ORNL Deputy for Projects Moe Khaleel, Ramaco Carbon Chairman and CEO Randall Atkins, ORNL Laboratory Director Thomas Zacharia, and Co-director of ORNL’s Fossil Energy Program Edgar Lara-Curzio discuss their partnership at the ORNL. (Photo: ORNL)
Ramaco Carbon has entered into a partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the nation’s largest U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) science and energy laboratory, to explore innovations for the conversion of coal to high-value advanced carbon products and materials.
According to an announcement, the five-year cooperative research and development agreement will allow Ramaco and ORNL to work together on new projects that use coal as a manufacturing feedstock for carbon fibers, building products and composites. The partnership will also allow exploration of coal for development of electrodes for energy storage devices and new materials for additive manufacturing, including large-scale 3D printing.
The research will be funded by Ramaco Carbon and the DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy.
The agreement combines Oak Ridge’s chemical and materials science and engineering, computational science and advanced manufacturing expertise with Ramaco Carbon’s coal-based research, manufacturing and 3D printing facilities being developed near Sheridan.
Ramaco Chairman and CEO Randal Atkins said Ramaco is deeply honored to be partnered with the DOE’s leading innovator in advanced carbon materials and additive manufacturing.
Ramaco Carbon entered into a similar agreement in 2018 with the National Energy Technology Laboratory, a partnership that has involved the use of coal to make graphene and carbon nanotubes and to recover rare earth minerals. Ramaco Carbon is also a party to five Department of Energy grants in the coal-to-products field.
Based in Sheridan, Ramaco has operations in both Wyoming and West Virginia. The company focuses on the use of coal to create advanced carbon products and materials and is currently building the nation’s first vertically integrated carbon tech platform.
