The US Department of Energy (DOE) is calling for applications for the DOE Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) Fiscal Year 2023 Technology Commercialization Fund Base Annual Appropriations National Laboratory Call for FECM Program-Led Topics. (DE-LC-000L101)

This year’s topics include Hydrogen Quantification for technologies that can quantify leakage of hydrogen during its production, distribution, storage, and use, with detection capabilities in ambient air at the parts-per-million or parts-per-billion level.

The clean hydrogen value chain is expected to develop rapidly in the coming decades to decarbonize many sectors of the economy, accelerated by DOE initiatives including H2@Scale, H2 Hubs, and equities in BIL and IRA including the clean hydrogen production tax credit. As production, distribution, storage, and use of H2 becomes more widespread, operators and project developers must take careful steps to mitigate the risk of hydrogen leakage across the hydrogen value chain.

Hydrogen is a colorless, mobile, highly flammable, and small molecule, so controlling or detecting its leakage is particularly difficult. Development and commercialization of ppm and ppb H₂ leak detection technologies are imperative to achieve the full emissions-reduction potential of clean H₂, and to ensure safe, long-term operations at all stages of the value chain.

This FECM-led lab call is the result of a collaborative effort with the DOE Office of Technology Transitions and designed to advance lab-developed intellectual property toward commercialization in technology areas covered by FECM’s strategic vision.

Given the pressing need for technologies that are critical for furthering several fields within FECM’s strategic vision (specifically, carbon dioxide removal, hydrogen production with carbon management, mineral sustainability, and methane mitigation), FECM has elected to fund this lab call and associated program.

This solicitation offers an opportunity for private industry to partner with DOE’s National Labs to advance energy-related technologies and Lab intellectual property (IP) toward commercialization.

Other topic areas in the lab call are:

• Carbon Dioxide Removal Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification

• Critical Mineral and Rare-Earth Element Characterization and Extraction

• Natural Gas Infrastructure Methane Quantification