NETL researchers leading the development of cutting-edge technologies to mitigate climate change will share their knowledge and expertise with engineers and scientists from five continents at the 47th International Technical Conference on Clean Energy, which will be held July 23-27 at the Sheraton Sand Key in Clearwater, Florida.

“This conference serves as a one-stop shop to foster collaboration among industry, academia and government agencies and laboratories to discuss their latest innovations,” said NETL’s Ronald Breault, Ph.D., Thermal Science Team supervisor and conference co-chair.

Participants will take part in approximately 180 technical presentations during the four-day event. All presentations will be offered in person and virtually.

Breault will lead several presentations, including sessions on efforts to advance direct air capture (DAC) — a technology that processes air from the atmosphere rather than a power plant or factory flue gas to capture carbon dioxide (CO₂), a greenhouse gas, so it can be safely sequestered in the subsurface or used to make value-added products.

Efforts to accelerate commercialization of DAC technology will also be the focus of a presentation by NETL’s Dave Luebke, DAC technical director, and Jim Hoffman, a researcher on the Lab’s Reaction Engineering Team.

“We are getting our message out that NETL is well-positioned to help accelerate the development of DAC technologies, which are essential to address climate change and meet our nation’s goal to achieve economy-wide net-zero emissions by 2050,” Luebke said.

Last year, Congress authorized $25 million for the new NETL Direct Air Capture Center at the Lab’s campus in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Scheduled to come online during the summer of 2024, the new facility will accelerate the commercialization of DAC technologies beyond the conceptual stage.

It will also provide developers with the ability to simulate a wide range of conditions, which will enable better understanding of how various DAC technologies respond in different climates, from summer to winter and arid to tropical.

“Our new center will offer technology developers access to a facility where they can test systems at three scales — lab-scale systems designed to examine the long-term stability of DAC materials, bench-scale module testing systems capable of probing flow dynamics, and small pilot-scale skid rooms able to test prototype DAC units under a broad range of climate conditions,” Luebke said.

In addition, NETL’s DAC Center will offer access to dedicated NETL process modeling and analysis resources to evaluate the technoeconomic aspects of new technologies, a major step toward commercialization and widespread adoption.

Other NETL speakers at the Clearwater conference will provide updates on carbon conversion activities to produce value-added goods using CO₂ as a feedstock, point source carbon caption, deriving more value from waste materials generated by mining, modular systems for conversion of carbon-based solids, hydrogen production and other topics.

Click here to review the agenda and for more information about the 47th International Technical Conference on Clean Energy.

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.