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), is seeking commercialization partners to license a new method to produce industrial-grade structural carbon fiber and flame-retardant fibers from commercially-available low-cost textile-grade acrylic fiber precursor materials. The ORNL Technology Transfer Office will accept licensing applications from companies committed to manufacture in the United States through May 15, 2016. Historically, carbon fiber has been too expensive for widespread use in automobiles and other high-volume industrial applications. A detailed analysis of the new process compared to a published baseline for conventional carbon fiber production examined manufacturing costs of nine major process steps, starting with the precursor and pretreatment and finishing with surface treatment, sizing, winding, inspection and shipping. The analysis revealed the new process yields significant reductions in materials, energy, capital and labor costs resulting in an overall manufacturing cost reduction of up to 50 percent. Details of the cost analysis will be shared with the prospective licensees. The lower-cost carbon fiber produced by ORNL has demonstrated tensile strength, tensile modulus and strain to failure values exceeding 400 ksi, 40 Msi, and 1% respectively. These properties meet the performance criteria prescribed by some automotive manufacturers for high strength composite materials used in high-volume applications. A number of clean energy technologies will also benefit from this invention including wind turbine components and compressed gas storage tanks. The process was developed in the DOE Carbon Fiber Technology Facility (CFTF), a semi-production scale facility open to industry and academic researchers, with funding from the DOE's Advanced Manufacturing and Vehicle Technology Offices. Licensees will have the opportunity to collaborate with ORNL researchers in the CFTF subject to availability and funding. ORNL will competitively select between three and five partners to commercialize this process. Partners will be selected based on their capabilities, business plans, and commitments to manufacture in the United States. No additional licenses will be offered for at least five years. Additional details may be found on the Oak Ridge National Laboratory website ( www.ornl.gov/partnerships/low-cost-carbon-fiber-process ). Please contact Mike Paulus, Director, Technology Transfer, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 865-574-1051,
[email protected], for more information or to obtain a license application for this opportunity. Intellectual Property UTB ID 201503583, Method of Producing Carbon Fibers from Multipurpose Commercial Fibers, U.S. Patent Application 62/273,559, filed December 31, 2015.