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ContactCarbon Ore Processing
Carbon ore is a domestic resource that has contributed to economic growth in the United States for more than a century. However, under a shifting energy generation paradigm, innovation is needed to extract the full economic value from carbon ore and to remediate legacy impacts associated with past extraction and utilization. The Carbon Ore Processing Program at the NETL delivers solutions to this challenge with novel technologies for producing valuable products from carbon ore. Laboratory and pilot-scale research and development (R&D) supported by the program elevates the value of the nation’s carbon ore resources and transforms their use for the future. The program focuses on developing a range of carbon ore products spanning the entire value spectrum, from high-volume through high value.
Transforming the Carbon Ore Value Chain
Carbon ore’s unique structure and composition makes it well suited as a feedstock for high-value carbon products such as carbon fibers, graphite for batteries, additive manufacturing filaments and resins, and carbon nanomaterials for advanced electronic and metal alloy applications. Carbon ore is also abundant and low-cost, making it an attractive feedstock for high-volume applications such as building materials, as a concrete additive, and polymer composites. These markets, which are outside of traditional thermal and metallurgical roles, expand the carbon ore value chain in the United States and sustain jobs within a critical sector of the U.S. economy.
Examples of products pursued by R&D within the Carbon Ore Processing Program include:
- Graphite for electrochemical applications and carbon fibers for carbon-carbon composites and polymer enhancement.
- Carbon fibers/foams and modified carbon ore for building materials such as roofing tiles, siding, decking, insulation, joists/studs, sheathing, tiles and carpet, wraps and veneers, and architectural block.
- Carbon nano-materials such a graphene, quantum dots, and nanotubes for additive manufacturing (filaments, resins, and conductive inks), battery anodes, supercapacitors, memristors, and carbon-metal alloys.
For more information on potential new markets for carbon ore and the emerging technologies being developed by the Carbon Ore Processing Program, click on the links under Explore the Site.
Click to view the Carbon Ore Processing Interactive Projects Map
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Explore the Site
NETL implements this effort as part of DOE’s Resource Sustainability Program