ORNL Development Assistance Opportunity for Roll-to-Roll (R2R) Advanced Energy Materials Manufacturing

***Notice: This Development Assistance Opportunity has been extended until further notice. Award decisions will be made on a rolling basis as proposals are received.*** Description UT-Battelle, LLC, acting under its Prime Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for the management and operation of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), conducts research and development (R&D) in support of the DOE Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) and Fuel Cell Technologies Office (FCTO) in conjunction with its R2R Advanced Materials Manufacturing (AMM) Consortium partners Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and the Eastman Kodak Company. The AMO AMM Consortium's mission is to assist U.S. manufacturers in the areas of energy storage and conversion, flexible electronics and displays, energy efficiency, and water purification, and develop a robust associated domestic materials and components supply chain. Only projects that have a strong likelihood of creating jobs domestically, reducing air pollutants, petroleum use, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and boosting system and device energy efficiency are of interest. The selected projects will be conducted under joint Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs) between ORNL, ANL, LBNL, NREL, and the industrial partners. Projects shall focus on advanced materials and component development, synthesis and processing methods, and quality control and metrology in the specific areas of: - Polymer electrolyte fuel cells and polymer electrolyte membrane electrolyzers - Advanced batteries - Flexible electronics and displays - Energy efficient window films - Flexible solar photovoltaic (PV) cells - Water separation and purification membranes These projects will be conducted within a 12-to-18-month period, and industrial partners are required to provide at least 50% cost share, which can be monetary funds or in-kind contribution (e.g., facilities, services, and staff time). The national laboratories will not provide any monetary funds to industrial partners. Eligibility Eligibility is limited to organizations that currently develop and manufacture devices and systems in the above topic areas for commercial applications or that will be able to manufacture products as a direct result of the efforts of these CRADAs. Background DOE cost and performance targets, as well as petroleum and emission reduction goals, for advanced energy storage, advanced energy conversion, and water purification applications will not be met without significant and timely advancements in R2R manufacturing. Required R2R advances include adaptation of existing processing methods and development of novel methods, and have the potential to significantly impact U.S. manufacturing sector recovery, environmental security, energy security, and sustainable transportation adoption. Economies of scale through increased manufacturing volumes based on traditional assembly and processing methods will not suffice. For example, current baseline technology cell costs in the lithium-ion battery industry are about 2.5 the $100-125/kWh ultimate target. In order to reach the target of a 2.5 increase in performance to 500 Wh/kg, novel R2R processing technologies will be required. Furthermore, polymer electrolyte fuel cell stacks currently cost over 10 in low volumes compared to the ultimate cost FCTO target of $15/kW. Other examples of EERE funded technologies that have a similar cost-target issue are water-purification membranes, window films, PV films, and electronic films. Objective The R2R AMM Consortium objective is to partner with material, component, device, and system manufacturers to investigate, improve, and scale R2R process methodology to increase manufacturing levels to internationally significant quantities. Creation and preservation of domestic manufacturing jobs is a primary goal of this solicitation. Awards will be granted in one or more of the following categories. Proposals should emphasize only one of the following categories related to the above topic areas: - New materials synthesis - Impact of new and existing raw material morphology and structure on processibility - Advanced and high-speed R2R processing methods - Process metrology and non-destructive evaluation (NDE) for developing advanced feedback loops - Materials and subcomponent integration - Multilayer coatings and 3-D patterning - Linking of pre-pilot processing (10s to 100s of feet) experiments to pilot-scale processing (thousands to millions of feet) - Impact of process parameter variation on device performance and durability Priority of awards will be given to those topics that address: high-value (HV) R2R process modeling and materials synthesis and properties modeling; energy storage and generation materials, products, and manufacturing; and water generation materials and manufacturing. Potential projects need to advance existing technology from TRL 4-5 to TRL 7-8. There is a total of $1.3 million available for all topics. If any hydrogen and fuel cell topics are selected, FCTO would provide additional funding (up to $1 million total) to complement AMO-funded projects related to hydrogen and fuel cell manufacturing. Federal funds in each award are to be used to activities undertaken within the lab consortium by ORNL, ANL, LBNL, and NREL for services, staff time, and facilities necessary to support each selected RD&D project. The CRADA award sizes are variable and must include a 1:1 industrial cost share. Preference is given to - funds-in CRADAs in which industry provides direct cost share to the labs, as opposed to - in-kind funding. It is anticipated there will be 5-10 awards. The R2R AMM Consortium's expertise in materials discovery, materials synthesis, process technology, process modeling, metrology, and quality control will assist in developing cutting edge fabrication methods in the specified research areas and enabling successful implementation of large scale devices and systems meeting performance needs and cost targets. The materials and processing technologies developed should be deployed in a new or existing manufacturing facility along with demonstration of any energy savings and economic impact. Laboratory Support The R2R AMM Consortium shall provide infrastructure, testing, operations, characterization, and analysis: - Precision coating equipment - Pilot-scale R2R operations support - Processing and coating scale-up facilities via MOU between ORNL and Eastman Kodak - Device assembly assistance - Electrochemical and cell performance evaluation - State-of-the-art microscopy - Surface characterization - X-ray and neutron characterization facilities - Computational science - Modeling through High Performance Computing for Manufacturing (HPC4Mfg) - World-class data analysis - In-line quality control measures and resulting design improvements Intellectual Property and Proprietary Data DOE, ORNL, ANL, LBNL, and NREL respect the importance of industry's intellectual property and data security while balancing the need to document the benefits of public expenditures. Provisions relating to proprietary information and intellectual property are set forth in the CRADA, and the process will include putting in place non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) immediately after proposal selections. In addition, if company proprietary information is included in the proposal, the specific information should be marked as such, and the Consortium members will treat that information as confidential. Proposal Preparation Selection of proposals will start at 5:00 pm Eastern Standard Time on March 1, 2017. Proposals submitted thereafter will be considered as funding allows. Proposal and technical inquiries should be directed to the following email address: contact@example.gov Once a proposal is received, a confirmation email will be sent within one week stating the date and time of receipt. Proposals should be no more that 5 single spaced pages using 12 point font (Times New Roman preferred), should be in pdf file format, and must include the following components under headings corresponding to the bullets below: - Title page (not counted in 5-page limit) with proposal title, principal investigator(s), brief company description, and non-proprietary summary. - Contact information: name, nationality, address, phone number, fax number, and email address of the primary contact for contract issues and for scientific issues. - Identification of materials and/or processing challenges that, if addressed, will result in significant technological breakthroughs. - Projection of economic benefit and/or industrial energy savings and/or GHG/pollutant emission and petroleum use reductions. - Description of manufacturing equipment to be upgraded or installed. - Summary of the testing to be done and the goals this testing is expected to accomplish. - Expected DOE and Consortium member resources, including proposed work areas, staff time, and testing/characterization needs. - Estimate and justification of in-kind cost-sharing. - Market history of materials, components, or processing methods to be addressed. - The specific product, component, or process being developed, refined, or validated. - Single page resumes of key project participants should be included (not counted in the 5-page limit). Proposal Evaluation Selection of winning proposals will be at the discretion of DOE AMO, FCTO and Consortium national laboratory members (ORNL, ANL, LBNL, and NREL). The primary categories and relative ranking criteria used to evaluate submissions will be: Technical (60%) - Importance of materials and/or processing problem(s) to be addressed. - Potential of the collaboration to positively impact the U.S. High Value R2R manufacturing industry. - Overall economic benefit to U.S. economy and the overall domestic manufacturing base. - Potential for implementation of industrial energy savings. - Importance of testing and experimental results and generated meta-data to interested and impacted stakeholders. - Overall technical merit. Programmatic (40%) - Adequacy and feasibility of proposed work plan to meet clearly articulated goals of the project. - Estimated level of support requested from Consortium members and justification. - Level of funds-in and/or in-kind cost share to be provided by industrial partner. - Importance of technology development to general market acceptance. - Qualifications and expertise of the key technical personnel who are active participants in the proposed project. - Ability of industrial partner to support proposed activities, commitment of individuals, other partners, available facilities and equipment, etc. CRADA Information Awardees will be required to enter into the non-negotiable, CRADA with Consortium member national laboratory prime contractors. Please review the attached information to assure your company can agree to CRADA language.