DOE Announces Award Program

The U.S. Department of Energy, through its Industrial Technologies Program, is seeking applications for cost-shared research and development of technologies that will increase energy efficiency, enhance economic competitiveness, and reduce environmental impacts of the domestic forest products industry.

The focus of this funding opportunity announcement is to develop advanced water removal technologies used during the paper making process. In addition, this FOA seeks proposals to define, through early stage R&D, breakthrough concepts in next generation mill processes. Proposed research should focus on developments robust enough to handle process conditions found in systems of commercial interest.

These technologies should achieve energy savings greater than 10 trillion BTUs/yr and about 30 percent reduction in energy intensity over existing technologies when fully implemented across the industry.

For the purpose of this FOA, technologies displacing fossil fuels with renewable energy resources are considered energy saving technologies. Proposals must show significant advantages over current technology and attractive returns on capital invested.

The deadline to respond is August 2, 2005.  Project awards will be announced in January/February 2006, with funding to begin in October 2006. 

Funding solicitation reflects the desire to fund 1-2 awards to develop and field test advanced water removal technologies, and 5-10 awards to define next generation mill process concepts. Technologies should achieve energy savings greater than 10 trillion BTUs/yr and about 30 percent reduction in energy intensity over existing technologies when fully implemented across the industry.

In the Agenda 2020 recycling area, the industry is specifically interested in innovative mill systems that will improve paper fiber recovery and energy efficiency. 

This includes:

1. New and novel approaches to repulp and clean fibers from recovered paper that will lower energy use, reduce water consumption, allow the use of "dirtier" paper (lower cost), and limit the number of "operations" required.

2. Discover fundamental mechanisms that cause separation of fiber and contaminants.  Use this knowledge to develop new breakthrough equipment to dramatically lower energy usage and cost and improve product quality.

3. Develop new systems to separate recycled fibers that minimize deterioration of strength, flexibility, brightness/whiteness, and bonding capability. 

4. Remove stickies in the mill process using less water and energy.

5. Develop equipment to remove stickies or optimize existing equipment through new and novel ways.

For award details and application, go to the following URL:

http://e-center.doe.gov/iips/faopor.nsf/8df825feb86675de852564650046faea/f4e6196f5628010585256fd500612c3e?OpenDocument