DOE Opens 21st Year of University Coal Research Grant Program

Seeks Research Ideas to Clean the Environment, Support Vision 21 Design Concepts

The U.S. Department of Energy's Fossil Energy Office this week opened its 21st year of University Coal Research competition with a call to the nation's academic researchers to submit their best ideas for advancing the science and use of coal.

The focus of this year's request for proposals is to improve technologies for cleaning up or further protecting the nation's environment, including efforts to support the Energy Department's Vision 21 coal-based energy concept - a program to develop futuristic, nearly pollution-free energy plants that could be customized to co-produce electric power, fuels, chemicals and other high value products from coal.

The Department will offer approximately $3 million in federal funds for winning proposals. The request for proposals was issued today from the Energy Department's Federal Energy Technology Center. Proposals are due on December 13, 1999, and the department expects to name the winning projects in May 2000.

Since the program's inception in 1979 nearly 553 grants with a combined value of almost $96 million have been awarded. To date, 1,340 students have received hands-on research experience working side-by-side university professors in projects sponsored by the Energy Department's fossil energy program.

In the new solicitation, the department is allocating $2.4 million for seven specific research areas that create the "core" portion of the program:

• Sulfur by-products made from sulfur dioxide to create low-cost, salable by-products from sulfur-dioxide waste streams to improve the economics of cleaning up synthesis gas streams;

• Improved synthesis gas contaminant cleanup to offer cost improvements over conventional cleanup systems, such as integrated gasification combined-cycle systems, and operate above 250 degrees C;

• Solid oxide fuel cells to enhance overall performance by improving the static and dynamic structural ceiling characteristics of fuel cells operating in the temperature range of 500 to 1,100 degrees C;

• Water gas shift with integrated hydrogen/carbon dioxide separation to analyze gas-separation technologies that dramatically reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and enhance hydrogen production for fuel cells and other applications, and to seek experimental and theoretical gas-separation or water-gas-shift studies;

• Sulfur reduction to offer low-cost approaches that remove sulfur from transportation fuels to the parts-per-million level;

• Fischer-Tropsch catalysts to develop novel, inexpensive catalysts that resist attrition and poisoning, and have high activity and long life in systems that produce ultra-clean, liquid transportation fuels;

• Promising Vision 21 systems to examine how interchangeable modules can be assembled to produce a combination of power, fuels, and chemicals from fossil fuel feedstocks.

Projects proposed in the core program will be eligible for grants ranging from $80,000 for a 1-year project to $200,000 for a 3-year project proposed by a single university. Universities that team with at least two other academic institutions or with at least one other university and an industrial partner will be eligible for larger grants, up to as much as $400,000.

As in prior years, for projects in the core program, the department requires that a teaching professor team with at least one student who is working toward a degree in science or engineering.

The Energy Department also intends to set aside $500,000 for universities to study "innovative concepts." Rather than offering incremental improvements, the department wants these projects to suggest prospects for research breakthroughs in such areas as:

• membrane development for carbon dioxide separation,

• promising Vision 21 configurations, and

• Fischer-Tropsch catalysts.

Researchers submitting unique, "out-of-the-box" concepts could receive one-year grants under Phase I of the proposed Innovative Concepts area. As many as 10 such grants could be awarded. In this portion of the program, student participation is encouraged but not required.

Beginning in fiscal year 2001, the Innovative Concepts Program will include a second phase to solicit additional research on projects selected for Phase I. Only those projects receiving a Phase I grant in May 2000 will be eligible for Phase II funding in FY 2001, which will limit three-year projects to $200,000.

The solicitation is available electronically from the Federal Energy Technology Center's Web Site [Select Business, then 2000 Solicitations or click here to link directly]. Universities can also obtain the request for proposals in WordPerfect 5.1 form, by contacting:

Debra A. Duncan, Contract Specialist
Federal Energy Technology Center
U.S. Department of Energy
P.O. Box 10940
Cochrans Mill Road
Pittsburgh, PA 15236-0940

Requests can also be made by calling Debra Duncan at 412/386-5700 or by sending an e-mail to duncan@fetc.doe.gov.

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For additional information, contact:
Hattie Wolfe, Office of Fossil Energy, 202/586-6503, e-mail: hattie.wolfe@hq.doe.gov
Otis Mills, Jr., Public Information Officer, Federal Energy Technology Center, 412/386-5890, e-mail mills@fetc.doe.gov.

Technical contact:
Paula Flenory, Federal Energy Technology Center, 412/386-4781, e-mail flenory@fetc.doe.gov.