Novel Research and Development for the Direct Capture of Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere | DE FOA 0002188

Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0002188

The Department of Energy (DOE), through the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), released a discretionary funding opportunity titled "Novel Research and Development for the Direct Capture of Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere" (Funding Opportunity Number DE-FOA-0002188). The opportunity is offered as a cooperative agreement, which typically means DOE expects substantial involvement during the project period (for example, technical coordination, milestones, and regular progress reviews), rather than a hands-off grant. The associated CFDA number is 81.089, and the activity category is Energy. The FOA was created on March 30, 2020, with an original closing date of May 29, 2020. DOE anticipated making about 9 awards, with an award ceiling of $2,500,000 per award.

This FOA is aimed at advancing Direct Air Capture (DAC), meaning technologies that remove carbon dioxide (CO2) directly from ambient air rather than from concentrated industrial exhaust streams. The announcement explicitly positions DAC as a new application area that can build on DOE Fossil Energy's long-running carbon capture R&D program, which has been developing capture technologies since 2001 with a core objective of lowering the cost of carbon capture systems. Historically, that work has focused on capturing CO2 from fossil fuel power plant flue gas, where CO2 concentrations are far higher than in the open atmosphere. The FOA emphasizes leveraging past progress in materials and systems development, while also recognizing that DAC introduces different operating conditions and process requirements that cannot simply be addressed by reusing the same approaches developed for power plant gases.

A central technical challenge highlighted in the FOA is the much lower concentration of CO2 in air compared to flue gas. This difference drives a cascade of engineering and scientific hurdles. Lower CO2 concentration generally means larger volumes of air must be processed to capture the same amount of CO2, which can increase equipment size, fan or blower energy use, and overall system complexity. It can also place different demands on capture media (the chemicals or materials that bind with CO2), because those media must be effective and selective at very low partial pressures of CO2, and they must also tolerate common atmospheric constituents such as water vapor and other trace gases. The FOA notes that these differences are significant enough to require applied research and the development of alternative capture media, implying that new sorbents, solvents, or hybrid systems may be needed to meet performance and cost targets under real DAC conditions.

Eligibility is listed as unrestricted, meaning the opportunity is broadly open to a wide range of applicant types, subject to any additional eligibility clarifications that may appear in the full text of the FOA. In practice, this typically allows participation by entities such as universities, national laboratories (where allowable), private companies, nonprofits, and potentially state or local governments, depending on the FOA's detailed requirements.

The notice also includes an amendment (Amendment 000001) to the FOA. The amendment is described as purely administrative, issued to correct a systems issue, and it states there is no change to the content of the funding opportunity. In other words, the technical intent, scope, and expectations of the FOA remained the same; the amendment was meant to fix an administrative or platform-related problem rather than revise the program goals or application requirements.

Overall, this funding opportunity is essentially DOE/NETL's push to accelerate novel R&D for capturing CO2 directly from the atmosphere, building from two decades of carbon capture work while acknowledging that DAC is not just "flue gas capture in a new place." The FOA frames DAC as requiring fresh applied research, especially around capture media and system designs that can operate efficiently and economically despite the fundamental constraint of low atmospheric CO2 concentration.

• The Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory in the energy sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Novel Research and Development for the Direct Capture of Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 81.089.
• This funding opportunity was created on Mar 30, 2020.
• Applicants must submit their applications by May 29, 2020. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $2,500,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 9 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for DE FOA 0002188

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