The U.S. Department of Energy has selected Arizona State University as the recipient of up to $70 million for a new Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute devoted to fighting greenhouse gas emissions from industrial process heating.

ASU will lead the multi-institution effort known as Electrified Processes for Industry Without Carbon, a press release stated.

“The industrial sector accounts for more than 30% of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, and fossil fuel-driven process heating — from pasteurizing milk to melting steel — is the most significant contributor to those emissions,” said Sridhar Seetharaman, vice dean for research and innovation at ASU's Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering and the director of EPIXC.

Seetharaman said the new institute will support the expanded use of clean electricity for process heating — the thermal energy used to prepare materials and produce manufactured goods — and a dramatic reduction of carbon dioxied emissions across industrial sectors, including iron and steel, chemicals, petroleum, food and beverage, forest products and cement.

It will operate as a public-private partnership conducting innovative research, development, demonstration and deployment of relevant technologies as well as necessary workforce training.

“Additionally, this is part of society’s broader transition to clean energy, and we need to look at the social justice aspects of what we are doing,” Seetharaman said. 

Alongside ASU’s leadership of EPIXC, key partners include the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University and Navajo Technical University among others.

EPIXC joins DOE’s six other Manufacturing USA Institutes, which convene the nation’s brightest minds to solve the country’s toughest manufacturing challenges and move novel electrification processes out of the lab and into the market. 

“The enhancement of energy efficiency in industrial manufacturing processes poses a complex array of technical and societal challenges,” said Kyle Squires, ASU’s vice provost of engineering, computing and technology and dean of the Fulton Schools of Engineering.

“This strong array of academic, community and industry partners will propel the EPIXC team to groundbreaking impact via scientific and technological leadership, workforce development and just energy transition,” said Sally C. Morton, executive vice president of Knowledge Enterprise at Arizona State University. 

EPIXC is funded through the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office.