Gettin’ a new Cat: The Digest’s 2017 Multi-Slide Guide to Catalyst Costs

The US Department of Energy is supporting a project to develop a catalyst cost estimation tool that would enable rapid and informed cost-based decisions in research and commercialization of catalysts.

As the research team notes, “Nearly all biomass conversion processes rely on catalysis as do many biochemical processes. Catalytic technology development is leveraged by a major portion of conversion pathways across BETO’s portfolio.”

What the sector needs is an industrially validated and publicly-available catalyst cost estimation tool. It would be a first-of-its-kind tool for considering costs of novel and pre-commercial catalysts and paves the way for faster commercialization catalytic materials. Project leads Frederick Baddour of NREL and Lesley Snowden-Swan of PNNL prepared these illuminating slides for the DOE Project Peer Review meet-up this year.