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Available Technologies

Title Date Posted Patent Information Sort descending Opportunity
Computational and Simulation-Based Tools for Drilling Optimization U.S. Patent Pending

Research is active on the patent pending technology titled, “MSE-Based Drilling Optimization Using Neural Network Simulation.” This technology is available for licensing and/or further collaborative research from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory.

Corrosion Detection Sensors for Use in Natural Gas Pipelines U.S. Patent Pending

This invention describes a system and method for detecting corrosion in natural gas pipelines using an optical platform or a wireless platform. This technology is available for licensing and/or further collaborative research from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory.

Challenge

The U.S. Energy Information Administration states that natural gas accounts for nearly 30 percent of energy consumption in the United States. More than 300,000 miles of natural gas transmission and gathering lines deliver this valuable energy source to consumers. Like any energy infrastructure, this network of pipelines requires significant maintenance costs. In the case of natural gas pipelines, corrosion accounts for around 25 percent of incidents over the last 30 years, 61 percent of which was caused by internal corrosion.

The corrosion-related annual cost for such incidents amounts to $6 to $10 billion in the United States each year. Therefore, a need exists to monitor corrosion inside of the gas pipelines to implement corrosion mitigation and control before any failure.

Converting Natural Gas to Valuable Chemicals with Microwave Technology U.S. Patent Pending

This novel patent-pending methane conversion technology employees microwave-assisted catalysis for chemical conversion. This technology is available for licensing and/or further collaborative research from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory.

Challenge

Natural gas, primarily composed of methane, is a cheap and abundant domestic resource that can be converted to a wide range of products including liquid transportation fuels and a wide range of chemical intermediates. However, traditional methods of converting methane to valuable chemicals first require it to be converted to synthesis gas.

A direct, one-step, method to convert the methane would have significant advantages over current indirect methods, including reduced costs and increased yields, but several technology barriers must first be overcome. Microwave-assisted catalyst reactions can provide a viable direct method for overcoming these barriers.

Improved Rare Earth Element Extraction Method from Coal Ash U.S. Patent Pending

This invention describes an improved method for extracting rare earth elements (REEs) from coal ash at ambient temperatures. This technology is available for licensing and/or further collaborative research from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory.

Challenge
As China currently controls the supply and prices of almost all the world’s REEs, developing a domestic supply is critical for the continued manufacturing of technologies that support nearly all modern devices, including critical systems for energy and national defense. REE extraction efforts from domestic sources of coal and coal-related resources have emerged as a viable solution, but successful methods must be both cost-effective and environmentally friendly.

Current methods and technologies for REE extraction from ore and other sources can be hazardous and expensive to implement without harming the environment or workers. For example, common practices employ high temperatures and strong acids or bases. This technology seeks to overcome these and other issues with current REE extraction methods by turning to a material that is currently viewed as a waste – coal ash.

Microwave Active Metal Oxides for CO2 Dry Reforming of Methane U.S. Patent Pending

This patent-pending technology establishes a novel system and method for the microwave-assisted dry reforming of methane. The technology is available for licensing and/or further collaborative research from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory.

Challenge

Traditional steam reforming of methane to produce hydrogen (H2), which is then reacted with carbon (CO) to produce methanol and other industrial commodity chemicals, is an extremely energy intensive process with large carbon footprint. For example, the steam reforming reaction produces 10 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) for every ton of H2. Methane dry reforming uses an alternative reaction that uses CO2 as a soft oxidant to produce CO and H2 from methane, which can be further processed into methanol or hydrocarbons. Further, using CO2 to produce commodity chemicals, such as H2 and CO, can generate revenue to offset carbon capture costs, reduce the carbon footprint of fossil-fuel powered processes, and allow sustainable use of fossil fuel resources.

Traditional dry reforming techniques are extremely energy intensive and require very high temperatures (>800C) that make it unpractical economically compared with the lower-temperature, carbon-positive, methane steam reforming. Microwave-assisted catalysis has been demonstrated as an enabling technology to promote high temperature chemical processes. Unlike traditional thermal heating, microwaves can rapidly heat catalysts to extremely high temperatures without heating the entire reactor volume. This reduces heat management issues of conventional reactors and enables rapid heating/cooling cycles. Ultimately, this can allow reactors to utilize excess renewable energy on an intermittent basis (load follow) to promote traditionally challenging, thermally-driven reactions for on-demand chemical production.

Microwave absorption is a function of the electronic and magnetic properties of the material, and a properly designed catalyst may function as a both a microwave heater and a reactive surface for driving the desired reaction. Microwave absorption is extremely sensitive to the catalyst’s chemical state and electronic structure, and effective catalysts must maintain microwave activity across a wide range of temperatures in both oxidative and reductive environments.

 

Bottom-Up Assembly of Graphene Quantum Dots to Form Two-Dimensional Amorphous Carbon Film U.S. Patent Pending

This invention describes a uniquely engineered 2-D amorphous carbon film and a memristor fabricated with coal-derived carbon quantum dots as the dielectric (switching) media for resistive random-access memory (RRAM). The atomic dielectric carbon layer can provide large storage density and 3-D packing ability, allowing memory and logic devices to be integrated in one chip, providing faster data processing with low energy consumption. This patent application is jointly owned by NETL and the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign (UIUC) and it is available for licensing and/or further collaboration.

Challenge
Memory is essential to future computing with the exponential growth of data. These emerging memory technologies aim to revolutionize the existing memory hierarchy. Various emerging memory technologies are actively being investigated to meet ideal performance characteristics. RRAM has various advantages such as easy fabrication, simple metal-insulator-metal structure, excellent scalability, nanosecond speed, and long data retention. RRAM has been commercialized since 2013. Despite showing great promise over conventional RAM and its popularity in academia, RRAM has not become commercially popular. This is due to high device variability and high operation voltage.

Catalysts for Thermal Conversion of Carbon Dioxide to Carbon Monoxide or Synthesis Gas Using Fuels U.S. Patent Pending

This invention describes novel iron-based catalysts for conversion of carbon dioxide (CO2) to produce valuable gases such as carbon monoxide (CO) or syngas in the presence of fuel (biomass, coal, methane) for commercial and industrial applications while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This technology is available for licensing and/or further collaborative research from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory.

Challenge
Syngas production from solid fuels such as biomass or coal is commercially conducted via a solid fuel gasification process. However, conventional solid fuel gasification processes are generally capital-intensive and require significant amounts of parasitic energy. Typically, the gasification process involves partial coal combustion with either O2 or air. When air is utilized, nitrogen (N2) may enter the syngas, diluting the syngas and making extraction difficult. When oxygen (O2) is utilized, expensive oxygen production units tend to generate high parasitic losses. As a result, the development of alternative methods for syngas production from solid fuels are a significant area of current interest. For oxygen-based commercial solid fuel gasification, oxygen must be separated from air, which requires an air separation unit. Cryogenic air separation has been used and is very expensive. In addition, steam is also required for the process. Gasification of solid fuel with CO2 has many advantages over conventional solid fuel gasification with oxygen/steam. 
Syngas production from methane is currently conducted via catalytic steam methane reforming and the process is energy intense with high carbon footprint. Catalytic methane dry reforming using CO2 to produce syngas has a potential to be more economical route for syngas production.  However, the catalysts used for methane dry reforming are either very expensive or has shown poor performance stability due to catalyst deactivation. Therefore, catalyst development is important for methane dry reforming technology to be commercially viable.
 

Fiber Optic pH Sensor for High-Temperature and High-Pressure Environments U.S. Patent Pending

This invention describes a pH sensor comprising an optical fiber coated with metal-oxide based pH sensing materials for use in high-temperature and high-pressure environments such as wellbores and the challenging high pH range relevant for wellbore cement. This technology is available for licensing and/or further collaborative research from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory.

Challenge
Various fossil energy and carbon management applications require chemical composition monitoring in subsurface environments. Examples of these areas include deep and ultra-deep oil and gas resource recovery through drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques as well as environmental monitoring in reservoirs for carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestration. Accurate measurement of pH in subsurface wellbores is critical for early corrosion detection and wellbore cement failure prediction.
However, these subsurface environments are extremely challenging for the development and deployment of sensing technologies because of harsh conditions such as high temperatures, high pressures, corrosive chemical species, and potentially high salinity. In such harsh environments, most electrical and electronic components used in sensor applications are not feasible. Additionally, real-time monitoring of pH within cement is challenging because the high-pH range (pH ~13) can cause stability issues of commonly used pH sensing materials at high temperatures. Therefore, it is essential to develop approaches that provide stable pH sensing and that could eliminate the use of electrical components and connections at the sensing locations and avoid the common mode of failure in conventional sensors.
 

Single-Step Synthesis of Carbon Capture Fiber Sorbents U.S. Patent Pending

This invention describes a single-stage preparation of a novel carbon capture fiber sorbent. This technology is available for licensing and/or further collaborative research from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory.

Challenge
Conventional pressure- or temperature-swing adsorption (PSA/TSA) processes have been widely considered for post-combustion carbon capture and direct air capture (DAC). However, the processes of pressurizing the flue gas in the case of PSA or the long regeneration time in the case of TSA are considered neither cost-effective nor energy efficient, which limit their use in large-scale carbon capture processes. Furthermore, the high heat released during carbon dioxide (CO2) adsorption onto conventional sorbent amine sites necessitate efficient heat redistribution away from the sorbent bed and back into the overall carbon capture process. Therefore, a low-cost and energy efficient carbon capture process that could be retrofitted onto existing power plants is needed.

Hydrophobic Alkyl-Ester Physical Solvents for CO2 Removal from H2 Produced from Synthesis Gas U.S. Patent Pending

Hydrophobic Alkyl-Ester Physical Solvents for CO2 Removal from H2 Produced from Synthesis GasThe invention is a family of hydrophobic, low viscosity, low vapor pressure physical solvents with molecular structures consisting of two or more alkyl-ester functional groups on a central hydrocarbon chain. These solvents have been shown to possess high carbon dioxide (CO2) solubility and absorption selectivity, which make them well suited for the removal of CO2 from hydrogen (H2) produced from synthesis gas. This technology is available for licensing and/or further collaborative research from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory.

Challenge
Future integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plants and steam methane reforming (SMR) chemical plants have the potential to reduce the cost of CO2 capture. These power and chemical plants generate high-pressure CO2 gas streams from the in-situ water gas shift reaction when producing H2 used to power the electrical turbines. A variety of methods have been proposed to capture CO2, including solvent, sorbent, and membrane technologies, with continuous solvent looping systems currently considered to be the most advanced. Precombustion capture of CO2 is typically accomplished using physical solvents.

State-of-the-art precombustion CO2 capture processes predominantly employ hydrophilic physical solvents. Current commercial physical solvents touted for IGCC CO2 capture were developed for removing acid gases from raw natural gas streams. Therefore, they were designed to remove significant amounts of water from the process gas. As such, the focus was on the purification of the process gas with less concern for generation of high-purity CO2 streams suitable for pipeline transmission and sequestration. While water removal is important for natural gas pipeline applications, it is not favorable for applications in which the fuel stream is directly combusted on-site, as would be encountered in IGCC systems.