Topic #: CW26-T03 · Branch: DOE · Status: Open
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Industrial Technologies Office (ITO) is supporting an Open Topic for state-of-the-art technologies that strengthen America’s industrial sector and advance global competitiveness of U.S. industry through stepchange improvements in energy productivity, process efficiency, and performance, cost, and other relevant areas.
Posted: 10/30/2026 · Opens: 10/30/2026
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The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Industrial Technologies Office (ITO) is supporting an Open Topic for state-of-the-art technologies that strengthen America’s industrial sector and advance global competitiveness of U.S. industry through stepchange improvements in energy productivity, process efficiency, and performance, cost, and other relevant areas.
Areas of Interest Applications to this topic should address one of ITO’s research, development, and early-stage demonstration (RD&D) focus areas:
a. Sector-specific process innovation for the largest industrial consumers of energy: Chemicals & Refining, Iron, Steel, & other Commodity Base Metals, Food & Beverage, Forest Products, and Cement, Concrete, & other Building Materials.
b. Innovation on common unit operations applicable across many industrial sectors: Thermal processes (combustion, combined heat and power systems, heat exchangers, waste heat recovery, electrotechnologies, and thermal energy storage), non-thermal processes (membranes, comminution, and other separations), and the Water-Energy Nexus (water supply, wastewater treatment, and PFAS destruction).
c. Innovation that enables the integration of data centers and other large loads into the energy systems: such as data center thermal management, power systems, and demandside load flexibility.
Not of Interest • Technologies that do not address a specific industrial need or are not directly relevant to one or more industrial focus areas. • Technologies that are primarily relevant for non-industrial sector applications (e.g., power sector). • Further development of technologies that are mature or commercially available. • New system designs, configurations, and/or integration that primarily incorporate commercially available or mature technologies. • Innovations in carbon capture and storage. • Innovations in hydrogen production and transportation.
Note: To increase the likeliness of industry adoption, applications for this topic must demonstrate clear evidence of commercial potential that combines technology progress (e.g. demonstrated analytical and experimental proof of concept in a laboratory environment) with
significant market pull (e.g. demonstrated interest from industry partners, investors and/or off takers). Applications should identify the path towards commercialization beyond SBIR funding – potential sources, stages, timing, amounts, and types of subsequent financing required to reach market.