NETL advanced research technologies and cutting-edge facilities were demonstrated for a contingent of NETL partners from the Pittsburgh region including representatives from Dortmund, Germany, when they visited western Pennsylvania on Monday, April 4, to engage with the Lab and other regional stakeholders.

The Sister Cities Association of Pittsburgh connects the Pittsburgh region with international partner cities to develop mutually beneficial relationships in the areas of commerce, education and culture. Four representatives from Dortmund and one representative from the European Union met NETL’s Nate Weiland, senior fellow for Energy Conversion Engineering, who led a virtual tour of NETL lab facilities to highlight the Lab’s research and development efforts focused on hydrogen production.

“This is an exciting opportunity for NETL,” Weiland said. “While we strive to cultivate new partnerships and relations among industry and academia in the United States, it’s equally important that we interact with global partners. By showing our latest research endeavors to our friends from Europe, we open the door to new networking opportunities that could not only expand NETL’s reach but also provide valuable insight into global decarbonization perspectives and other research experiences.”

In February, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management announced $28 million in federal funding for research and development and front-end engineering design projects to advance clean hydrogen as a carbon-free fuel for transportation, industrial use and electricity production. Most hydrogen in the United States is traditionally produced using natural gas without carbon capture, which is not clean. This funding leverages innovative approaches to produce clean hydrogen at lower costs from materials that include municipal solid waste, legacy coal waste, waste plastics and biomass with carbon capture and storage.

To help achieve its clean hydrogen goals, NETL is pushing the envelope of microwave reactor science. With its Reaction Analysis and Chemical Transformation (ReACT) facility at the Lab’s Morgantown campus, researchers are advancing the science needed to optimize energy conversion and transforming how industry approaches chemical reactions.

The ReACT facility’s capabilities enable researchers to work toward optimizing chemical reactor designs for specific chemical transformations. This includes investigating novel approaches, such as microwaves, to selectively energize chemical reactions. An example of this concept at work is using microwave reactors to synthesize the production of ammonia, a key ingredient in making fertilizer, which can also be used as fuel.

The European visitors were shown the results of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed in 2015 between NETL and the City of Pittsburgh to transform the city’s energy system and aging infrastructure by implementing a “grid of microgrids” concept that spans nine energy districts. The MOU provides an opportunity for NETL to demonstrate how fossil energy is a part of the clean energy future, and to show how technologies invented at NETL can support the safe and efficient use of energy.

“NETL has strong relations with the organizations represented by the Dortmund delegation, such as the city’s offices for international relations, sustainable development and climate technologies, among others, so we’re pleased to welcome these representatives to the Lab,” said James Ferguson, NETL’s State & Local Partnerships manager.

“Our MOU with Pittsburgh has been one of our most fruitful partnerships. Since 2015, it has strengthened NETL’s collaborations with industry, research universities, economic development organizations, and nonprofit organizations throughout the greater Pittsburgh area. With this visit being NETL’s first direct connection with Dortmund, it shows that this MOU with Pittsburgh and others like it can have great effects that go international. This was demonstrated by the MOU connecting us with Denmark, a European Union nation committed to clean energy technologies,” Ferguson said.

Other presentations on the virtual tour included demonstrations of NETL’s Institute for the Design of Advanced Energy Systems (IDAES) multi-scale computational tools and approaches designed to support decision-making and provide in-depth, objective analyses, along with ongoing research into solid oxide fuel cells, an electrochemical conversion technology that produces electricity directly from oxidizing a fuel.

The European visitors also visited the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, and Hazelwood Green, a riverfront urban brownfield that is being transformed into a center of innovation and high-tech manufacturing.

NETL is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory that drives innovation and delivers technological solutions for an environmentally sustainable and prosperous energy future. By leveraging its world-class talent and research facilities, NETL is ensuring affordable, abundant and reliable energy that drives a robust economy and national security, while developing technologies to manage carbon across the full life cycle, enabling environmental sustainability for all Americans.