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Dow team including ORNL receives $9 million for carbon fiber R&D

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Fully carbonized fiber exiting the microwave-assisted plasma carbonization unit.
ORNL is a member of a team led by Dow Chemical that was recently awarded $9 million to pursue development of a low-cost carbon fiber production process. Under the award from the DOE EERE Advanced Manufacturing Office, Dow, ORNL, and Ford Motor Company will scale up current R&D ef­forts on polyolefin feedstock in ORNL’s Carbon Fiber Technolo­gy Facility to demonstrate commercial viability for automotive composite components. Dow and Ford are providing in-kind cost sharing, and Michigan Economic Development Corpora­tion is also providing funding for the $13.5 million project.

Carbon fiber already has a number of commercial applica­tions such as vehicle bodies, wind turbines, and other industri­al uses and would be more widely used if costs for the material could be reduced.

Polyolefins offer a low-cost alternative to the more expen­sive polyacrylonitrile (PAN) feedstock that accounts for about 90% of today’s carbon fiber. The materials and process being pursued under this award have the potential to reduce carbon fiber production costs by 20% and to reduce the total CO2 emitted in the manufacturing process by 50% by dramatically cutting the amount of energy required. The higher chemi­cal yield of the polyolefin-based process is a large factor in the energy efficiency advantage: about 1.4 lb of polyolefin is needed to produce 1 lb of carbon fiber, versus 2 lb of PAN for the same yield.

 The effort is one of 13 advanced manufacturing proj­ects across the United States that were awarded $54 million in DOE funding. The projects are part of a strategy for pro­moting emerging technologies that create domestic manu­facturing jobs and enhance the competitiveness of US com­panies in global markets while improving energy efficiency, reducing pollution, and boosting industrial productivity.

ORNL is home to the Carbon Fiber Technology Facility, an advanced carbon fiber scale-up facility for developing and demonstrating low-cost manufacturing processes that can be transferred to industry.