PROGRAM AREA OVERVIEW

PROGRAM AREA OVERVIEW

OFFICE OF BASIC ENERGY SCIENCES

The Basic Energy Sciences (BES) program supports fundamental research in the natural sciences leading to new and improved energy technologies. The program’s purpose is to create new scientific knowledge by supporting basic, peer-reviewed research in areas of materials sciences, chemical sciences, geosciences, plant and microbial biosciences, and engineering sciences that are relevant to energy resources, production, conversion, and efficiency. The results of BES-supported research are routinely published in the open literature.

A key function of the program is to plan, construct, and operate premier national user facilities to serve researchers at universities, national laboratories, and industrial laboratories, thus enabling the acquisition of new knowledge that cannot be obtained in any other way. The scientific facilities include synchrotron radiation light sources, high-flux neutron sources, electron-beam microcharacterization centers, nanoscale science research centers, and specialized facilities such as the Combustion Research Facility. These national resources are available free of charge to all researchers based on the quality and importance of proposed nonproprietary experiments.

A major objective of the BES program is to promote the transfer of the results of our basic research to advance and create technologies important to Department of Energy (DOE) missions in areas of energy efficiency, renewable energy resources, improved use of fossil fuels, mitigation of the adverse impacts of energy production and use, and future nuclear energy sources. The following set of technical topics represents one important mechanism by which the BES program augments its system of university and laboratory research programs and integrates basic science, applied research, and development activities within the DOE.

For additional information regarding the Office of Basic Energy Sciences priorities, click here.

TOPICS:

7. Chemical Reactions and Separation Processes for Bio-refinery Applications

a. New Chemical Catalysts and Biocatalysts

b. Process Intensification

c. Alternative Reaction Media

d. Separation Process to Reduce or Eliminate Distillations

8. Catalysis

a. Heterogeneous Catalysts

b. Homogeneous Catalysts

c. Reactive Separations

9. Separation Process Technologies for Manufacturing