The 2023 Conversion Research and Development Funding Opportunity supports a main theme core to the BETO Conversion Program’s R&D mission: developing technologies to enable the conversion of waste and renewable resources to fuels and products with substantial greenhouse gas emissions reductions compared to the petroleum incumbent.
Donor Name: Golden Field Office
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 04/21/2023
Size of the Grant: $1,250,000 and $4,000,000
Grant Duration: 36 months
Details:
The FOA addresses two specific technology pathways intended to develop improved technologies for generating clean syngas for upgrading to fuels as well as pathways for renewable chemical production. Each Topic Area seeks to reduce economic and technical risk, enabling BETO to help pave the way for industry to commercialize technologies that may reduce greenhouse gas emissions from hard to decarbonize sectors, such as aviation.
Significant R&D is required to reach the ultimate goal of affordable, low-carbon transportation fuels and chemical products. The R&D activities to be funded under this FOA will support the government-wide approach to addressing the climate crisis by driving innovation and deployment of clean energy technologies. The Topic Areas in this FOA seek to address the following R&D needs:
- R&D on gasification technologies, with an emphasis on syngas contaminant removal approaches that enable effective upgrading of products derived from gasification of renewable resources to liquid transportation fuels.
- R&D on microbial conversion of renewable resources into chemical products, with an emphasis on processes with commercialization potential.
Topic Areas
Topic Area 1: Overcoming Barriers to Syngas Conversion
- The goal of this Topic Area is to improve the economics and reliability of gasification and syngas cleanup systems by eliminating technical barriers for conversion of renewable carbon and waste feedstocks to low carbon fuels. While upgrading syngas has been widely investigated, additional challenges remain due to process complexity and feedstock limitations associated with syngas cleanup. Projects selected from this Topic Area will facilitate conversion of acceptable biomass and waste feedstocks into SAF with a 70% reduction in lifecycle GHG emissions.
Topic Area 2: Opportunities for Decarbonization of the Chemicals Industry Through Biocatalysts
- Subtopic 2a: Opportunities for Decarbonization of the Chemicals Industry Through Biocatalysts: This Subtopic seeks applications that are focused on engineering microbial hosts or biological (i.e., cell-free) systems to maximize production metrics, such as titer, rate, and/or yield, of a product of interest. Applicants should describe how the improvements they propose move the technology toward commercial relevance; applications will specifically be evaluated as to the likelihood that their technology improvement accelerates commercialization in the near term (~10 years).
- Subtopic 2b: Commercialization Opportunities for Decarbonization of the Chemicals Industry Through Biocatalysts: This Subtopic seeks applications that aim to improve biochemical production capabilities, with a focus on bioprocess improvements and integration at a larger scale. This includes projects targeting fermentation development and scale up as well as producing volumes of product required for validation with partners; such industrial partnerships should be clearly described.
Funding Information
EERE expects to make a total of approximately $14,000,000 of federal funding available for new awards under this FOA, subject to the availability of appropriated funds. EERE anticipates making approximately 4-11 awards under this FOA. EERE may issue one, multiple, or no awards. Individual awards may vary between $1,250,000 and $4,000,000.
- Topic Area 1: Overcoming Barriers to Syngas Conversion
- Topic Area 2: Overcoming Barriers to Biochemical Products
- Minimum Award size: $1,250,000
- Maximum Award size: $2,500,000
- Total Funding: $5,600,000
- Anticipated Period of Performance (months): 24-36
- Subtopic Area 2a Opportunities for Decarbonization of the Chemicals Industry Through Biocatalysts
- Minimum Award size: $1,250,000
- Maximum Award size: $4,000,000
- Total Funding: $4,400,000
- Anticipated Period of Performance (months): 24-36
- Subtopic Area 2b Commercialization Opportunities for Decarbonization of the Chemicals Industry Through Biocatalysts
- Minimum Award size: $3,000,000
- Maximum Award size: $4,000,000
- Total Funding: $4,000,000
- Anticipated Period of Performance (months): 24-36
Eligible Applicants
- County governments
- Small businesses
- City or township governments
- State governments
- Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized)
- Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments)
- Public and State controlled institutions of higher education
- For profit organizations other than small businesses
- Private institutions of higher education
- Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
- Special district governments
- Nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
For more information, visit Grants.gov.
