The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced $8 million for up to 15 research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) projects that leverage DOE’s Roll-to-Roll (R2R) Consortium. (Earlier post.).

This funding provides an opportunity for private sector entities to partner with national labs to receive funding via cooperative research and development agreements (CRADAs). The National Renewable Energy Laboratory will manage the selection of these projects, which will complement manufacturing and recycling efforts funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and help fast-track the growth of the clean hydrogen economy as laid out in the US National Clean Hydrogen Strategy and Roadmap.

Through this funding, DOE’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office (HFTO) seeks to accelerate development of affordable manufacturing processes and characterization tools for water electrolyzers and fuel cells focusing on materials synthesis processes; colloidal science, rheology, and formulations; roll-to-roll coating process development; quality control technique development; advanced materials characterization (e.g., electron microscopy, X-ray scattering and spectroscopy); electrochemical testing; and advanced computing (e.g., synthetic reactors CFD modeling, coating process modeling, machine learning, and artificial intelligence).

The R2R Consortium’s mission is to advance efficient, scalable, high-throughput, and high-quality manufacturing methods and processes for clean hydrogen technologies to accelerate domestic manufacturing and reduce the capital cost of durable and high-performing fuel cells and water electrolyzer systems. Consortium objectives include understanding material and process behavior to advance methods to increase energy efficiency, reduce material usage, reduce waste, and reduce equipment cost in manufacturing processes, as well as enabling high-throughput manufacturing processes.

The available $8 million will provide funds to the R2R Consortium to support industry-led cooperative projects over an expected two-year duration. Proposed projects must involve a partnership between an industrial entity and two or more national labs that are part of the R2R Consortium. DOE encourages diversity, equity, and inclusion as well as participation by disadvantaged or underserved communities, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or other minority serving institutions.

Concept papers are due by 3 June 2024, and full applications are due by 15 July 2024. Eligibility information, application requirements, and instructions can be found on the R2R CRADA Call website.