The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced a $14 million grant to support advanced coal chemical Technologies under the "Advanced Coal Chemical Technologies" theme, which aims to develop high-performance, low-cost, coal-based feedstock chemical conversion technologies that enable the cost-effective conversion of coal-based feedstock to high-value materials. The funding will focus on five technical subject areas, which are as follows:
1. Technology of transforming coal-based raw materials and their derivatives into building materials
To develop a new coal processing and transformation technology that takes civil coal or related by-products (coal powder, coal bitumen, coal coke, etc.) as production raw materials and converts them into building materials (such as roofing tiles, thermal insulation materials, ceramic tiles, etc.) efficiently, and verify and popularize the technology.
2. Technology of converting coal-based raw materials into infrastructure components
To develop and validate new coal processing and conversion technologies that take coal as raw material and efficiently convert it into various infrastructure components (such as components for watercourses and tunnels, waste water or solid waste treatment facilities, road and bridge components, etc.).
3. Technology of coal conversion into high-value carbon-based materials
To develop a new coal processing and conversion technology to efficiently transform coal into high-value solid carbon-based materials (such as conductive ink, enhanced textiles, battery electrode, supercapacitor materials, etc.) with special physical and chemical properties (such as high electrical conductivity, high mechanical flexibility).
4. Coal-to-carbon foam technology
To develop and efficiently convert civil coal or related by-products (coal powder, coal asphalt, coal coke, etc.) into various high-value carbon-based foam materials, which can be widely used in the field of aerospace vehicle thermal management and thermal protection due to their advantages such as low density, high mechanical flexibility and good electrical and thermal conductivity.
5. Design and development of carbon-based building materials
To develop and utilize new carbon-based building materials with excellent mechanical, thermal and electrical properties to build carbon-based building prototype technology, and evaluate whether the materials integrated into the overall building still maintain good physical and chemical properties to verify the feasibility of the technology.