Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to work with three small businesses on hydrogen transportation, bio-coal, nanomaterial

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently selected three small businesses to collaborate with DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) through the Small Business Voucher (SBV) Program on projects involving bio-coal, hydrogen for fuel cell cars, and nanomaterial manufacturing.

PNNL, one of five National Labs leading the SBV pilot program, received $610,000 in vouchers to
support the three collaborations.

The Portland Oregon-based ThermChem Corporation will work with PNNL chemical engineer Karl Albrecht and his colleagues on assessing the cost-effectiveness of the company’s hydrothermal
carbonization method for converting dairy manure into bio-coal. PNNL will also evaluate the feasibility
of extracting valuable byproducts from liquid waste created during the process.

Emerald Energy NW, a company from Bothell, Washington, will collaborate with PNNL researcher Jamie Holladay and his colleagues on improving a component needed for rotary magnetic gas liquefaction, which converts hydrogen gas into a liquid so it can be transported to fueling stations for fuel cell cars.

InnaVenture, located in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, will work with PNNL Laboratory Fellow Pete McGrail and his colleagues to develop and test improvements to the company’s method for manufacturing metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), a type of nanomaterial.

The companies are three among the 38 small businesses selected for this round of the SBV program and 114 selected for the entirety of the program so far. The SBV program, which is part of the Tech-to-Market Program within DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, enables American small businesses to access intellectual and technical resources through collaborations with National Labs that allow them to overcome technology challenges and get their advanced energy products to market more quickly.