With NETL support, a team of interns won a $75,000 phase II award from a Department of Energy (DOE) fellowship program that connects entrepreneurial talent from undergraduate universities with opportunities to commercialize new DOE technologies.

The award, a DOE Minority Servicing Institution (MSI) Connect Commercialization project, will help the NETL team, known as the “NETL Bees,” to pursue commercialization of a technology originating at NETL called “Microwave-Accelerated Aqueous Solvent Regeneration Using Microwave Absorbers for Carbon Capture.” The technology was invented by NETL researchers Fan Shi, McMahan L. Gray, Yee Soong, Yuhua Duan and Ji Tuo of the Leidos Research Support Team.

The technology that the team will work to commercialize uses microwaves to accelerate aqueous amine solvent regeneration, which can result in a substantial reduction of expensive water and energy requirements of promising amine solvent based CO₂ capture technologies.

Other NETL personnel who supported the NETL Bees were Anthony Armaly, Leah Bower, and Jessica Lamp.

Solvents are materials used to absorb gases and they must be regenerated occasionally to remain effective and so that CO₂ can be collected for storage or utilization. Solvent regeneration relies on temperature, pressure or pH swing cycles, which requires a superheated steam. The microwave-accelerated regeneration of aqueous amine solvent or sorbent does not require steam regeneration and heavy duty of heat exchanger, which makes it an attractive process for CO₂ capture in water-stressed regions of the U.S.

NETL is one of five DOE national laboratories and 10 MSIs participating in the program. The NETL MSI Interns are Diego Costoso of the University of Puerto Rico, Charrel Williams of the Southern University at New Orleans and Ahmad Zaman of West Virginia State University. NETL’s Shi mentored and supported their work.

During Phase I of the program, students visited NETL to develop a commercial plan for the technology. Students then collaborated closely with NETL inventors and technology transfer staff to learn about how the technology fits in the marketplace before developing a commercialization plan. That plan was then “pitched” at an event hosted at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The NETL team was one of two teams of students selected to receive seed grants and move forward for MSI phase II, which allows the students to further develop the commercialization plan. 

MSI Connect is designed to boost the impact of technology transfer operations at participating national labs. Technology transfer is how lab innovations are turned into products. 

“MSI Connect is showing students the many ways to interact with national labs, as researchers, tech transfer and intellectual property professionals, or as an entrepreneur who works with lab innovations as an industry partner,” Shi said. “Our NETL Bees have done a great job and I look forward to additional success. They will take their new tech transfer education back to their own institutions. We hope that participants will take their new tech transfer skills back to their own institutions.”

MSI Connect is funded by the DOE Office of Technology Transitions’ Technology Commercialization Fund and DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, Office of Nuclear Energy, and Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy.

NETL is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory that drives innovation and delivers solutions for an environmentally sustainable and prosperous energy future. By using 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.