, electrochemical separations, and non-cryogenic methods); and
3. Approaches for recovery and recycling of helium that resolve technical or economic constraints.

Areas Not of Interest for Responses to this RFI:

Work focused on basic research aimed purely at discovery and fundamental knowledge generation is not of interest.

THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ONLY. THIS NOTICE DOES NOT CONSTITUTE A FUNDING OPPORTUNITY ANNOUNCEMENT (FOA). NO FOA EXISTS AT THIS TIME.

Respondents shall not include any information in the response to this RFI that could be considered proprietary or confidential.

Responses to this RFI should be submitted in PDF format to the email address ARPA-E-RFI@hq.doe.gov by 5:00 PM Eastern Time on Friday, March 15.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA–E) intends to issue a new Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) in July 2020 to solicit applications for financial assistance to integrate and scale up multiple ammonia synthesis technologies that were developed under financial assistance from ARPA–E.

Specifically, ARPA-E anticipates funding a single project where the lead organization (integrator), teaming with partners, develops a skid-mounted ammonia synthesis system capable of producing ammonia from air, water, and intermittent renewable electricity at a rate of a metric ton of ammonia per day. The project team will comprise current and former ARPA-E awardees who developed ammonia synthesis technologies, and these technologies will be incorporated into the ammonia synthesis system.

Respondents to this Teaming Partner List should identify as potential:

1) Integrators: Entities that have:

• successfully built, commissioned, and tested multiple skid-mounted chemical engineering systems that produced chemical products at a scale of hundreds of kilograms per day or higher, and have access to test sites with sufficient intermittent renewable electricity and water to produce ammonia at a rate of up to 1 metric ton per day
• testing facilities capable of working with and disposing of or consuming toxic, high pressure, or explosive components including hydrogen and ammonia up to the requested scale, with an excellent safety record
• an in-house facility and staff available to fabricate and assemble components for skid-mounted systems
• experience managing multi-party consortia
• a record of commercializing skid-mounted chemical engineering technology

Integrators are NOT required to have developed ammonia synthesis technology under an ARPA-E award.

2) Technology developers: Entities with ARPA-E funded ammonia technologies ready for scaling and system integration. These technologies may require additional, but minimal, optimization and scaling up prior to integration.

3) Vendors: Entities with commercially available technology required for ammonia synthesis, such as electrolysis and air separation.

4) Demonstrators: Entities with capability to operate test sites with sufficient intermittent renewable electricity and water to produce and utilize ammonia at a rate of up to 1 metric ton per day

More detailed information on the rationale behind the need to scale up and integrate ammonia synthesis technology can be found in the recent Request for Information (RFI) on Next Generation Ammonia System Integration Project DE-FOA-0002307. More detailed information on the background of the technology and competitiveness challenges ARPA-E seeks to address can be found in the REFUEL FOA.

As a general matter, ARPA–E strongly encourages outstanding scientists and engineers from different organizations, scientific disciplines, and technology sectors to form new project teams. Interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration spanning organizational boundaries enables and accelerates the achievement of scientific and technological outcomes that were previously viewed as extremely difficult, if not impossible.

The Teaming Partner List is being compiled to facilitate the formation of new project teams. ARPA-E intends to make the Teaming Partner List available on ARPA–E eXCHANGE (https://ARPA–E-foa.energy.gov), ARPA–E’s online application portal, starting in June 2020. Once posted, the Teaming Partner List will be updated periodically, until the close of the Full Application period, to reflect new Teaming Partners who have provided their information.

Any organization that would like to be included on the Teaming Partner list should complete all required fields in the following link: https://ARPA–E-foa.energy.gov/Applicantprofile.aspx. Required information includes: Organization Name, Contact Name, Contact Address, Contact Email, Contact Phone, Organization Type, Area of Technical Expertise, and Brief Description of Capabilities.

By submitting a response to this Notice, you consent to the publication of the above-referenced information. By facilitating this Teaming Partner List, ARPA–E does not endorse or otherwise evaluate the qualifications of the entities that self-identify themselves for placement on the Teaming Partner List. ARPA–E will not pay for the provision of any information, nor will it compensate any respondents for the development of such information. Responses submitted to other email addresses or by other means will not be considered.

This Notice does not constitute a FOA. No FOA exists at this time. Applicants must refer to the final FOA, expected to be issued in July 2020, for instructions on submitting an application and for the terms and conditions of funding.

The purpose of this Request for Information (RFI) is to solicit input for a potential ARPA-E program focused on the feasibility and impact of retrofitting an existing aircraft with electric powertrains developed under ARPA-E’s Aviation-class Synergistically Cooled Electric-motors with iNtegrated Drives (ASCEND) program for a full integration with the aircraft and to show full functionality of the electric powertrain. ARPA-E is interested in groundbreaking technologies needed for a full integration of an electric powertrain into the aircraft main electrical and propulsion systems, as well as opportunities in airport electrification. This RFI aims to identify potential participants and gather insights to inform the development of a future funding opportunity focused on this transformative technology.

Areas Not of Interest for Responses to this RFI:

Approaches not of interest include:

• Subcomponent (e.g., electric motors and power converters) development only
• Non-electric energy sources (e.g., hydrogen and sustainable aviation fuel)

RFI Guidelines:

PLEASE CAREFULLY REVIEW ALL RFI GUIDELINES BELOW.

Please note that the information you provide will be used by ARPA-E solely for program planning without attribution. THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ONLY. THIS NOTICE DOES NOT CONSTITUTE A FUNDING OPPORTUNITY ANNOUNCEMENT (FOA). NO FOA EXISTS AT THIS TIME.

The purpose of this RFI is solely to solicit input for ARPA-E consideration to inform the possible formulation of future research programs. ARPA-E will not provide funding or compensation for any information submitted in response to this RFI, and ARPA-E may use information submitted to this RFI without any attribution to the source. This RFI provides the broad research community with an opportunity to contribute views and opinions.

No material submitted for review will be returned and there will be no formal or informal debriefing concerning the review of any submitted material. ARPA-E may contact respondents to request clarification or seek additional information relevant to this RFI. All responses provided will be considered, but ARPA-E will not respond to individual submissions or publish a compendium of responses. Respondents shall not include any information in the response to this RFI that could be considered proprietary or confidential.

The purpose of this Request for Information (RFI) is to solicit input for a potential ARPA-E program focused on the development of technologies to recover high energy-value materials from wastewater to reduce energy demands and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with conventional sourcing and waste stream treatment. Wastewater in this RFI is broadly defined, and includes municipal, livestock, industrial, and mining sources. High energy-value materials under consideration are nutrients (i.e., ammonia and phosphorus) and critical minerals, where the latter are a group of 50 elements in the periodic table including lithium and rare earth elements (REEs).

Ammonia losses from wastewater represent more than 50% of ammonia demand in the United States, requiring approximately 0.4 quads of energy per year to supply (quads/yr) and resulting in annual emissions of more than 60 million metric tons (MMT) of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂ eq).

Metal losses in select industrial and mining wastewaters can be large as well. For example, produced water contains sufficient lithium to provide all U.S. needs (e.g., approximately 3,000 metric tons in 2022), while select mining wastewater can contain milligram per liter (mg/L) quantities of select REEs (e.g., cerium and neodymium).

The goals for this programmatic concept include the evaluation of technologies capable of efficiently recovering:

• Ammonia (or ammonia with phosphorus) as a high-quality feedstock for direct input to fertilizer supply chains or hydrogen carrier markets
• Critical minerals that can displace metal ore production or overseas procurement for domestic use

Capable technologies will be energy efficient, highly selective, and durable over extended use. Processes will involve few sequential steps and will be easily automated, easily adaptable to existing or new wastewater facilities, and scalable (e.g., modular).

ARPA-E seeks input from environmental, chemical, mechanical, electrical, biological, and systems engineers, organic and inorganic chemists, microbiologists, and others with relevant expertise. Additionally, ARPA-E seeks input from prospective end users or beneficiaries of such technologies. These include, but are not limited to, water and wastewater utilities, metals mining and processing companies, oil and gas developers, semiconductor facilities, intensive animal farmers, fertilizer producers and distributors, and raw metal suppliers.

This RFI is focused on soliciting input regarding novel approaches to recover industrial-grade high energy-value materials from wastewater that can directly enter existing supply chains. Such approaches may include but are not limited to:

• Highly selective separations that use adsorbents or membranes;
• Electrochemical, pressure, or thermal-driven separations;
• Catalytic, electrocatalytic, or biologically-facilitated reactions that promote recovery;
• Novel process designs that minimize energy use and maximize recovery; and
• Approaches to evaluate technical, economic, environmental, and technology-to-market feasibility of these strategies.

Areas Not of Interest for Responses to this RFI:

• Work focused on basic research aimed purely at discovery and fundamental knowledge generation;
• Efforts to recover only phosphorus with incomplete recovery of ammonia;
• Work focused on valorization of organics in wastewater; and
• Photocatalytic-driven redox reactions.

RFI Guidelines:

Note that the information you provide will be used by ARPA-E solely for program planning, without attribution. THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ONLY. THIS NOTICE DOES NOT CONSTITUTE A FUNDING OPPORTUNITY ANNOUNCEMENT (FOA). NO FOA EXISTS AT THIS TIME.

The purpose of this RFI is solely to solicit input for ARPA-E consideration to inform the possible formulation of future research programs. ARPA-E will not provide funding or compensation for any information submitted in response to this RFI, and ARPA-E may use information submitted to this RFI without any attribution to the source. This RFI provides the broad research community with an opportunity to contribute views and opinions.

No material submitted for review will be returned and there will be no formal or informal debriefing concerning the review of any submitted material. ARPA-E may contact respondents to request clarification or seek additional information relevant to this RFI. All responses provided will be considered, but ARPA-E will not respond to individual submissions or publish a compendium of responses. Respondents shall not include any information in the response to this RFI that could be considered proprietary or confidential.

The purpose of this RFI is to solicit input for a potential Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program focused on evaluating novel approaches to: 1) explore for naturally occurring subsurface hydrogen resources or geologic targets for hydrogen stimulation, and 2) develop methodologies to determine the recoverable reserves of hydrogen from natural accumulation or available through stimulation. These approaches will accelerate the discovery and economic evaluation of these resources and inform management steps needed to harness them.

ARPA-E is soliciting information for how the agency can foster innovation in technologies and methodologies that can accomplish the following goals:

1. Produce a suite of exploration technologies specific to detecting either naturally occurring subsurface hydrogen concentrations or viable formations for hydrogen stimulation on land and offshore;
2. Increase the accuracy and precision of detection for either naturally occurring subsurface hydrogen concentrations or viable formations for hydrogen stimulation;
3. Reduce the cost of exploration efforts for either naturally occurring subsurface hydrogen concentrations or viable formations for hydrogen stimulation;
4. Accelerate the discovery process of either naturally occurring subsurface hydrogen concentrations or viable formations for hydrogen stimulation;
5. Define the geologic processes surrounding production of naturally occurring subsurface hydrogen through either serpentinization or radiolysis of water;
6. Quantify the recharge of hydrogen reservoirs from hydrogen generative processes of naturally occurring subsurface hydrogen through either serpentinization or radiolysis of water; and
7. Inform resource prediction, site management, economic returns, subsurface engineering efforts, environmental impact and mitigation actions through better characterization and monitoring.

Areas Not of Interest for Responses to this RFI:

• Discovery or quantification of deposits of fossil fuel resources (e.g., coal, natural gas, oil) that may be converted to hydrogen;
• Identification of subsurface resources that may be only relevant for industrial production of hydrogen through electrolysis, methane pyrolysis, or any other process; and
• Funding for conventional drilling projects (e.g., “wildcat drilling” in locations that are not established oil fields).

RFI Guidelines:

Note that the information you provide will be used by ARPA-E solely for program planning, without attribution. THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ONLY. THIS RFI DOES NOT CONSTITUTE A FUNDING OPPORTUNITY. NO FUNDING OPPORTUNITY EXISTS AT THIS TIME.

The purpose of this RFI is solely to solicit input for ARPA-E consideration to inform the possible formulation of future research programs. ARPA-E will not provide funding or compensation for any information submitted in response to this RFI, and ARPA-E may use information submitted to this RFI without any attribution to the source. This RFI provides the broad research community with an opportunity to contribute views and opinions.

No material submitted for review will be returned and there will be no formal or informal debriefing concerning the review of any submitted material. ARPA-E may contact respondents to request clarification or seek additional information relevant to this RFI. All responses provided will be considered, but ARPA-E will not respond to individual submissions or publish a compendium of responses. Respondents shall not include any information in the response to this RFI that could be considered proprietary or confidential.

The purpose of this RFI is to solicit input for a potential future ARPA-E research program focused on technologies that enable high-resolution, wide-area subsurface mapping in order to identify opportunities for renewable energy technologies and the future low-carbon economy. Examples where advances in subsurface imaging will be critical include, but are not limited to, locating reservoirs for carbon capture and storage (CCS), identifying new geothermal sites, mapping natural accumulations of energy-relevant minerals, and assessing potential resources of geologic hydrogen. The goal is to better understand how subsurface imaging technologies today may need to expand, adapt, or improve beyond technologies which have been optimized for oil and gas exploration. ARPA-E is seeking information at this time regarding the state of the art in subsurface imaging technologies and transformative and implementable technologies that could:

1. Reduce frontier exploration costs for renewable energy or carbon storage projects by an order of magnitude or more, leveraging advancements in subsurface imaging, data collection, and data processing. For new renewable technologies or CCS projects, identifying potential geologic sites with the requisite properties requires honing in on sites from a much larger region, often in areas that have not been traditionally explored by oil and gas interests and where there is little prior high-quality imaging data. Isolating regions of interest could mean developing new, cost-effective wide-area subsurface exploration technologies, using a combination of imaging techniques paired with multi-physics models, using data processing or novel geostatistical methods to upgrade or augment existing datasets, and/or developing machine learning algorithms which can fill in data gaps.

2. Advance data processing to accommodate larger amounts of data and reduce processing time by orders of magnitude for wide-area and/or nationwide subsurface imaging surveys.

3. Dramatically improve project success rates. Successful technologies would result in outcomes such as reduced incidence of dry wells in geothermal energy projects or identification of new energy-relevant mineral deposits. These outcomes can be facilitated by acquiring higher-quality and/or more comprehensive data in order to discern sites with high probability factors.

4. Monitor dynamic changes in the subsurface over time (4D mapping) with more sensitive surveys techniques, more comprehensive models, and/or algorithms. ARPA-E expects that subsurface changes of interest to renewable energy or CCS projects (e.g. changes in rock morphology, active water-rock chemical reactions, fluid migration, fracture network development, biological processes) may be different than those typically modelled for the oil and gas industry and that current models may need to be expanded to include these processes.

5. Reveal opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration, combining the expertise of groups that traditionally do not interact, in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of dynamic geologic processes.

Note that some approaches may accomplish several of the listed items above. For example, reducing frontier exploration costs could help de-risk new energy projects. Likewise, interdisciplinary collaboration could result in a paradigm shift that would introduce new technologies or methodologies for subsurface exploration.

Responses to this RFI should be submitted in PDF format to the email address ARPA-E-RFI @hq.doe.gov by 5:00 PM Eastern time on December 1, 2021.

THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ONLY. THIS NOTICE DOES NOT CONSTITUTE A FUNDING OPPORTUNITY ANNOUNCEMENT (FOA). NO FOA EXISTS AT THIS TIME.

Respondents shall not include any information in the response to this RFI that could be considered proprietary or confidential.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA–E) intends to issue a new Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) in late October 2019 for carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technologies applied to fossil-fueled power generators, with a focus on the implications of changing patterns in the time-dependent value of electricity – as represented by a locational marginal price (LMP) – brought about by the increasing penetration of variable renewables such as wind and solar power. ARPA-E is interested in developing CCS technologies with cost and performance attributes that could enable a net-zero carbon electricity grid at a system levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) of $75/MWh. The technology focus would be to develop CCS processes that enable fossil-fueled power plants to be responsive to a grid with a large share of renewables; this includes retrofits to existing power plants as well as greenfield systems with a fossil fuel input and low-carbon electricity as an output (i.e. a “black box” in which the nature of the fuel-to-electricity conversion process is not prescribed).

Based on trends in the electricity grid, especially the falling cost of variable renewable generators and energy storage, ARPA-E expects that compelling process attributes could include, but are not limited to:

• Lower CCS capital costs, even if that entails some increase in marginal cost including parasitic load (given general trends towards lower capacity factors for fossil fuel plants)
• CCS processes that enable maximal power plant flexibility such as ramp rate, turndown, and startup and shutdown time
• CCS systems that include additional processes that enable a power plant to shift the export of electricity to the grid, thereby allowing the power plant and CCS plant to operate under more steady-state conditions even when subjected to fluctuating LMPs. Examples include but are not limited to energy storage and hydrogen production; the latter would be constrained to a scale compatible with current combustion turbine and pipeline infrastructure
• CCS processes that can cost-effectively achieve high CO₂ capture rates from flue gas (e.g. greater than 90% removal) and/or vary their capture rate based on market conditions
• Designs that increase the utilization of a point-source CCS process, such as integration with direct air capture (DAC) systems
• Processes that are designed primarily to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere, but can change modes to export electricity to the grid in times of high demand

ARPA-E anticipates a two-phased program. Phase I would focus on designing innovative CCS processes that maximize the net present value (NPV) of a fossil-fueled power generator with CCS across several carbon pricing scenarios (e.g. $100-300 per ton), given LMP price signals that reflect a grid with a deep penetration of renewables. These LMP signals would be provided as an input from ARPA-E.

Teams would develop steady-state and dynamic models of the power generator, CO₂ capture plant, and CO₂ compression system; validate those models; vary the process configuration and design and operational variables to optimize the NPV; and provide estimates for the capital cost, marginal cost, and fixed operations & maintenance costs. Teams would use LMP signals and carbon prices provided by ARPA-E and propose the dispatch of the power plant, thereby defining the capacity factor. Phase I would thus focus on process designs and computational modeling; experimental validation would be encouraged but not required.

At the end of Phase I, ARPA-E plans to hold an engineering design review with third-party reviewers to analyze the processes designed by awardees. In addition, ARPA-E intends to analyze the market potential of the proposed technologies with a capacity expansion modeling tool that estimates the build-out and utilization of each technology under a range of possible scenarios.

Based on the results of the capacity expansion modeling analysis and engineering design review, ARPA-E anticipates a Phase II that would build components, unit operations, and small systems to reduce the technical risk and cost associated with these CCS systems. Phase II projects would have a longer period of performance and larger budget than Phase I.

ARPA–E held a workshop on this topic in July 2019; information on this workshop can be found at the webpage (https://arpa-e.energy.gov/?q=workshop/flexible-carbon-capture-workshop)

In order to realize the goals of this program, expertise in the following areas may be useful:

• CCS technology development 
• Innovative fuel-to-electricity conversion technologies that are inherently amenable to CCS
• Process modeling of power plants, CO₂ capture processes, and CO₂ compression systems
• System dynamics and controls
• Engineering cost modeling of capital and operational costs
• Advanced optimization techniques that allow for a wide range of process configurations and design and operational variables to be considered in a computationally-efficient manner
• Processes that enable a power plant to shift output with minimal capital expense, such as energy storage or hydrogen production at a scale compatible with existing power plant and pipeline infrastructure
• DAC systems that could be integrated with point-source CCS plants and/or export power to the grid

As a general matter, ARPA–E strongly encourages outstanding scientists, engineers and innovators from different organizations, scientific disciplines, and technology sectors to form new project teams. Multidisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration spanning organizational boundaries enables and accelerates the achievement of scientific and technological outcomes that were previously viewed as extremely difficult, if not impossible.

The Teaming Partner List is being compiled to facilitate the formation of new project teams. ARPA-E intends to make the Teaming Partner List available on ARPA–E eXCHANGE (https://ARPA–E-foa.energy.gov), ARPA–E’s online application portal, in October 2019. Once posted, the Teaming Partner List will be updated periodically, until the close of the Full Application period, to reflect new Teaming Partners who have provided their information.

Any organization that would like to be included on the Teaming Partner list should complete all required fields in the following link: https://ARPA–E-foa.energy.gov/Applicantprofile.aspx. Required information includes: Organization Name, Contact Name, Contact Address, Contact Email, Contact Phone, Organization Type, Area of Technical Expertise, and Brief Description of Capabilities.

By submitting a response to this Notice, you consent to the publication of the above-referenced information. By facilitating this Teaming Partner List, ARPA–E does not endorse or otherwise evaluate the qualifications of the entities that self-identify themselves for placement on the Teaming Partner List.  ARPA–E will not pay for the provision of any information, nor will it compensate any respondents for the development of such information. Responses submitted to other email addresses or by other means will not be considered.

This Notice does not constitute a FOA. No FOA exists at this time. Applicants must refer to the final FOA, expected to be issued in late October 2019, for instructions on submitting an application and for the terms and conditions of funding.

The purpose of this RFI is to solicit input for a potential future ARPA-E research program focused on enabling technical advances which could lead to subsurface chemical reactors and gas separations. ARPA-E is seeking information to test the hypothesis that the subsurface can be used as a reactive environment to produce hydrogen at $1/kg, per DOE’s Hydrogen Shot target[1], and helium with no carbon emissions.

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION GUIDELINES

No material submitted for review will be returned and there will be no formal or informal debriefing concerning the review of any submitted material. ARPA-E may contact respondents to request clarification or seek additional information relevant to this RFI. All responses provided will be considered, but ARPA-E will not respond to individual submissions or publish publicly a compendium of responses. Respondents shall not include any information in the response to this RFI that could be considered proprietary or confidential.

Responses to this RFI should be submitted in PDF format to the email address ARPA-E-RFI@hq.doe.gov by 5:00 PM Eastern Time on July 11, 2022. Emails should conform to the following guidelines:

• Please insert “Response to Hydrogen-Helium Geochemistry - <your organization name>” in the subject line of your email.
• In the body of your email, include your name, title, organization, type of organization (e.g. university, non-governmental organization, small business, large business, federally funded research and development center (FFRDC), government-owned/government-operated (GOGO), etc.), email address, telephone number, and area of expertise.
• Responses to this RFI are limited to no more than 10 pages in length (12-point font size).
• Respondents are strongly encouraged to include preliminary results, data, and figures that describe their potential processes.

[1] Hydrogen Shot | Department of Energy

The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA–E) is considering issuing a new Exploratory Topic under Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs) DE‐ FOA‐0002784 and DE‐FOA‐0002785 to develop modeling tools to assist in the optimization of the national intermodal freight transportation system. These tools will provide guidance in both deployment of future low-carbon infrastructure and assets, as well as operational logistics improvements to minimize transportation-related energy and emissions while maximizing resiliency.

The intermodal freight industry has a good sense for what technology options will be available (e.g., battery energy storage, hydrogen fuel cells, zero carbon fuels), and approximate costs – but the execution and rollout strategy, on both spatial and temporal dimensions, is still unclear. These are significant financial decisions, and upcoming choices, such as on which fuel to commit a fleet to, could accelerate or delay national decarbonization timelines by years. It is vital that the industry work together and coordinate to maximize efficiency and effectiveness of this deployment. There are currently no comprehensive models of the intermodal system’s energy demands and supplies, especially including overlap and shared infrastructure between modes. This will require synthesis and coordination of many different information streams.

Previous ARPA-E programs such as LOCOMOTIVES and TRANSNET have addressed route optimization for single modes (rail freight and light duty passenger vehicles, respectively). Other government, academic, and private modeling efforts have targeted portions of the freight system and specific modes, but none so far have addressed its deeply interconnected nature, including the challenges and opportunities the intermodal system presents. An ideal model should provide the optimum route for moving goods across maritime, rail and road transportation systems with the lowest CO2 emissions. Considering the interwoven yet fragmented nature of logistics and freight transportation, with limited data sharing, misaligned incentives, and many different stakeholders, there is a need for top-down modeling efforts that cross intermodal boundaries. More information on the ongoing ARPA-E LOCOMOTIVES program may be found here.

Given the many challenges associated with modeling the extreme complexity of the freight system, there exists no comprehensive plan to direct how freight decarbonization should be achieved. Innovation within and across sectors will be required to identify new optimal strategies. If issued, this Exploratory Topic will likely consist of two complementary tasks.

(1) Intermodal Infrastructure Model: Develop models of the national intermodal freight transportation network (i.e., moving freight by two or more modes of transportation -- e.g., trucks, trains, and cargo ships) that enable prioritization for energy infrastructure deployment, along with data required for the effective deployment of this optimized distribution system

(2) Intermodal Logistics Model: Develop models of the national intermodal freight transportation system that enable predictive and responsive optimization of modal choice, inter- or intra- modal transfer, or routing.

As a general matter, ARPA–E strongly encourages outstanding scientists and engineers from different organizations, scientific disciplines, and technology sectors to form new project teams. Multidisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration spanning organizational boundaries enables and accelerates the achievement of scientific and technological outcomes that were previously viewed as extremely difficult, if not impossible. Furthermore, ARPA-E strongly encourages involving industry partners to advise and collaborate with these project teams, with the goal of achieving successful industry adoption and integration of the innovative technologies these projects teams develop.

A Teaming Partner List is being compiled to facilitate the formation of new project teams. ARPA-E intends to make the Teaming Partner List available on ARPA–E Exchange (https://ARPA–E-foa.energy.gov), ARPA–E’s online application portal, in January 2023. Once posted, the Teaming Partner List will be updated periodically, until the close of the Full Application period, to reflect new Teaming Partners who have provided their information.

Any organization that would like to be included on the Teaming Partner List should complete all required fields in the following link: https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/ApplicantProfile.aspx. Required information includes: Organization Name, Contact Name, Contact Address, Contact Email, Contact Phone, Organization Type, Area of Technical Expertise, and Brief Description of Capabilities.

By submitting a response to this Announcement, respondents consent to the publication of the above-referenced information. By facilitating and publishing this Teaming Partner List, ARPA-E is not endorsing, sponsoring, or otherwise evaluating the qualifications of the individuals and organizations that are self-identifying themselves for placement on this Teaming Partner List. ARPA-E reserves the right to remove any inappropriate responses to this Announcement (including lack of sufficient relevance to, or experience with, the technical topic of the Announcement). ARPA–E will not pay for the provision of any information, nor will it compensate any respondents for the development of such information. Responses submitted by any means other than via the link provided above will not be considered.

This Announcement does not constitute a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA). No FOA exists at this time. Applicants must refer to the final Exploratory Topic, expected to be issued in January 2023 under the FOAs noted at the beginning of this Teaming Partner List, for instructions on submitting an application, the desired technical metrics, and for the terms and conditions of funding.

Update as of 02/08/2023: The FOA/Exploratory Topic associated with this Teaming Partner List can be found at https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Default.aspx#FoaId521a7aa4-b255-4c3b-a211-b128d2a4a0e4. 

The Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy (ARPA-E) intends to issue a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) entitled Revolutionizing Ore to Steel to Impact Emissions (ROSIE), targeting new technology pathways to enable zero direct process emissions in ironmaking (i.e., zero-process-emission ironmaking) and ultra-low life cycle emissions for steelmaking at scale.

As described in more detail below, the purpose of this announcement is to facilitate the formation of new project teams to respond to the upcoming ROSIE FOA. The FOA will provide specific program goals, technical metrics, and selection criteria; and the FOA terms are controlling. For purposes of the Teaming Partner List, the following summarizes current planning for the FOA.

ARPA-E has identified two Technical Categories for ROSIE’s low emission iron and steel opportunities. Technical Category A ends with an iron product; Technical Category B ends with a steel product. Proposers in both categories must address emissions associated with ironmaking while producing either a relevant iron or steel product. An iron product may be a final product for direct use or it may be iron designed to be used in further steelmaking; the steel product must be a deliverable product in an existing or projected steel market.

ARPA-E held a workshop on this topic in September 2021; Information on this workshop can be found at https://arpa-e.energy.gov/events/zero-emission-iron-steelmaking-workshop.

The draft technical section FOA language is included as Attachment A to this document and the draft Cost and LCA Estimator Tool is included as a separate Attachment B. NOTE: THE ISSUED FOA, INCLUDING TECHNICAL SECTION AND LCA ESTIMATOR TOOL, WILL BE CONTROLLING, NOT THESE DRAFT DOCUMENTS, THOUGH NO MAJOR CHANGES ARE ANTICIPATED.

The following is a non-exhaustive list of the technologies that will be of interest for the ROSIE Program. All technologies must satisfy specified zero-emissions-ironmaking criteria.

• Aqueous electrowinning of ores: in acidic, basic, or neutral media; including the potential for the acids/bases to be produced on-site and recycled;
• Non-aqueous electrolysis of ores: using electrolytes of molten salts and eutectics; innovations in novel electrodes that will withstand operating conditions;
• H₂ plasma-based ironmaking: using microwave, arc, or other plasma generation methods;
• Biomass-based ironmaking: the use of low-cost emerging bio-feedstocks; innovative ways to process these feedstocks into bioreductants for specific utility in ironmaking;
• Biological and biomimetic ironmaking: siderophore derivatives or other catalyst mimics that selectively bind iron cations from ore and reduce them;
• Novel thermochemical ironmaking: methods to use nontraditional reductants, recycled carbon, or other new thermochemistry to process realistic feedstocks;
• Ironmaking from unconventional ores: mine tailings and other wastes; especially, taconite or other ores found substantially in the United States; co-production of iron and other metals or byproducts as enabled by using mixed-metal ores; and
• Other novel technologies: to produce iron from raw iron resources with zero greenhouse gas (GHG) process emissions.

The scope of the ROSIE program is framed to advance high-potential, high-impact technologies with the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from ironmaking to zero. Submissions that do not represent a significant innovation in ironmaking technology are out of scope. These are examples of technology concepts that would not meet the success criteria of this program:

• More efficient blast furnace technologies or direct reduced iron (DRI) - electric arc furnace (EAF) processes
• Adding carbon capture with sequestration to blast furnaces
• Transitioning from DRI using natural gas to DRI using hydrogen (H2)
• Ore beneficiation for blast furnace or DRI processes
• Biomass to make biocoke followed by standard blast furnace ironmaking
• Enabling increased quality and availability of scrap metal feedstock
• Reducing or removing carbon emissions in existing pre-processing stages such as sintering and induration

The ROSIE program goals are to develop low emissions ironmaking technologies that have the potential to scale to meaningful production levels at cost parity with existing technologies. The performance metrics will include the amount of non-biogenic greenhouse gas emissions from ironmaking process; the cradle-to-gate lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions; the process and product scalability; the target cost per tonne of product; and the target lab scale prototype at end of the project.

Several additional considerations will also be used for proposal evaluation, including the energy per tonne of iron or steel product; the process byproducts or waste streams; the process flexibility; the product viability; the pathway to scale from lab (grams/hour) to pilot plant (tonnes/year); and the final product qualification requirements.

ARPA-E project teams are required to construct and execute a commercialization strategy that is unique to their technology. Technology-to-market risks that may be addressed include the availability of the reductant for a chosen process, which may be electricity, hydrogen, sustainable carbon, or other technology-specific reagents. Other underlying cost and risk drivers that may be addressed include availability of the appropriate domestic ore feedstock and uncertainty in electricity pricing. To assist in assessing the potential for technology development and application, a basic Ironmaking Cost and Life Cycle Assessment Estimator Tool has been provided along with this announcement (Attachment B). The goal of this tool is to enable fair comparison of technologies using input data (e.g., CO₂ footprint of grid electricity) from a standard library.

ARPA-E is not interested in projects that exclusively consider the reduction of relatively pure iron oxide to iron. Successful applications need to demonstrate the reduction of iron oxide feedstock under conditions that will be industrially relevant to the commercial deployment of the proposed technology.

Due to a complex cross-disciplinary nature of the intended program, ARPA-E strongly encourages outstanding scientists and engineers from different organizations, scientific disciplines, and technology sectors with expertise in power electronics, optoelectronics, photonics, and other related fields, to form new project teams. Interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration spanning organizational boundaries enables and accelerates the achievement of scientific and technological outcomes that were previously viewed as extremely difficult, if not impossible.

The Teaming Partner List is being compiled to facilitate the formation of new project teams. The Teaming Partner List will be available on ARPA-E eXCHANGE (http://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov), ARPA-E’s online application portal, starting May 2023. The Teaming Partner List will be updated periodically, until the close of the Full Application period, to reflect new Teaming Partners who have provided their information.

Any organization that would like to be included on this list should complete all required fields in the following link: https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Applicantprofile.aspx. Required information includes: Organization Name, Contact Name, Contact Address, Contact Email, Contact Phone, Organization Type, Area of Technical Expertise, and Brief Description of Capabilities.

By submitting a response to this Notice, respondents consent to the publication of the above-referenced information. By facilitating and publishing this Teaming Partner List, ARPA-E is not endorsing, sponsoring, or otherwise evaluating the qualifications of the individuals and organizations that are self-identifying themselves for placement on this Teaming Partner List. ARPA-E reserves the right to remove any inappropriate responses to this Announcement (including lack of sufficient relevance to, or experience with, the technical topic of the Announcement). ARPA-E will not pay for the provision of any information, nor will it compensate any respondents for the development of such information. Responses submitted to other email addresses or by other means will not be considered.

This Notice does not constitute a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA). No FOA exists at this time. Applicants must refer to the final FOA, expected to be issued in June 2023, for instructions on submitting an application, the desired technical metrics, and for the terms and conditions of funding.

The draft technical section and LCA tool included as attachments to this Teaming Partner List will be discussed by ARPA-E Program Director Jenifer Shafer on June 15, 2023, at an ARPA-E Industry Day.

ARPA-E intends to issue a FOA focused on developing technology for the exploitation of Geologic Hydrogen as a sustainable source of hydrogen. The goal of this program is production at the lowest cost and emissions through the stimulation and extraction of hydrogen from subsurface mineral deposits.

As described in more detail below, the purpose of this announcement is to facilitate the formation of new project teams to respond to the upcoming Geologic Hydrogen program. The FOA will provide specific program goals, technical metrics, and selection criteria; and the FOA terms are controlling. For purposes of the Teaming Partner List, the following summarizes current planning for the program.

ARPA-E has identified two major technical categories and two supporting categories. Technical Category 1 is related to the investigation of stimulation methods to rapidly enhance the natural rate of hydrogen production from mineral sources. Technical Category 2 deals with the technologies in subsurface engineering, including the ways to contain, concentrate, and economically transport hydrogen to the well-head. Among these categories, ARPA-E has identified several modeling, characterization, and risk management needs that need to be associated with the technology development in Categories 1 and 2. Supporting these needs are categories focused on developing new ways to model and characterize the subsurface for the purposes of geologic hydrogen production (Category 3), and technologies to understand, predict and mitigate risks associated with the exploitation of geologic hydrogen as a resource (Category 4).

ARPA-E held a workshop on this topic in April 2023; information on this workshop can be found at https://arpa-e.energy.gov/events/geologic-h2-workshop. An Industry Day was held by ARPA-E Program Director Douglas Wicks on June 29, 2023.

The following is a non-exhaustive list of the technologies that will be of interest for the Geologic Hydrogen program. Within this list includes possible risk management, modeling, and characterization needs which should be addressed.

• Stimulation and generation: Technologies which enhance the natural rate of serpentinization or other equivalent hydrogen producing geochemical reactions (e.g., reduction of iron bearing minerals in banded iron formations, etc.).
• Subsurface engineering: Technologies which are related to engineering or creating subsurface hydrogen reservoirs, or technologies which can achieve a higher concentration/pressure of hydrogen prior to the well-head.
• Down-hole gas separation: Down-hole/upstream of well-head systems capable of separating subsurface gases to enable transport of higher purity hydrogen (in the case of production of coevolved or liberated gases). An example includes low cost, high flux, high selectivity membrane systems.
• Risk mitigation methods: Technologies that can predict, model, or prevent harmful side effects associated with enhanced stimulation of hydrogen generating mineralogical processes (e.g., serpentinization of ultramafic rocks). Focus should be given to understanding and addressing volumetric expansion, seismicity, hydrogen leakage and associated impact on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, biological effects, and subsurface contamination.
• Modeling approaches: Methods to predict the viability of subsurface resources for stimulated hydrogen generation, inform reservoir management, or assist with stimulation efforts.
• Characterization: Methods to map subsurface and ocean floor resources (ultramafic formations or other candidate formations) and quantify physiochemical properties of interest, specifically total Fe content, Fe(II) concentration, Fe(II)/Fe(III) ratio, specific surface area, permeability, or other parameters relevant to stimulated hydrogen generation.

The scope of the Geologic Hydrogen program is to uncover how underutilized mineral resources in the subsurface can be used as a new source of hydrogen with the lowest cost and emissions. Several other methods of subsurface hydrogen production or extraction are not in the scope of this program, such as:

• Gasification of existing hydrocarbon storages in the subsurface (e.g., coal, oil reserves).
• Subsurface conversion of methane into hydrogen.
• Technologies focused solely on extraction of naturally occurring/accumulating hydrogen.
• Methods of producing hydrogen that require carbon sequestration to meet program wide metric of GHG.
• Proposals focused on generating subsurface hydrogen through electrolysis of water.
• Technologies that are fully mature in other sectors (e.g., geothermal or oil & gas) and do not require substantial innovation to support subsurface hydrogen production.

The Geologic Hydrogen program goals are the development of technologies that can lead to hydrogen at the well-head of $1/kg H₂ with emissions <1 kg CO₂e/kg H₂ and deposit potential >1 million m³ of H₂ (per deposit). To achieve the program goals, performance metrics include enhancing the natural hydrogen producing reactions and producing downhole hydrogen that is sufficiently pure and concentrated. Technologies will also have to perform sufficient modeling, characterization, and risk management approaches that result from their stimulation or extraction methods.

ARPA-E project teams will be required to construct and execute a commercialization strategy that is unique to their technology.

Due to the complex cross-disciplinary nature of the intended program, ARPA-E strongly encourages outstanding scientists and engineers from different organizations, scientific disciplines, and technology sectors with expertise in catalysis, subsurface engineering, geophysics, and other related fields. Interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration spanning organizational boundaries enables and accelerates the achievement of scientific and technological outcomes that were previously viewed as extremely difficult, if not impossible.

The Teaming Partner List is being compiled to facilitate the formation of new project teams. The Teaming Partner List will be updated periodically, until the close of the Full Application period, to reflect new Teaming Partners who have provided their information.

Any organization that would like to be included on this list should complete all required fields in the following link: https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Applicantprofile.aspx. Required information includes: Organization Name, Contact Name, Contact Address, Contact Email, Contact Phone, Organization Type, Area of Technical Expertise, and Brief Description of Capabilities.

By submitting a response to this Notice, respondents consent to the publication of the above-referenced information. By facilitating and publishing this Teaming Partner List, ARPA-E is not endorsing, sponsoring, or otherwise evaluating the qualifications of the individuals and organizations that are self-identifying themselves for placement on this Teaming Partner List. ARPA-E reserves the right to remove any inappropriate responses to this Announcement (including lack of sufficient relevance to, or experience with, the technical topic of the Announcement). ARPA-E will not pay for the provision of any information, nor will it compensate any respondents for the development of such information. Responses submitted to other email addresses or by other means will not be considered.

This Notice does not constitute a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA). No FOA exists at this time. Applicants must refer to the final FOA, expected to be issued in August 2023, for instructions on submitting an application, the desired technical metrics, and for the terms and conditions of funding.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) is considering issuing a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) to support the development of new technologies to recover high energy-value materials from wastewater to reduce reliance on foreign imports, domestic energy demands, and greenhouse gas emissions associated with conventional sourcing and waste stream treatment. The purpose of this announcement is to facilitate the formation of new project teams to respond to a potential future NOFO. Any NOFO issued in the future would provide specific program goals, technical metrics, and selection criteria. If there are any inconsistencies between this announcement and the potential NOFO, the NOFO language would be controlling.

The anticipated goal of the program is to develop technology to recover multiple critical minerals and/or ammonia-based products from domestic wastewater sources. Critical minerals of highest interest are those designated by the Department of Energy as the 12 most energy and supply-chain relevant metals, including lithium, cobalt, and rare-earth elements. Ammonia-based products include fertilizers, other high-value nitrogen products, and hydrogen from ammonia oxidation. Wastewater is broadly defined and may include (but is not limited to) municipal, livestock, industrial, and mining waste streams. Capable technologies for recovery of high energy-value ammonia and critical minerals will be energy efficient, highly selective, and durable over extended use. Preferable processes will be continuous, involve few sequential steps, easily adaptable to existing or new wastewater facilities, and scalable (e.g., modular).

Several technical categories are foreseen to achieve this objective, including:

1. New functional-materials development to address the difficulty of separating and concentrating target ions of similar size, charge, redox potential, and solubility within the complex and harsh conditions of a target wastewater matrix;
2. Process derisking to enable continuous or repeated cycles of efficient recovery of a market-valuable product in minimal steps (again within the complex and harsh conditions of a target wastewater matrix); and
3. Process integration to ensure technologies are capable of energy-efficient and continuous recovery of market-valuable product in a real wastewater matrix, and that the process is scalable to anticipated wastewater flow rates.

For all categories, the final recovered products will need to include at least two targeted high energy-value materials, have greater than 90% recovery efficiency, and be commercially viable in the U.S. market.

Expertise in the following areas may be useful in responding to the potential NOFO:

• Organic synthesis, chelation, and/or redox chemistries
• Water/wastewater chemistry
• Synthetic/molecular biology
• Biologically-inspired separations
• Electrochemical separations
• Ion exchange separations
• Membrane separations
• Process engineering
• Wastewater treatment, operation, and/or management
• Techno-economic assessment

ARPA-E held a workshop on this topic in August 2024. Information on this workshop can be found at https://arpa-e.energy.gov/events/ammonia-critical-minerals-recovery-workshop.

ARPA-E strongly encourages outstanding scientists and engineers from different organizations, scientific disciplines, and technology sectors to submit their information to form new project teams. Interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration spanning organizational boundaries enables and accelerates the achievement of scientific and technological outcomes that were previously viewed as extremely difficult, if not impossible.

The Teaming Partner List is being compiled to facilitate the formation of new project teams. The Teaming Partner List will be available on ARPA-E eXCHANGE (http://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov), ARPA-E’s online application portal, starting in October 2024. The Teaming Partner List will be updated periodically until the close of the Full Application period to reflect new Teaming Partners who have provided their information.

Any organization that would like to be included on this list should complete all required fields in the form at the following link: https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Applicantprofile.aspx. Required information includes the following: Organization Name, Contact Name, Contact Address, Contact Email, Contact Phone, Organization Type, Area of Technical Expertise, and Brief Description of Capabilities.

By submitting a response to this Notice, you consent to the publication of the above-referenced information. By facilitating this Teaming Partner List, ARPA-E does not endorse or otherwise evaluate the qualifications of the entities that self-identify for placement on the Teaming Partner List. ARPA-E will not pay for the provision of any information, nor will it compensate any respondents for the development of such information. Responses submitted to other email addresses or by other means will not be considered. This list is completely voluntarily to participate in and utilize. ARPA-E will not identify or facilitate connections through the Teaming Partner List and participation in the list has no bearing whatsoever on the evaluation of applications submitted to the potential NOFO.

This Notice does not constitute a NOFO. No NOFO exists at this time. Applicants must refer to the NOFO, expected to be issued by November 2024, for instructions on submitting an application and for details on how projects will be funded.

Fusion energy has the potential to provide a safe, abundant, firm, zero-carbon-emitting source of primary energy, electricity, and heat. In order to achieve its potential and meaningfully contribute to the target of global net-zero emissions, fusion must demonstrate competitive economics on a short timeline. Therefore, there is an urgent need to provide a technological pathway to economical fusion power plants (FPP).

This RFI seeks broad input on two overarching themes: (A) Improving fusion power plant performance and (B) Increasing fusion power plant availability. While power plant performance and availability are intertwined in determining the cost of electricity, theme (A) includes technologies targeting the efficiency of plasma heating schemes, and advanced laser driver technologies, as well as economic and high-gain targets for inertial fusion energy (IFE). Theme (B) focuses on “designer” materials for plasma-facing and structural components. Candidate materials (solid and self-healing) should include, but not be limited to, the following features: minimized half-lives of materials, reduced dust formation, minimized fuel retention (e.g., hydrogen), minimized displacement per atom due to neutron irradiations, and high heat resistance (> 600 °C). Specifically, this RFI focuses on three technology areas for developing this pathway towards economically competitive fusion energy. The areas are:

• Efficient and low-cost drivers for plasma heating and assembly
• Novel first-wall and structural materials
• Low-cost, high-performance targets for inertial fusion energy (IFE)

The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) of the US Department of Energy seeks information that could inform ARPA-E's potential research and development (R&D) funding for these three areas.

THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ONLY. THIS NOTICE DOES NOT CONSTITUTE A FUNDING OPPORTUNITY ANNOUNCEMENT (FOA). NO FOA EXISTS AT THIS TIME.

Respondents shall not include any information in their response to this RFI that might be considered proprietary or confidential.

Responses to this RFI should be submitted in PDF format to the email address ARPA-E-RFI@hq.doe.gov by 5:00 PM Eastern Time on 11/28/2022.

Objective:

The Advanced Research Projects Agency –Energy (ARPA-E) in the US Department of Energy is seeking information concerning technologies to produce hydrogen and elemental carbon from the thermal decomposition of methane (also known as methane pyrolysis, methane cracking, or methane splitting). Recognizing that the value of the carbon product would be a key factor in the economic feasibility of such processes, ARPA-E seeks input from experts in the fields of materials science (including advanced carbon fiber synthesis), process engineering, methane pyrolysis, plasma chemistry, and chemical engineering regarding potential mechanisms for the bulk conversion of carbon materials, specifically from less valuable forms (e.g. amorphous carbon) or mixtures, to more valuable single allotropes or controlled mixtures of high-value carbon structures. Consistent with the agency’s mission, ARPA-E is seeking insights on clearly disruptive, novel technologies for such conversions, early in the R&D cycle, and not integration strategies for existing technologies.

Please carefully review the REQUEST FOR INFORMATION GUIDELINES below. Please note, in particular, that the information you provide will be used by ARPA-E solely for program planning, without attribution. THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ONLY. THIS NOTICE DOES NOT CONSTITUTE A FUNDING OPPORTUNITY ANNOUNCEMENT (FOA). NO FOA EXISTS AT THIS TIME. Respondents shall not include any information in their response to this RFI that might be considered proprietary or confidential.

Background:

The United States produces ~10 million tons of hydrogen annually, primarily for use on-site at petroleum refineries, and for the production of ammonia or methanol. However, the opportunity for hydrogen utilization in the future is vast, with potential applications in electricity production, transportation, and novel chemical processes. Already, hydrogen use in the transportation sector has seen rapid growth with 500 megawatts of fuel cells shipped worldwide in 2016.¹ Today, the vast preponderance of hydrogen produced in the US is derived from natural gas in a reforming reaction that produces hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Options for producing hydrogen without the release of carbon dioxide include reforming with carbon capture and sequestration, electrolysis of water to hydrogen and oxygen, and methane pyrolysis to hydrogen and elemental carbon.

ARPA-E is interested in transformative technologies for methane pyrolysis. Processes capable of methane pyrolysis include (but are not limited to) the following: thermal decomposition (both catalytic and non-catalytic, including solar thermal), non-thermal plasma, fluidized catalyst and molten metals. Carbon products produced via methane pyrolysis include metallurgical coke, carbon black, graphite, carbon nanotubes, and carbon fiber.²

The economics for methane pyrolysis are made more favorable when the carbon byproduct is valuable.³ However, processes that are optimized for hydrogen production may not produce valuable carbon products directly. Optimizing processes for both hydrogen and valuable carbon products is a daunting challenge. Technology that can economically convert less valuable forms of carbon to more valuable forms, either in-situ during the pyrolysis process or in a subsequent step, could enable large-scale hydrogen production from methane without the release of carbon dioxide.

In this RFI, ARPA-E is specifically interested in the conversion of existing carbon materials (which may be derived from the pyrolysis of methane) into higher value carbon materials.

In the context of hydrogen production from methane on an energy-relevant scale, it is important to recognize that the volumes of co-produced carbon would be very large. For example, the amount of hydrogen required to produce 1 quadrillion BTU (quad) of energy would be associated with over 22 million tonnes of co-produced carbon. Therefore, potential applications for the resulting carbon products have to be on a correspondingly large scale, e.g., on the scale of the construction sector or large-scale manufacturing industries. These applications will require the carbon materials to have useful macroscopic properties with regard to thermal, electrical and/or mechanical performance. The functional performance of the carbon materials will be determined by the molecular structure of the carbon, as well as by the arrangement and alignment of substructures at the nano-or meso-scale. Processes capable of changing the molecular structure, e.g. via rearrangement of carbon-carbon bonds, or of changing the solid phases (i.e. crystal structure or molecular ordering) may have the potential to convert a lower value carbon into a higher value carbon product. Examples include, respectively, conversion of amorphous carbon to carbon nanotubes or graphene, or the dispersion of carbon nanotubes and subsequent spinning to carbon fiber like materials.⁴

Purpose and Need for Information:

The purpose of this RFI is solely to solicit input for ARPA-E consideration, to inform the possible formulation of future programs intended to help create transformative technology for producing valuable carbon materials from less valuable forms of carbon. ARPA-E will not provide funding or compensation for any information submitted in response to this RFI, and ARPA-E may use information submitted to this RFI without any attribution to the source. This RFI provides the broad research community with an opportunity to contribute views and opinions regarding the interconversion of carbon forms.

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION GUIDELINES:

No material submitted for review will be returned and there will be no formal or informal debriefing concerning the review of any submitted material. ARPA-E may contact respondents to request clarification or seek additional information relevant to this RFI. All responses provided will be considered, but ARPA-E will not respond to individual submissions or publish publicly a compendium of responses. Respondents shall not include any information in the response to this RFI that might be considered proprietary or confidential.

Responses to this RFI should be submitted in PDF format to the email address ARPA-E-RFI@hq.doe.gov by 5:00 PM Eastern Time on June 4^th, 2018. Emails should conform to the following guidelines:

• Please insert “Responses for Upgrading Carbon Derived from Methane Pyrolysis” in the subject line of your email, and include your name, title, organization, type of organization (e.g. university, non-governmental organization, small business, large business, federally funded research and development center (FFRDC), government-owned/government-operated (GOGO), etc.), email address, telephone number, and area of expertise in the body of your email.Responses to this RFI are limited to no more than 10 pages in length (12 point font size).Responders are strongly encouraged to include preliminary results, data, and figures that describe their potential methodologies.

Questions: ARPA-E encourages responses that address any subset of the following questions and encourages the inclusion of references to important supplementary information.

What are recent developments in understanding and characterization of the required molecular, micro- and meso-scale properties of carbon materials for desired thermal, mechanical, or electrical performance in high-performance, high-value carbon materials?

a) To what extent is the fundamental chemistry of carbon-carbon bond rearrangements understood? This includes thermodynamics, mechanisms, and catalysis.

b) What is the state of the art in bulk-scale molecular transformations of elemental carbon species (single carbon allotropes or mixtures)?

a) To what extend is intermolecular carbon aggregation and/or realignment understood? This may range from changes in crystal structure to spinning of fibers.

b) What processes are known to modify carbon aggregation, crystal structure or alignment of carbon particles? Are the outcomes of these processes predictable?

c) What is the state of the art in bulk separations of different carbon structures?

d) What is the current understanding of the scalability of the possible transformation and separation processes?

a)What are recent advances in characterizing bulk samples of different carbon species, especially mixed samples with regard to their molecular and structural composition?

b) What new methods or approaches need to be developed to better characterize carbon rearrangement products and to improve the underlying processes?

Topics not of interest:

ARPA-E is not interested in approaches that use carbon materials primarily as filler in composites where the performance properties of the composite are defined primarily by the binder and not the carbon filler.

References:

1. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Fuel Cell Technologies Market Report 2016. [https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/10/f37/fcto_2016_market_report.pdf]
2. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. R&D Opportunities for Development of Natural Gas Conversion Technologies. [https://www.pnnl.gov/main/publications/external/technical_reports/PNNL-26726.pdf]
3. Keipi, T., Hankalin, V., Nummelin., and Raiko, R.,Techno-economic analysis of four concepts for thermal decomposition of methane: Reduction of CO2 emissions in natural gas combustion. Energy Conversion and Management, 2016. 110: p 1-12. 
4. Behabtu, N., et al., Strong, Light, Multifunctional Fibers of Carbon Nanotubes with Ultrahigh Conductivity. Science, 2013. 339: p 182-186.

Webinar:  In this webinar, ARPA-E Program Director Rachel Slaybaugh provides an overview of the Modeling-Enhanced Innovations Trailblazing Nuclear Energy Reinvigoration (MEITNER) Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA). https://arpa-e.energy.gov/?q=video-other/arpa-e-meitner-foa-overview-webinar

The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA–E) intends to issue a new Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to support R&D on advanced nuclear reactor technologies that enable safe, secure, and flexible energy production by nuclear fission with dramatically lower capital and operating costs. These technologies are expected to be deployed for electricity production and/or uses such as production of industrial process heat or desalination.

Nuclear power plants currently provide nearly 20% of the total U.S. electricity generation with 99 operating nuclear reactors for a total installed capacity of 98.7 GW. These nuclear plants are all conventional, light-water cooled reactors (LWRs), which have been the workhorse of the nuclear industry for several decades now. However, nuclear power in the U.S. is facing significant challenges of high operational and maintenance costs, the impending retirement of power plants as reactors near the end of their operational lifetimes, and very slow, expensive construction of new LWR power plants to replace retirements or supplement the existing fleet.

The U.S. and many other countries around the world have explored new reactor types beyond LWR technology, including different coolants, moderators, fuels, and reactor core designs. These advanced reactor concepts are commonly called “Gen IV” nuclear reactors. While there is great promise for advanced Gen IV designs, there remain a large number of technical challenges – ranging from understanding of fundamental issues in materials to systems-level engineering for safe, practical, and economical construction and operation – before they are ready for deployment.

ARPA-E is planning a new R&D program seeking innovative designs of advanced nuclear power plants and computational validations of these designs that can achieve safe, secure, and economical power production. The envisioned program seeks transformative designs and manufacturing technologies to achieve semi-autonomous “walk-away safe” and secure operation; extremely low construction capital costs; and dramatically faster construction and commissioning times based on technologies such as modular assemblies and factory manufacturing. The program seeks cross-disciplinary teams of innovators from the nuclear community and other scientific and engineering disciplines to instill new, creative approaches in solving fundamental challenges in nuclear power plant design, construction, and operation. Success in this program will establish a set of high-fidelity designs of new advanced nuclear reactors and set a path for the U.S. to lead the world in “Gen IV and beyond” nuclear power technologies.

In order to realize the goals of this program, expertise in the following areas may be useful:

Major experimental activities will not be funded under this program. However, it is the intent of ARPA-E to identify key experiments that need to be performed to validate the innovative designs in order to retire the key technical risks associated with the nuclear power plant designs. The proposal teams are encouraged to leverage other DOE Office of Nuclear Energy programs such as the GAIN (Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear) initiative (https://gain.inl.gov) to perform such experiments either during or after completion of the program.

As a general matter, ARPA-E strongly encourages outstanding scientists and engineers from different organizations, scientific disciplines, and technology sectors to form new project teams. Interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration spanning organizational boundaries enables and accelerates the achievement of scientific and technological outcomes that were previously viewed as extremely difficult, if not impossible.

The Teaming Partner List is being compiled to facilitate the formation of new project teams. The Teaming Partner List will be available on ARPA-E eXCHANGE (http://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov), ARPA-E’s online application portal, starting May 26, 2017. The Teaming Partner List will be updated periodically, until the close of the Full Application period, to reflect new Teaming Partners who have provided their information.

Any organization that would like to be included on this list should complete all required fields in the following link: https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Applicantprofile.aspx. Required information includes: Organization Name, Contact Name, Contact Address, Contact Email, Contact Phone, Organization Type, Area of Technical Expertise, and Brief Description of Capabilities.

By submitting a response to this Notice, you consent to the publication of the above-referenced information. By facilitating this Teaming Partner List, ARPA-E does not endorse or otherwise evaluate the qualifications of the entities that self-identify for placement on the Teaming Partner List. ARPA-E will not pay for the provision of any information, nor will it compensate any respondents for the development of such information. Responses submitted to other email addresses or by other means will not be considered.

This Notice does not constitute a FOA. No FOA exists at this time. Applicants must refer to the final FOA, expected to be issued in July 2017, for instructions on submitting an application and for the terms and conditions of funding.

ARPA-E seeks input from a broad range of disciplines and fields, including, but not limited to nuclear science and engineering, materials science and engineering, sensor science and technology, instrumentation and control engineering, automation science and engineering, power systems engineering, and safety by design for innovative concepts for technical innovation that will enable accelerated development and regulatory acceptance of modular nuclear energy options involving either Gen III+ or Gen IV design features. If made technically and economically viable, modular nuclear reactor technologies can augment large-scale reactors in providing clean, safe, secure, carbon-free electricity as well as heat energy for various non-electrical applications (e.g., industrial processes, mining activities, hydrogen production, and seawater desalination).

ARPA-E is particularly interested in innovations that enable reactor designs to be: 1) inherently safe (beyond passive safety) with multiple safety mechanisms to prevent core melting in case of a loss of coolant accident (LOCA); 2) extremely secure without exposure of radioactive nuclides in case of LOCA or an enclosure breach with a zero or near zero emergency planning zone (EPZ); 3) quickly responsive to external load variations with control mechanisms that can also add safety beyond passive cool down; 4) long-lasting with operational durations of 10 to 20 years without refueling; 5) substantially autonomous in operations with minimal operator intervention; and 6) proliferation resistant. Consistent with the agency’s mission, ARPA-E is seeking information on disruptive, novel technologies, relatively early in the R&D cycle, and not integration strategies for existing technologies.

ARPA-E will not pay for any information submitted under this RFI. All responses provided will be taken into consideration, but ARPA-E will not respond to individual submissions or publish publicly a compendium of responses.  Respondents shall not include any information in the response to this RFI that might be considered proprietary or confidential. Based on the input provided in response to this RFI and other considerations, ARPA-E may decide to issue a FOA. If a FOA is published, it will be issued under a new FOA number.  THIS NOTICE DOES NOT CONSTITUTE A FUNDING OPPORTUNITY ANNOUNCEMENT (FOA).  NO FOA EXISTS AT THIS TIME.  

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION GUIDELINES:

Responses to this RFI should be submitted in PDF format to the email address ARPA-E-RFI@hq.doe.gov by 5pm Eastern Time on June 17^th, 2016. ARPA-E will not review or consider comments submitted by other means. Emails should conform to the following guidelines:

Please insert “Responses for RFI for FOA DE-FOA-0001598” in the subject line of your email, and include:

• Your name;
• Title;
• Organization;
• Type of organization (e.g. university, non-governmental organization, small business, large business, federally funded research and development center (FFRDC), government-owned/government-operated (GOGO), etc.); 
• Email address, telephone number, and area of expertise in the body of your email;
• Responses to this RFI are limited to no more than 10 pages in length (12 point font size);
• Responders are strongly encouraged to include preliminary results, data, and figures that describe their potential methodologies

The purpose of the Renewable Energy to Fuels through Utilization of Energy-dense Liquids (REFUEL) program is to develop scalable technologies for conversion of electrical or thermal energy from renewable sources into chemical energy contained in energy dense Carbon-Neutral Liquid Fuels (CNLF) that can be stored, transported, and later converted into hydrogen or electricity to provide power for transportation and distributed energy generation. Because CNLFs can be stored for extended periods of time and then transported to consumers using existing and inexpensive technology for liquid fuel delivery and distribution, they offer a unique opportunity to reduce both the need for energy imports and carbon emissions from the transportation sector. In meeting that need, they also have the potential to enable increased penetration of intermittent renewable energy sources. The success of this program depends on developing technologies in two categories: (1) the synthesis of CNLFs using intermittent renewable energy sources and water and air (N2 and CO2) as the only chemical input streams and (2) the conversion of CNLFs delivered to the end point to another form of energy (e.g. hydrogen or electricity).

The purpose of the Renewable Energy to Fuels through Utilization of Energy-dense Liquids (REFUEL) program is to develop scalable technologies for conversion of electrical or thermal energy from renewable sources into chemical energy contained in energy dense Carbon-Neutral Liquid Fuels (CNLF) that can be stored, transported, and later converted into hydrogen or electricity to provide power for transportation and distributed energy generation. Because CNLFs can be stored for extended periods of time and then transported to consumers using existing and inexpensive technology for liquid fuel delivery and distribution, they offer a unique opportunity to reduce both the need for energy imports and carbon emissions from the transportation sector. In meeting that need, they also have the potential to enable increased penetration of intermittent renewable energy sources. The success of this program depends on developing technologies in two categories: (1) the synthesis of CNLFs using intermittent renewable energy sources and water and air (N2 and CO2) as the only chemical input streams and (2) the conversion of CNLFs delivered to the end point to another form of energy (e.g. hydrogen or electricity).

The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA–E) anticipates issuing a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) in February, 2016 for novel technologies to transform the way renewable electricity is stored and transported from remote generation sites to the end point customer. Current transmission and distribution technologies are expensive, suffer from substantial losses, and require large investments in infrastructure.

The overarching goal of this anticipated program is to increase penetration of intermittent energy sources and reduce carbon emissions. To achieve this goal, new cost- effective and energy-efficient technologies for generation of energy dense liquid fuels from renewable energy, water and air sources, and their conversion to electricity or hydrogen as an energy carrier for zero-emission vehicles must be developed. This program will likely operate at the intersection of electrochemistry, catalysis, materials development, chemical engineering, and device integration. ARPA–E held a workshop on this topic in August 2015. More information on this workshop can be found at: http://arpa-e.energy.gov/?q=workshop/bridging-renewable-electricity-transportation-fuels-workshop

Currently, ARPA–E anticipates that this program will have two areas of interest:

1. Generation of energy-dense liquid fuels using renewable energy; and

2. The use of these liquid fuels for zero-emission generation of electricity or hydrogen.

As a result, expertise in the following areas may be useful: (i) electrochemistry and electrocatalysis; (ii) heterogeneous catalysis; (iii) chemical engineering with emphasis on catalytic reactor design; (iv) electrochemical cell and stack design and manufacturing; (v) material chemistry including ion-conducting, sealing and multi-functional materials; (vi) separation techniques; (vii) process engineering; and (viii) system integration and scale up, etc.

As a general matter, ARPA–E strongly encourages outstanding scientists and engineers from different organizations, scientific disciplines, and technology sectors to form new project teams. Interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration spanning organizational boundaries enables and accelerates the achievement of scientific and technological outcomes that were previously viewed as extremely difficult, if not impossible.

The Teaming Partner List is being compiled to facilitate the formation of new project teams. The Teaming Partner List will be available on ARPA–E eXCHANGE (https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov). ARPA–E’s online application portal, starting in January 2016. Once posted, the Teaming Partner List will be updated periodically, until the Full Application submission deadline for the FOA, to reflect new Teaming Partners who have provided their information.

Any organization that would like to be included on the Teaming Partner list should complete all required fields in the following link: https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/ApplicantProfile.aspx

Required information includes: Organization Name, Contact Name, Contact Address, Contact Email, Contact Phone, Organization Type, Area of Technical Expertise, and Brief Description of Capabilities.

By submitting a response to this Notice, you consent to the publication of the above-referenced information. By facilitating this Teaming Partner List, ARPA–E does not endorse or otherwise evaluate the qualifications of the persons/entities that self-identify themselves for placement on the Teaming Partner List. ARPA–E will not pay for the provision of any information, nor will it compensate any respondents for the development of such information. Responses submitted to other email addresses or by other means will not be considered.

This Notice does not constitute a FOA. No FOA exists at this time. Applicants must refer to the final FOA, if any, that may be issued in February 2016, for instructions on submitting an application and for the terms and conditions of funding.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy (ARPA-E) intends to issue a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) entitled Reliable Electricity Based on Electrochemical Systems (REBELS) to solicit applications for financial assistance to fund new intermediate temperature fuel cell (ITFC) technologies that efficiently generate stationary power from fossil fuels in the near-term, while simultaneously building a bridge to a zero carbon future.  Currently, ARPA-E anticipates that there will be three specific areas of interest indentified in the REBELS FOA as follows: (1) low-cost, efficient, reliable ITFCs for small distributed generation applications, (2) ITFCs that are capable of in-situ charge storage in an electrode to enable battery-like response to transients, and (3) electrochemical devices that produce liquid fuels from methane using excess renewable resources. Fuel cell systems based on existing Department of Energy R&D programs, such as low temperature polymer exchange membrane (LT-PEM) and high temperature solid oxide fuel cells (HT-SOFCs), will not be areas of interest for the anticipated REBELS FOA.

Expertise in the following Technical Areas may be useful in responding to the FOA: intermediate temperature solid electrolytes; intermediate temperature electrocatalysts/electrodes with low or zero platinum group metal (PGM) loading; new approaches to activate carbon/hydrogen bonds for intermediate temperature fuel reforming; new approaches to direct reforming of fuels at a fuel cell electrode; novel fuel cell manufacturing processes without high temperature sintering; integration of fuel cell and battery functionality at the device level (rather than system level); and electrochemical production of liquid fuels.

As a general matter, ARPA-E strongly encourages outstanding scientists and engineers from different organizations, scientific disciplines, and technology sectors to form new project teams. Interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration spanning organizational boundaries enables and accelerates the achievement of scientific and technological outcomes that were previously viewed as extremely difficult, if not impossible.

The Teaming Partner List is being compiled to facilitate the formation of new project teams. The Teaming Partner List will be available on ARPA-E eXCHANGE (http://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov), ARPA-E’s online application portal, starting in October 2013. The Teaming Partner List will be updated periodically, until the close of the Full Application period, to reflect new Teaming Partners who have provided their information.

Any organization that would like to be included on this list should complete all required fields in the following link: https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Applicantprofile.aspx. Required information includes: Organization Name, Contact Name, Contact Address, Contact Email, Contact Phone, Organization Type, Area of Technical Expertise, and Brief Description of Capabilities.

By submitting a response to this Notice, you consent to the publication of the above-referenced information. By facilitating this Teaming Partner List, ARPA-E does not endorse or otherwise evaluate the qualifications of the entities that self-identify themselves for placement on the Teaming Partner List.  ARPA-E will not pay for the provision of any information, nor will it compensate any respondents for the development of such information. Responses submitted to other email addresses or by other means will not be considered.

This Notice does not constitute a FOA. No FOA exists at this time. Applicants must refer to the final FOA, expected to be issued by the end of the 2013 calendar year, for instructions on submitting an application and for the terms and conditions of funding.