The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has selected six projects to receive $17.6 million in federal funding under the Office of Fossil Energy’s Novel and Enabling Carbon Capture Transformational Technologies funding opportunity announcement.

This FOA will address the cost and operational challenges associated with current CO₂ capture technologies that are commercially available for industry, providing for additional development to these technologies at coal-fired power plants. Some of the challenges that will be addressed include a need to improve the reliability and operational flexibility; reduce high capital costs; and reduce the high-energy penalty associated with operating existing technology.

The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) will manage the selected projects, which will concentrate on transformational technologies that fall under two areas of interest. Area of Interest 1 focuses on developing transformational materials and processes for carbon dioxide (CO₂) capture that will enable step-change reductions in the capital and energy cost. Area of Interest 2 focuses on enabling technologies that facilitate improved performance of transformational CO₂ capture processes to reduce capital cost and energy penalties, and improve operational reliability and flexibility.