CEEE Awarded $5.3 Million for Two New DOE Projects

On June 15, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $135 million in funding for 40 projects that will reduce the carbon footprint of the industrial sector and move the U.S. towards a net-zero emissions economy by 2050. These 40 projects are expected to advance key transformational and innovative technologies toward these goals. The University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Energy Engineering will receive $5.3 million in funding across two different projects.

Primarily funded through DOE’s Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office (IEDO), the selected projects will support research, development, and pilot-scale demonstrations to reduce energy usage and emissions from high-emitting industrial subsectors and find solutions that can be applied across the industrial sector. The selected projects will drive industrial decarbonization while creating good-paying jobs and building a stronger, more competitive U.S. industrial sector.

Highly-Efficient Multi-Effect Drying Systems Driven by Heat Pumps

Funding amount: $2,743,850

Project Partners: University of the District Columbia, Nyle Dry Kilns

Project Description:

The University of Maryland will lead efforts to eliminate the use of fossil fuels or biomass waste for energy by developing a multi-effect drying system that creates a closed circuit in which the same energy can be used several times to heat the air for the drying process. This technology could allow the waste to be used as a feedstock for chemical production or a fuel source for other facilities, lowering the amount of primary energy needed and thus raising energy efficiency. The technology is driven by an electric heat pump using low global-warming potential (GWP) refrigerant expected to reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions by over 70% compared to fuel-burning kilns used in the wood products industry. When using a zero-carbon source of electricity, industrial heat pumps offer a pathway to eliminate fossil fuel combustion for heat across many industrial applications.

Efficient Saturation High-Temperature Heat Pump for Waste Heat Recovery

Funding amount: $2,565,385

Project Partners: ORNL, Emerson Climate Technologies Inc

Project Description:

The University of Maryland and its partners will advance the state of the art of high temperature heat pumps to enable continuous, zero-carbon heat for processes above 200C. To improve current heat pump technology, the team will adopt a novel injection system with isopropanol refrigerant, coupled with a highly efficient heat exchanger system to deliver the heat. The proposed approach of near-saturation cycle processes, with the help of multi-stage compression, aims to achieve 71% of Carnot efficiency at 200C with a temperature lift of 100K.

Published July 31, 2023