NETL-Led Project Selected to Receive $10 Million for National Testbed for Industrial Combustion

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Industrial Technologies Office (ITO) has selected NETL and its partners at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) to receive $10 million in funding to develop the Burner Laboratories to Advance fuel utiliZation for thermal Energy (BLAZE) Center.

The BLAZE facilities will serve as a national testbed to accelerate industrial combustion technology, which will bolster the competitiveness of the nation's heavy heat industries at a global scale, improve technology robustness, and increase American energy security by using advanced fuel blends for improved fuel flexibility.

Energy-intensive industrial heating processes underpin everything from metal production to food processing, making advancements in fuel-flexible burner systems essential for reliable U.S. manufacturing and for bolstering the competitiveness of U.S. industries.

At its core, BLAZE will offer state-of-the-art experimental facilities tailored for advanced fuel formulations that include natural gas, preheated air, and additional gaseous feedstocks driven by industry relevance and interest. These facilities provide an open and dynamic environment for industrial partners to rigorously test a diverse array of combustion technologies, from advanced industrial burners and sensors to refractory linings and novel materials.

The BLAZE Center will be led by NETL's Kristyn Johnson May as principal investigator, NETL's David Battaglia as co-principal investigator, and Argonne's Doug Longman as co-principal investigator.

"Fuel flexibility is paramount for enhancing the U.S. industrial heat industry's global competitiveness and security. Through the offering of sophisticated experimental testbeds, computational modeling, and combustion expertise unique to the national labs, BLAZE will equip U.S. manufacturers with the technology development needed to enhance combustion efficiency, secure supply chains, and maintain a leading edge in the global market," said NETL principal investigator Kristyn Johnson May.

"In the development of this proposal for ITO, our team engaged with a lot of industry experts across the industrial heating value chain to ensure that the BLAZE Center would meet the needs of a broad variety of stakeholders," said NETL co-principal investigator David Battaglia.

BLAZE is designed to apply to the metals, glass, cement, chemicals, and food/beverage industries, while ongoing engagements with these stakeholders will maintain BLAZE's relevance in ever-changing markets.

Equipped to handle fuel-flexible burner technologies at industry-relevant scales from 0.5 to 1.5 megawatts, the testbeds feature advanced instrumentation for precise characterization of combustion performance and safety for single and multi-burner configurations. Test furnaces at NETL and ANL will be highly configurable to test process-heating concepts for an array of industrial applications, including direct-fired, indirect-fired, and a specialized materials furnace for long-duration testing in challenging combustion environments. In addition, BLAZE will offer an adjunct boiler testbed at GTI Energy, broadening the scope of industrial heating applications with advanced fuel blends.

BLAZE distinguishes itself through its formidable computational fluid dynamics (CFD) capabilities, which are instrumental in the intelligent scaling of promising technologies. These capabilities harness sophisticated diagnostics and tools, unique to the two national laboratories, to simulate complex operations in direct and indirect burners, furnaces, and boilers.

"National laboratories uniquely combine CFD expertise, validation approaches, and scale-up techniques, together with access to world-class, high-performance computing facilities. Together, these capabilities significantly expand the research opportunities BLAZE can offer, helping industry to derisk technology development and accelerate scale-up efforts," said Argonne's Doug Longman.

The computational models are developed and rigorously validated against experimental data obtained from the testbeds, thereby refining predictive accuracy and ensuring successful industrial retrofits and technology deployment. This fusion of advanced modeling and simulations across a wide range of conditions provides invaluable insights into combustion and ancillary technology performance as well as impacts to materials and downstream processes across a spectrum of fuel conditions.

To ensure broad industry engagement and knowledge dissemination, BLAZE offers a comprehensive service center, providing open access to a wealth of digital resources focused on fuel flexibility. This central hub is dedicated to sharing critical information on safety protocols, technological breakthroughs, and actionable insights. Key service functions include:

• Combustion Gas Safety - Leveraging decades of national laboratory expertise to offer guidance and connect industries with essential resources.
• Sensors - Supporting the development and scaling of advanced sensors for demanding combustion environments.
• Controls - Providing expert guidance on combustion controls, digital twin development, and hardware-in-the-loop testing.
• Materials - Facilitating material testing for reliability against embrittlement and moisture effects.
• Systems Analyses - Conducting thorough technoeconomic, life cycle, and market analyses.
• Training and Workforce Development - Developing targeted resources and webinars for the industrial combustion sector.
• Modeling and Simulations - Robustly validating computational models and "best-practices" for scaling burner designs for a variety of fuels.

This integrated and forward-thinking approach is designed to overcome existing barriers in fuel-flexible combustion technology, delivering essential resources and expertise directly to U.S. industries. Organizations eager to collaborate or explore the full potential of BLAZE are encouraged to make contact at [email protected] .

NETL is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratory dedicated to innovating and accelerating the nation's energy solutions in hydrocarbons, geothermal energy, and critical minerals production. The Lab further strengthens its impact by engaging with industry, academia and other stakeholders through four strategically located Centers of Excellence: Coal, Critical Minerals and Advanced Alloys, Oil & Gas, and Geothermal. With research sites in Albany, Oregon; Morgantown, West Virginia; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, NETL operates as one laboratory to create advanced energy technologies that support DOE's mission and enable affordable, reliable and secure energy to fuel human prosperity.

Argonne National Laboratory is a U.S. Department of Energy multidisciplinary science and engineering research center, conducting leading-edge research in energy, materials science, and advanced manufacturing.