Download Factsheet
Share
ContactCenter for Fuels and Chemicals
About CFC
NETL’s Center for Fuels and Chemicals (CFC) is a technology incubation center that develops technical solutions for the U.S. chemicals industry to retool its products and operations with the goal of increasing American manufacturing efficiency and unleashing technology innovation. The center examines technologies that remain too risky for the private sector to develop alone. The CFC builds on decades of work within NETL on high-temperature hydrocarbon processing and process scale up. The center also leverages NETL’s expertise in computational sciences, including advanced approaches in process optimization and reactor design, to model novel manufacturing technologies, which allows new technologies to be scaled up faster and at less cost. Finally, the center taps NETL’s deep expertise in technoeconomic analysis and life cycle assessment to guide technology development. The CFC will move products to market faster, at lower costs and with less environmental impact while creating a more agile chemicals supply chain.
Why Partner with NETL?
This NETL-led technology incubation center seeks to assist technology development partners in leveraging the national lab’s capabilities to unlock the potential of novel technologies in the process industries. Companies can leverage decades of capability development within the Lab to accelerate solution development.
Facilities and Equipment
NETL’s CFC is composed of several facilities and advanced equipment that is best-in-class for research and development for energy conversion, process optimization and intensification, chemical recycling, hydrogen production and carbon management. We leverage:
- $500M invested infrastructure
- 1.1M gross square footage
- 500 research staff
Experience
NETL draws on its decades of success with functional material development, process testing and scale-up, and technoeconomic analysis to accelerate technology development strategies within the chemical sector. Our comprehensive process innovation capabilities include a team of scientists and researchers to collaborate and offer technical literacy; an incubation facility to validate and scale up new processes; and proven technical breakthroughs in materials, membranes, catalysis and gas separation. We focus on the following technical capabilities and offer crosscutting decision-making capabilities via technoeconomic and life cycle analysis:
- Gas/Hydrocarbon Upgrading
- Hydrogen Production
- Novel Materials Development
- Gas Separation
Our Unique Experience
For decades, NETL has been working to conceptualize, develop and test novel approaches to chemical and fuel production. This includes work in gasification, solid oxide fuel cells, chemical looping reactors for conversion/combustion, and microwave reactors. Work includes development of functional and structural materials that enable these technologies, process modeling tools (e.g., MFiX) to allow for enhanced understanding and optimization, and process optimization solutions to define optimum performance (e.g., IDAES). NETL has moved many of these technologies well beyond lab scale with significant pilot-plant facilities operating across application spaces.
Use crosscutting decision-making to evaluate benefits of technology options via technoeconomic assessment and life cycle analysis. Complementing these analysis areas are deep domain expertise in reactor engineering and design, structural and functional material development, and hydrocarbon chemistry.
Increase process efficiency using enhanced materials, conversions and separations or new processes, scaling up processes and products to get to market faster and at lower cost.
NETL has decades of expertise in converting chemicals to higher-value products. Enhancing chemical conversion process efficiency improves the economics of downstream chemical products by avoiding production steps, thus enhancing raw material efficiency and reducing capital. NETL has patent-pending developments and success in energy conversion and separations, process intensification and optimization.
