Tag: Energy & Environment

Southern Research evaluates innovative NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE technologies

Posted on April 10, 2018

For more than a year, a Southern Research team has gotten a first-hand look at more than 20 technologies that aim to turn carbon dioxide emissions into valuable products as part of a $20 million competition challenging innovators around the world to develop breakthrough technologies that make valuable uses for carbon dioxide emissions, a leading contributor to climate change.

The NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE competition is now entering its final round, with this week’s announcement of 10 finalists now tasked with demonstrating their breakthrough technologies at an industrial scale under real-world conditions. A grand prize purse of $15 million is on the line.

With evaluations of these innovative technologies, Southern Research’s Energy & Environment (E&E) division played a critical behind-the-scenes role in the Carbon XPRIZE competition, beginning in late 2016.

“We were the guys in the field doing the technology evaluation and verification, collecting data on the systems, and making sure the technology is doing what the teams are saying it does,” said Tim Hansen, P.E., director of E&E and measurement and verification lead for the project.

NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE
Southern Research’s Tim Hansen, center, stands with members of the Carbon XPrize team and the Carbon Upcycling UCLA team with samples of UCLA’s innovative concrete product, which captures and sequesters carbon dioxide.

It’s been a demanding job. Between October and December 2017, members of the Southern Research team traveled over 95,000 miles to 28 different locations in six countries to monitor the technologies, which were required to use a simulated power plant flue gas stream.

The Southern Research team spent five days at each of these sites, observing the stability and consistency of the systems and how much CO2 was utilized as products were made. It also examined the quality of the products resulting from the technologies and amount of CO2 sequestered in products.

VAST POTENTIAL

The teams in the Carbon XPRIZE competition, who come from universities, startups, and companies all over the world, utilized a broad variety of approaches to convert CO2 into products ranging from carbon nanotubes, building materials and alternative fuels to fish food.

The commercial potential of these technologies is vast, with the Global CO2 Initiative estimating a $400 billion market opportunity for CO2 utilization products in the concrete sector alone, along with significant environmental benefits.

“It was really impressive to see what some of these approaches could do,” Hansen said. “It will be interesting to see how some of them can impact climate change via CO2 utilization. Some of these teams have a pretty significant capacity to utilize CO2 and to make products that are going to have some legs in the market.”

SCALING UP THE TECHNOLOGIES

The Carbon XPRIZE partnership played to a long-standing strength at Southern Research. For more than two decades, the Birmingham-based research organization’s scientists have developed protocols for testing new products to provide reliable, verifiable data about new technologies.

“Independent measurement and verification of team technology development is a vital part of the independent judging process,” said Dr. Marcius Extavour, Senior Director, Energy and Resources at the non-profit XPRIZE. “The Carbon XPRIZE was looking for a partner who was capable of working with a wide range of competitors, with varied and complex technologies.

“Southern Research’s breadth and depth of expertise gave us confidence in their ability to work closely with all the teams to showcase their innovative technologies and deliver high-quality verification data,” he said.

The Southern Research team submitted its technical reports to the Carbon XPRIZE organizers in December and January. An independent panel of judges selected the finalists moving to Round 3 of the competition during a February summit, relying on the data provided by Southern Research. The finalists are splitting a $5 million milestone purse.

NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE
Southern Research’s Tim Hansen, Nikki Batchelor (Carbon XPRIZE), Iman Mehdipour and Bu Wang (Carbon Upcycling UCLA) pose at UCLA’s analytical lab during verification of UCLAs carbon utilization technology for the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE.

“We developed an XPRIZE scorecard based on the data we observed from each team,” he said. “We were trying to provide data on the technologies and let the judges pick the winners. That was really our driver – giving the judges reliable information to base a decision on. There is a lot to consider when you’re trying to judge these technologies.”

During Round 3 of the competition, the teams will scale up their technologies to fully demonstrate their potential, using actual power plant flue gas. While Southern Research’s precise role in the nine-month demonstration phase is still being determined, Hansen said he will aim to set up instrumentation that will permit his team to collect and monitor data consistently and, potentially, remotely.

“For this round, since they’re at large pilot, near-industrial scale, we want to make sure the data stream is coming in consistently for everybody and that we’re getting everything the judges need to make decisions. We want to avoid those last-minute scrambles for information that occurred in Round 2 as teams worked hard to pull off their demonstrations. Round 3 is a much longer evaluation than Round 2, and requires significant planning and coordination with teams, host sites, and XPRIZE.”

The Round 3 operational round ends in February 2020, with winners and the grand prize announced the next month, according to the competition’s organizers.

GROWING MARKET

Hansen said Southern Research’s involvement in the high-profile NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE competition could provide a boost for the Birmingham-based non-profit organization’s technology evaluation efforts.

“I think there is a growing market for clean-tech investments and deployment,” he said. “As more technologies are developed and deployed, the people looking at investments in these technologies are going to want to know how they perform and what their impact can be, to reduce their risks and increase their benefits. We’re seeing that increased interest now, and we hope that this will spur more of it.”

He also thinks the technologies showcased in the competition are on track to turn CO2 into valuable commercial products and impact our climate.

“Even if you look at the teams that didn’t make the finals, there are some very valid, viable technologies there,” Hansen said. “The competition overall is actually helping to generate more awareness of the kind of breakthrough technologies that are out there, and it’s helping the teams get more interest that could drive the CO2 utilization market to develop faster.”

Stay up-to-date with SR’s research, discoveries, upcoming events and more: sign up for our monthly newsletter.


Low-cost carbon fiber project advances to pilot phase

Posted on January 24, 2018

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has selected Southern Research for an award of up to $5.9 million to advance production of high-performance, low-cost carbon fibers from biomass. The DOE award will fund development of a multi-step catalytic process for conversion of sugars from non-food biomass to acrylonitrile – a key precursor in the production of carbon fiber.

Thanks to its high strength and light weight, industrial demand for carbon fiber continues to grow in a number of fields, including defense, space, aviation, automotive, wind turbine production, and sporting goods manufacturing.

At its Durham, North Carolina facility, Southern Research is developing a method of producing acrylonitrile and other bio-based chemicals using renewable, non-food-based biomass feedstocks.

The DOE’s initial award, announced in July 2014, was divided in two stages. Phase I called for the completion of lab-scale studies to demonstrate the process and verify techno-economic viability. Phase II consists of constructing and operating a pilot plant to scale up the process to produce kilogram levels of acrylonitrile, while demonstrating process reliability and product validation.

Southern Research carbon fiber
The Southern Research team working on a process to make low-cost carbon fibers from biomass has secured funding to move the project to pilot production phase.

Southern Research successfully completed Phase I work in 2017 and met all DOE milestones. In late November, DOE authorized Phase II of the project, and Southern Research has started pilot plant construction.

Bill Grieco, Ph.D., vice president of Southern Research’s Energy & Environment, said the organization’s process for producing acrylonitrile from biomass promises to change the economic and environmental footprint for the carbon-fiber supply chain.

“The use for carbon fiber is increasing as manufacturers look to increase strength while also reducing weight of their products. Those manufacturers are also demanding lower cost and sustainably produced carbon fiber,” Grieco said.

“By focusing on the conversion of biomass-derived sugars to acrylonitrile, the key raw material in the highest-quality carbon fiber, Southern Research is enabling low-cost carbon fibers without any compromise in product performance.”

CHEAPER, CLEANER PROCESS

The process developed by a Southern Research team lead by Amit Goyal, Ph.D., associate director and the principal investigator on the project, produces acrylonitrile that is around 20 percent cheaper than conventional production methods. The process also results in a 37 percent reduction in greenhouse gases.

“At Southern Research we have developed an innovative, elegant process that utilizes biomass derived sugars from any source, allowing for the use of a variety of biomass feedstocks, to produce acrylonitrile,” Goyal said.

Southern Research carbon fiber
This graphic shows Southern Research’s process that converts biomass to acrylonitrile, a precursor of carbon fiber.

“This process could not only potentially improve economics, but may also improve the overall environmental footprint of carbon fiber production when compared to traditional manufacturing methods.”

Team members on the project include Solvay Composite Materials (formerly Cytec Carbon Fiber, LLC) and New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). The bio-based acrylonitrile produced by Southern Research’s process will be validated by Solvay, a major carbon fiber manufacturer, and compared with petroleum-based acrylonitrile as a potential direct substitute. NJIT will assist with catalyst characterization for optimizing catalyst performance.

“Solvay is very excited about the importance of this research and our ability to be a trusted and valued partner in the development of the next dimension of carbon fiber technology,” said Billy Harmon, carbon fiber research and innovation director for Solvay.

Stay up-to-date with SR’s research, discoveries, upcoming events and more: sign up for our monthly newsletter.


Southern Research develops gasifier technology to unlock coal’s potential

Posted on December 4, 2017

Southern Research has been selected to receive nearly $1.7 million in U.S. Department of Energy funding (DOE) to develop a new, cost-efficient gasifier capable of converting low-grade coal into synthesis gas (syngas) that can be used in a number of applications.

Birmingham-based Southern Research’s gasifier is based on a small-scale, modular design that is simple to deploy at site-specific locations, even at remote spots. The syngas produced can be converted into electricity, heat, chemicals, gasoline and other fuels, or a combination of these products.

The gasifier’s technology could open new markets for domestic coal, providing a boost to a major industry that is struggling with declining demand and massive job losses.

Southern Research coal
Santosh Gangwal and chemist Zora Govedarica examine the TGA gasification results of a Powder River Basin coal.

Southern Research’s novel gasifier will have a number of advantages over existing large-scale systems, said Santosh K. Gangwal, Ph.D., director of business development at the organization’s Energy & Environment (E&E) division and principal investigator on the project.

“Gasifier systems provide product flexibility, but large gasifiers have high capital costs and are complex to operate,” Gangwal said. “Also, the raw syngas produced by many gasifiers contains significant levels of tar that is undesirable and must be separated to prevent damage to downstream process equipment.

“The unique, simple, and modular Southern Research gasifier design has the potential to achieve low capital cost and to produce a nearly tar-free syngas,” he added.

UNLOCKING POTENTIAL

The Southern Research gasifier project is valued at $2.1 million, including $1.7 million in funding from DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy, which is seeking to foster the early adoption of modular coal-gasification technology. Southern Research and its partners on the project will provide $425,000 in cost sharing.

Partners include Murray, Utah-based Reaction Engineering International, which will lead the computational modeling effort on the project, and Mt. Prospect, Illinois-based Unitel Technologies, which will provide technical services on modeling, gasifier design and construction.

The project aims to move the technology through pilot scale development and testing, with the goal of being ready to construct a gasifier for a 1-5 megawatt energy conversion system at the end of the 36-month program. A system producing 1 megawatt of electricity would need to gasify about 1,200 pounds of low-rank coal an hour, Gangwal said.

The Office of Fossil Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory will oversee the project.

FLEXIBLE DESIGN

Advances in gasification technology represent an important facet of unlocking the full potential of domestic coal resources, which will improve U.S. economic competitiveness and contribute to the protection of the global environment.

Gangwal said the small-scale, modular design of Southern Research’s gasifier reduces financial risk while offering a conversion system with new levels of flexibility and affordability.

“Modular systems can be standardized and shop fabricated with standard designs that can allow simple assembly in the field and result in significant cost reduction for small plants,” he said. “Several shop fabricated small gasifier modules can be run in parallel in the field to increase the size of the plant to the desired scale.”

Although the project will target coal gasification, the system’s unique design incorporates operating adjustments to allow it to be used for other solid fuels including wood, agricultural resides and municipal waste, Gangwal said.

Bill Grieco, vice president of E&E at Southern Research, said the gasifier’s versatile design and its ability to produce tar-free, cost-efficient syngas using a variety of raw materials are major advantages.

“The technology being developed by Southern Research has the potential to expand the uses of the nation’s abundant fossil fuel resources by allowing coal to be utilized in new and cleaner forms,” Grieco said. “Developing and deploying lower-cost systems that convert coal cleanly to fuels and chemicals make sense. It helps drive energy independence and offers new opportunities for the coal industry.”

Slightly more than 30 percent of the nation’s electricity was generated from coal in 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Coal production in the United States declined 18 percent in 2016 from the previous year, hitting the lowest level of production since 1978, the agency said.

 

 

Southern Research’s Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) capabilities put NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE technologies to the test

Posted on October 30, 2017

Over the past year, Southern Research’s Energy & Environment division has partnered with the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE to verify data submitted by competitors. The $20 million global competition is focused on finding new technologies that convert carbon dioxide emissions into useful products.

“XPRIZE is the global leader in designing and implementing innovative competition models to solve the world’s grand challenges,” said Marcius Extavour, Senior Director, Energy and Resources at the non-profit XPRIZE Foundation.

In order to drive and scale positive change, XPRIZE uses a unique combination of resources to inspire technology development that will have an exponential impact on today’s environmental, social, and technological issues.

Southern Research’s Tim Hansen, center, stands with members of the Carbon XPrize team and the Carbon Upcycling UCLA team with samples of UCLA’s innovative concrete product, which captures and sequesters carbon dioxide.

The Carbon XPRIZE has attracted a large range of entries, as the competition’s ambitious focus is on transforming a significant greenhouse gas into innovative new products. It’s up to the Southern Research E&E Measurement & Verification team to make sure those technologies actually work like the developers claim, and beneficially re-use CO2.

“You’re looking at taking CO2, capturing it from flue gas from power generation at a coal-fired power plant or natural gas-fired power plant, and using that CO2 to make something useful, which could be a fuel, chemical, concrete product, algae, or cattle feed,” said Tim Hansen, P.E., Director of Energy & Environment and Measurement & Verification Lead for the project.

Around 20 teams remain in the competition, and are now entering a Round 2 evaluation program. The teams themselves will gather data on their systems, including their carbon conversion performance, land use, water use, and the net value of their products. The information will then be sent to Southern Research for verification. Southern Research verification engineers will perform on-site observations, evaluations, and audits of the team’s pilot scale systems to verify each team’s claims.

ETV CAPABILITIES

The partnership also plays to a long-standing strength at Southern Research. For more than two decades, the non-profit research organization’s scientists have developed protocols for testing new products to provide reliable, verifiable data about novel technologies.

“We’ve got a strong focus on evaluating innovative, clean technologies in a variety of forms,” Hansen said. “These can range from clean vehicles and fuel and clean electricity generation technology to clean, green, and sustainable chemical processes, and renewable energy.”

This range of capabilities is exactly what attracted the Carbon XPRIZE’s interest. XPRIZE first learned about Southern Research’s environmental technology verification services at an industry conference.

“Independent measurement and verification of team technology development is a vital part of the independent judging process,” Extavour said. “The Carbon XPRIZE was looking for a partner who was capable of working with a wide range of competitors, with varied and complex technologies.”

Over the years, the ETV capabilities of Southern Research’s E&E division have expanded to encompass all parts of the technology development process.

“We can test and evaluate while you’re still tinkering with the proof of concept on the laboratory scale all the way through commercial scale technology deployed in the field in a real working environment,” Hansen said. “We have scientists, engineers, facilities, and capabilities to address that whole range of energy and environmental technology development and testing programs.”

Southern Research’s Tim Hansen, Nikki Batchelor (Carbon XPRIZE), Iman Mehdipour and Bu Wang (Carbon Upcycling UCLA) pose at UCLA’s analytical lab during verification of UCLAs carbon utilization technology for the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE.

As a result of their prominence in the field, Hansen was invited to serve on an international panel to establish an international standard for evaluating and verifying environmental technologies. This work resulted in the development and issuance of ISO 14034: Environmental Technology Verification, a standard that was recently adopted by the American National Standards Institute.

In addition to technology verifications, Southern Research’s ETV work also includes managing demonstration and testing of these new technologies.

These demonstration and testing programs collect high-quality, dependable data about a product’s performance. Though the approach to both follows the same general format, with demonstration programs focused on testing a technology’s performance, while verifications focused on validating information, data, test methods, and results of tests performed by other labs.

Typically, the technology demonstration and testing programs have two stages: a controlled test within the lab, and an evaluation in a real-world operating environment.

“The controlled testing lets us run the tech through its paces and evaluate its performance over a wide range,” Hansen said. “We can see how it works under different conditions that we can control. Phase 2 is typically real-world operations for a month, six months, or a year. We deploy the technology, perform measurements, and monitor the performance during its normal daily operation, which can be significantly different than a controlled lab test.”

Extavour said the Southern Research E&E team is playing a critical role in the operations of the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE.

“Southern Research’s breadth and depth of expertise gave us confidence in their ability to work closely with all semifinalist teams to showcase their innovative technologies and deliver high quality verification data,” he said.

Over the next two months, the Southern Research Carbon XPRIZE Measurement & Verification Team will be embarking on visits to more than 25 locations around the globe to verify each innovative CO2 capture and utilization technology. These verification reports will be provided to the Carbon XPRIZE judges, who will then decide which teams advance to the final round of the competition.

Southern Research Oxmoor campus marks 25th anniversary milestone

Posted on October 24, 2017

Southern Research hosted a special event to mark the 25th anniversary of the opening of its Oxmoor campus, where the organization’s staff have tackled complex technical challenges in support of the space program, critical defense systems, and important energy issues.

The event took place Oct. 25 at the facility at 757 Tom Martin Drive off Lakeshore Parkway in Birmingham.

“The opening of the Oxmoor campus represented a milestone for Southern Research because the facility has provided our team with a unique expansion space to help advance important programs in aerospace and defense,” said Art Tipton, Ph.D., the organization’s president and CEO. “And with expansion, it has been a great center for our growing energy and environment focus.”

“The work conducted by Southern Research at the Oxmoor campus has always focused on making discoveries that propel science and technical knowledge forward,” he added. “That mission is going to continue well into the future.”

Largely designed by Southern Research engineers, the Oxmoor facility was set up for flexible lab space to meet the changing demands of the staff’s work. Its labs are packed with one-of-a-kind instruments and devices invented by Southern Research engineers for tasks such as testing materials in extreme environments like those encountered by spacecraft.

In 2016, the organization’s Energy & Environment division moved to the Oxmoor campus, where it is conducting research on solar panels and next-generation energy storage systems, and operating a new economic development-focused initiative called The Prosperity Fund.

IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTIONS

Southern Research officially opened the Oxmoor facility on Oct. 9, 1992, after a dedication ceremony attended by Gov. Guy Hunt and community leaders. “It is most gratifying to see first-hand evidence of Alabama’s growing prominence in high-technology research and development,” Hunt said in his speech.

Visitors entering the main lab on a tour that day saw a giant replica of the Space Shuttle, reflecting Southern Research’s deep involvement in the NASA program.

With activities centered at the Oxmoor facility, Southern Research remains one of the few organizations in the world where the thermal and mechanical properties of materials are routinely studied at temperatures reaching into thousands of degrees.

“One thing that makes this facility unique is that we have been able to assemble under one roof some of the world’s top experts in advanced materials under extreme environments,” said Michael D. Johns, vice president of the Engineering division.

“The facility is full of one-of-a-kind extreme environment test facilities that simulate everything from cryogenic exposure of space telescopes to the extreme heat of earth atmospheric reentry.”

In addition to the Space Shuttle, Southern Research engineers have made significant contributions to the development of spacecraft technology for NASA programs such as the James Webb Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, Johns said.

Other important work at the Oxmoor center has focused on the development of flight systems capable of traveling more than six times the speed of sound, and the creation of an airborne high-altitude video system capable of recording high-definition images at great distances.

The system, called AIRS/DyNAMITE, was deployed on a NASA-sponsored mission to capture unprecedented images of the Sun and Mercury during this year’s total solar eclipse.

Johns said Southern Research engineers will participate in many critical programs in the future. These include developing technologies related to NASA’s planned missions to Mars and next-generation space telescopes. They’ll also be focusing on cyber security, additive manufacturing, and the modernization of the nation’s aging missile fleets, he added.

EXPANDING FOOTPRINT

Meanwhile, the Energy & Environment (E&E) division is expanding its footprint at the Oxmoor campus by moving into a 28,000-square-foot expansion of the site commissioned in 2012, according to Bill Grieco, Ph.D., the division’s vice president.

The Southeast Solar Research Center, located at the Oxmoor site, permits E&E researchers to assess the reliability and cost performance of solar panels under field and lab conditions. Southern Research’s key partners in the project are Southern Company, the Department of Energy, and the Electric Power Research Institute.

E&E also recently launched the Energy Storage Research Center to focus on the integration and testing of advanced energy storage technologies, which promise to bring major changes to industries ranging from automotive to electric utilities.

The Prosperity Fund, whose goals are to foster job creation and spur entrepreneurial activity in four central Alabama counties, is a new initiative for Southern Research’s E&E team. The work will set the stage for future job creation and business consulting opportunities with an initial focus on communities impacted by the loss of coal jobs, Grieco

Entrepreneur Steven Puckett joins Prosperity Fund leadership

Posted on October 5, 2017

Business consultant and serial entrepreneur Steven Puckett has been named managing director of Southern Research’s Prosperity Fund, a $2.4 million initiative that seeks to inject economic vitality into four Alabama counties hit hard by the coal industry’s downturn.

Puckett, who has launched several technology companies, is responsible for advancing the Prosperity Fund’s strategic objectives of assisting business growth, stimulating start-up activity, and spurring job creation in Walker, Fayette, Tuscaloosa and Jefferson counties.

Since joining Southern Research in August, Puckett has begun connecting with small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs in the region to develop a deeper understanding of their needs and challenges.

Southern Research Prosperity Fund
As managing director of the Prosperity Fund, Steven Puckett, left, will work to assist small businesses in four hard-hit Alabama coal counties. He’s speaking with Edmon Aaron, founder of A&A Machine in Walker County.

In addition, he is establishing ties with existing businesses, colleges and universities, economic development groups, potential investors, and community leaders throughout the region to harness available resources that can benefit the initiative’s participants.

Corey Tyree, Ph.D., director of Energy & Environment-Alabama for Southern Research and co-founder of the Prosperity Fund, said Puckett’s extensive experience in consulting and launching tech startups makes him an ideal choice for the key role of managing director.

“To create jobs, we need growing companies in this region. Growth is hard and entrepreneurs have to overcome numerous challenges along the way. Steven has been able to quickly identify those challenges and address them himself, or find others in his network to pitch in. Steven started helping small businesses in his first week on the job and it’s exciting to see him making a difference in these four counties.” Tyree said.

“He’s an entrepreneur. He learned to be resourceful and make use of community assets. He’s helping other small enterprises do the same thing in order to grow and create jobs in this region,” he added.

CREATING A MODEL

Southern Research launched the Prosperity Fund this year after receiving a $1.2 million grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) as part of a broader program to strengthen coal-impacted communities in the region. Southern Research and its partners are matching the ARC funding in the initiative.

The four counties being served by the Prosperity Fund represent the backbone of Alabama coal industry, which had its beginnings in the 1850s. The U.S. coal industry’s recent downturn has delivered a staggering blow to these counties, both in terms of lost jobs and vanishing earnings.

Southern Research Prosperity Fund
The Prosperity Fund’s Steven Puckett has experience starting and managing businesses.

Between 2012 and 2016, more than 2,500 coal miners lost their jobs in the Prosperity Fund region, wiping out $206 million in wages. When the ripple effects are considered, the toll on the counties has been significantly worse, with 13,000 additional job losses and another $600 million in lost wages.

“We’re really focused on helping the Alabama communities affected by the coal downturn by trying to replace some of the jobs that were lost,” Puckett said. “Positioning small businesses to thrive will add vitality to entire economies.”

The Prosperity Fund has a set goal of assisting 10 existing businesses and 10 startups, creating at least 80 jobs in the four-county region. The initiative is also seeking to increase business revenue by $11 million and leverage $6 million in private investment in these counties.

Puckett is in the process of assisting businesses in multiple aspects of their operations, ranging from customer discovery and technical processes to software integration. He also plans to develop broader small business programs such as workshops focused on small business procurement, lending, and human resources, and more.

“Our goal is to lend our capabilities as an organization to small business owners in this region to attack the issues that keep them from growing and creating jobs,” Puckett said. “Their success is critical to job growth and diversification of Alabama’s economy.”

Southeast Energy Storage Symposium showcases disruptive technology

Posted on September 14, 2017

Southern Research is hosting the Southeast Energy Storage Symposium, which will offer insights from top experts and policymakers on disruptive technologies in energy storage that are poised to spark major changes for electric utilities and other industries.

The symposium, the first of its kind in the region, is designed to cover all aspects of energy storage, which encompasses a broad range of technologies that capture energy for use when it’s needed. The event is scheduled for Sept. 27 and 28 at both of Southern Research’s Birmingham campuses.

Bert Taube, Ph.D., senior principal investigator for Energy Storage in Birmingham-based Southern Research’s Energy & Environment division, said the symposium aims to comprehensively address developments taking place throughout the energy storage landscape.

Southern Research PV panels
Southern Research operates the Southeast Solar Research Center, where the performance and longevity of solar PV panels are tested.

“This symposium is gathering energy storage leaders from across the U.S. with expertise in different fields – technology, economics, policy – at a time when innovation is making these systems more capable of performing reliably on an industrial scale,” Taube said.

“It covers all facets of the topic, from the technologies and their commercialization in various industrial applications to the manufacturing, integration, operation and maintenance of large-scale energy storage systems to drive grid modernization with enhanced reliability and performance in the U.S. Southeast,” he added.

TECHNOLOGY ON DISPLAY

The symposium’s speakers and panelists include highly regarded professionals from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the Pacific Northwest, Oak Ridge and Sandia National Laboratories, Southeastern utilities, manufacturers and regulators. Among the participants:

  • Imre Gyuk, Ph.D., director of energy storage research in the DOE’s Office of Electricity and Energy Reliability, who is considered a central figure in the developing field.
  • Mike Bush, manager of generation planning and development at Southern Company, where he provides leadership and strategic direction for supply side technology evaluation and integration, asset valuation, asset acquisition, project development and pre-commercial asset management for Southern Company’s retail operation companies.
  • Gary Brinkworth, director of enterprise research & technology innovation at Tennessee Valley Authority, where he leads the team responsible for coordinating the company’s R&D efforts.
  • Haresh Kamath, senior program manager for distributed energy resources at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), where he manages research into the development and application of energy storage systems.
  • Vincent Sprenkle, Ph.D., technical group manager for the electrochemical materials and systems group at Pacific Northwest National Lab and manager of the energy storage portfolio for the Department of Energy.
  • Bharat Balasubramanian, Ph.D., a former R&D engineer for Mercedes-Benz who now serves as executive director of the University of Alabama’s Center for Advanced Vehicle Technologies.
  • Donald Baxter, CEO of Alabama Graphite and one of the premier graphite experts in the world known for his coated spherical purified graphite battery-ready program in the industry.

Southern Company’s Steve Baxley, a panelist at the event, said energy storage systems have important implications for electric utilities, potentially allowing them to smooth out demand peaks with power produced earlier from other sources, including renewables such as solar and wind.

“Today, whenever you flip a light switch on, the energy provider has to instantly match power generation to that change in demand,” said Baxley, an R&D manager who directs the Atlanta-based utility’s renewable, energy storage and distributed generation pilot projects.

“Instead of having to follow demand, we could harness this new technology to optimize generation to be more efficient – ultimately providing greater value to our customers,” he added.

Energy Storage Southern Research
Bert Taube is senior principal investigator for Energy Storage at Southern Research.

Those attending the symposium will also see technology displays and tour the Southeast Solar Research Center, a collaborative effort between Southern Research, Southern Company and its subsidiaries, and EPRI, where the performance and longevity of solar PV panels are being tested.

They’ll also see the Energy Storage Research Center, which is being developed as a platform for testing and validating technologies that could bring energy storage systems into operation at grid scale. The center will also be capable of researching industrial applications such as automotive.

Southern Research is launching the Energy Storage Research Center in collaboration with Southern Company and its Alabama Power subsidiary, DOE, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, EPRI and the State of Alabama.

CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY

Experts say energy storage systems represent a critical technology in the smart electricity grids envisioned for the future. Significantly, these systems will support the integration of renewable energy generation, helping to lower costs and cut emissions.

The energy storage market is poised for rapid growth. In 2013, the installed base of these systems was a mere 0.34 gigawatts (GW), according to the Energy Storage Association, an industry group. This year, annual installation reached 6 GW. In 2022, the figure will be over 40 GW.

Bill Grieco, Ph.D., vice president of Southern Research’s Energy & Environment division, said the organization is positioned to participate in the long-term growth of energy storage systems as they become fully integrated into electric power management.

“Our new Energy Storage Research Center will serve as an industry-wide resource to support emerging energy storage technologies,” Grieco said. “Working with a range of collaborators, we will develop joint energy storage research test projects and independently evaluate technologies to speed the development and commercialization of these systems.”

Southern Company is serving as host utility for the Southeast Energy Storage Symposium. Sponsors are CSA Group, EOS, UniEnergy Technologies, ZeroRPM, AES Energy Storage, and NEI.

Southern Research to play key role in low cost carbon fiber project

Posted on August 17, 2017

Southern Research is part of a team exploring clean, cost-efficient approaches of producing carbon fiber from coal and other sources.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) recently announced that Western Research Institute (WRI) was selected for an award with DOE funding of $3,745,413 to develop low cost carbon fiber components using various resources as the feedstock, such as coal and biomass. With partner cost share included, the overall value of the project as proposed is nearly $7 million.

Southern Research’s Energy & Environment division (E&E) will participate as a subcontractor to WRI to provide renewable acrylonitrile — the key raw material needed to produce the highest quality carbon fibers — produced from biomass-derived second generation sugars.

“At Southern Research we have developed an innovative, thermocatalytic process that converts second generation sugars obtained from biomass to acrylonitrile,” said Amit Goyal, Ph.D., manager, Sustainable Chemistry and Catalysis and principal investigator for Southern Research’s E&E division.

Southern Research carbon fiber
Southern Research’s Amit Goyal, right, spearheaded the development of a process that could lead to low cost carbon fiber from biomass.

The Southern Research process produces a direct drop-in replacement for petroleum acrylonitrile that is both economically competitive and sustainable, lowering greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by up to 40 percent.

“Ninety percent of the world’s carbon fiber production utilizes acrylonitrile as a raw material, growing at 11 to 18 percent per year. Due to the high growth rate of carbon fiber production, any reduction on GHG will be highly impactful,” Goyal said.

GAME-CHANGING APPROACH

The goal of the project with WRI is to expand the range of biomass feedstocks that the Southern Research process can use and to understand how the process is affected by impurities that change when different types of biomass and different biomass-to-sugar processes are used. Experimental data generated in this project will allow collaborators to better predict and improve the overall cost and application areas for carbon fibers.

“The Southern Research process for producing acrylonitrile from biomass-derived sugars has the promise of changing the economics and environmental footprint of this important specialty chemical,” said Bill Grieco, Ph.D., vice president of Southern Research’s E&E division.

“Making that process more robust and agnostic to biomass sugar feedstock is another important step toward commercialization of the technology,” he added.

Team members working on the project led by WRI are Ramaco Carbon LLC, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Grossman Advanced Materials Group, Terra Power LLC, Autodesk Inc., Advanced Carbon Products LLC, and The University of Wyoming.

The project is among 22 announced in July by DOE related to research into advanced vehicle technologies.

Southern Research carbon fiber
This graphic shows Southern Research’s process that converts biomass to acrylonitrile, a precursor of carbon fiber.

Prosperity Fund targets revitalization, job growth in Alabama coal counties

Posted on June 14, 2017

With backing from the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), Southern Research is launching The Prosperity Fund, a $2.4 million initiative to accelerate entrepreneurial activity and spark job creation in four Alabama counties rocked by the coal industry’s steep downturn.

The Prosperity Fund’s goal is to foster new start-up businesses and assist selected small firms in Fayette, Walker, Tuscaloosa and Jefferson counties, according to Corey Tyree, Ph.D., director of Energy & Environment-Alabama for Southern Research and project leader.

“Southern Research was founded to help Alabama remain resilient in the face of economic change by strengthening our existing industry and helping develop new ones,” Tyree said. “This is about making what we have stronger, reinventing our economy.”

The Prosperity Fund will assist small businesses in four Alabama counties hurt by the coal industry's downturn.
The Prosperity Fund will assist small businesses in four Alabama counties hurt by the coal industry’s downturn.

The four counties being served by The Prosperity Fund represent the core of Alabama’s traditional coal country, and they have been hit hard by the industry’s decline. Since 2012, the counties have seen 12,000 jobs tied to coal mining disappear, resulting in $800 million in lost wages.

“These four Alabama counties have accounted for 10 percent of the coal job losses in the nation,” Tyree said. “But this initiative focuses on moving forward. We have to look for new approaches to job growth and seek out new opportunities for these counties.”

CREATING A SUPPORT SYSTEM

The Prosperity Fund, established as public-private partnership, will link Southern Research with community officials, business leaders and potential investors in a network to provide broad-based support for entrepreneurship in the four counties.

Tyree said the team will recruit and mentor existing businesses and start-ups, assisting them with fundamental activities such as customer discovery, market research and fundraising. It will work with venture capitalists, angel investors and other sources to raise funds to support business growth.

“This award is part of a blueprint for new jobs, fresh opportunities, and a robust economic future for Alabama,” said ARC Federal Co-Chair Earl F. Gohl. “It is bringing added capital into the region and help Appalachia prepare to globally compete in manufacturing, technology, local agriculture, construction, and a variety of other industry sectors.”

The Prosperity Fund has set a goal of facilitating the creation of 10 new businesses. Other objectives are:

  • Creating 80 jobs through business improvement and creation efforts
  • Increasing business revenue by $11 million
  • Leveraging $6 million in private investment
  • Assisting 10 existing businesses

Paul Kennedy, president of the Walker Area Community Foundation, said the Prosperity Fund can act as a catalyst for revitalization in a county with deep roots in the coal industry. Since 2012, Walker has lost more than 500 coal jobs, making it one of the 25 most severely impacted counties in the nation.

“Southern Research has 75 years worth of economic development experience,” Kennedy said. “To be able to bring in a nationally recognized organization with their technical expertise, networks, and knowledge to work with our businesses just really excites me.”

Kennedy said he believes that entrepreneurial successes spurred by the Prosperity Fund can inspire others in Walker County.

“When people are getting laid off, everybody is kind of blue. First, it’s the miners. Then it’s the insurance company. Next, the restaurant,” he said. “The same thing happens in reverse when there is a positive development. The excitement ripples through the community, and optimism ripples.”

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

image007The Prosperity Fund stems from an ARC-funded study by Southern Research that examined strategies to boost job creation in Alabama’s coal region. As part of that project, Tyree’s team engaged with educators, economic development professionals, investors and others to build a coalition of advocates for renewal efforts.

The ARC is supporting The Prosperity Fund with a $1.2 million grant. Southern Research and its partners are matching the rest of the 30-month project’s total cost.

“The Prosperity Fund project is another example of changing views of what economic development looks like,” Tyree said. “One, it aligns with the idea that small businesses are the heart of the jobs economy.

“And two, it’s also consistent with the idea that technology-based economic development strategies that suggest our community needs innovation assets like Southern Research to play a role in economic revitalization,” he added.

Tyree believes momentum generated by The Prosperity Fund in the four coal counties will encourage private support that will extend its existence beyond the 30 months of the ARC funding.

Kennedy hopes that’s the case.

“I hope this becomes a real marriage between their capacity and our capacity,” he said. “Southern Research is on the cutting edge of research in technology, energy, water, pharmaceuticals. Just to know that they are paying attention to the wants, needs, aspirations and talents of my community is exciting.”

Technology targeting carbon fiber wins international ‘Shark Tank’ contest

Posted on April 3, 2017

A Southern Research scientist who developed a process that could lead to low-cost carbon fiber won a “Shark Tank”-style pitch competition at the World Bio Markets 2017 conference, an event that attracts innovators, investors and industrial leaders from around the world.

The technology pioneered by Amit Goyal, Ph.D., manager of sustainable chemistry and catalysis in Southern Research’s Energy & Environment division, converts non-food biomass into a colorless liquid called acrylonitrile that’s used in making artificial fibers.

The process developed by Goyal’s team produces acrylonitrile that is around 20 percent cheaper than conventional production methods. It’s also a lot cleaner, with a 37 percent reduction in greenhouse gases.

Amit Goyal Joel Stone World Bio Markets 2017
Southern Research’s Amit Goyal, left, shakes hands with Joel Stone of Lee Enterprises Consulting, who moderated the ‘Shark Tank’ competition at World Bio Markets 2017.

A panel of five judges in the World Bio Markets’ “Shark Tank” competition on March 29 in Amsterdam selected Southern Research’s technology over those pitched by bio-fuel firms based in India and Mexico. Contestants got seven minutes to make their case to the judges, who then had five minutes to ask questions and comment.

The judges, primarily bankers and venture capitals, picked the winning technology based on its investment potential and the likelihood it will reach commercial scale.

“I am really proud of Amit and pleased to get this positive feedback from the market,” said Bill Grieco, Ph.D., vice president of Southern Research’s E&E division. “We know that Amit and his team are solving important sustainability problems with cost-effective chemical processes, but there is no substitute for strong interest from potential customers and investors to show that our biomass sugar to chemicals technology is headed in the right direction.”

LINKING THE SOLUTION

Goyal said the victory represents a strong endorsement of the work being done by his team at the Birmingham-based non-profit organization’s E&E lab in Durham, North Carolina. He said he hopes the validation adds momentum to the team’s goal of eventually commercializing the technology.

“I really appreciated the feedback from industrial professionals and investors who have actually looked at several such technologies,” he said. “It’s very valuable for us.”

Goyal said the World Bio Markets “Shark Tank” judges carefully considered the viability of the technologies in the competition, including factors such as the cost and availability of raw materials, potential buyers, and projected growth metrics.

“So they really wanted to link the solution – the uniqueness of your technology – with the rest of the pieces of the puzzle,” he said. “They were essentially looking for something they could invest in that has low risk and flexibility.”

World Bio Markets has been called the “Paris Airshow of the bio conference world,” referring to the high-level gathering for aerospace industry leaders. Word Bio Market conferences have attracted speakers including former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and humanitarian Sir Bob Geldof, along with the top thinkers in renewable energy.

This year’s conference, which took place March 27-29 at Amsterdam’s NH Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky, attracted more than 500 professionals in search of partnerships, investment opportunities, biotech breakthroughs, and innovations.

CAPITALIZING ON INTEREST

The U.S. Department of Energy selected Southern Research in 2014 for a $6 million project to advance production of high-performance, low-cost carbon fibers from renewable biomass feedstocks.

As part of this project, Goyal’s team devised a multi-step catalytic process that converts sugars from non-food biomass to acrylonitrile, a key precursor for strong, lightweight carbon fiber.

Traditional, fossil fuel-based production methods for carbon fiber have limited its use, but industrial demand for the material continues to surge in fields such as aerospace, automotive, and wind turbine production. Use of carbon-fiber composites by automakers alone is expected to rise by 11 to 18 percent annually.

Goyal, the principal investigator on the DOE project, said its first phase is complete through the demonstration of the validity of the biomass production process. He expects to launch the second phase – a pilot plant to scale up production – in coming months.

“There’s a lot of interest from industry, and a lot of interest from investors. We hope we can capitalize on that,” he said. “I’m very optimistic.”

 

Southern Research carbon fiber
This graphic shows Southern Research’s process that converts biomass to acrylonitrile, a precursor of carbon fiber.

© 2024 Southern Research. All rights reserved.