Blog

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced that it intends to release a NOFO for the Accelerating Scale-up and Pre-piloting of Emerging Chemical Technologies (ASPECT) grant program. Notice of Intent (NOI) states that the DOE anticipates $58 million in funding will be available through the ASPECT grant program. This NOFO will aim to support work involving chemicals that offer advantages in terms of performance or cost, or that offer benefits to America’s foreign trade or national security. The proposed chemicals can be either conventional or bio-advantaged chemicals.

What is the purpose of the ASPECT Program?

The purpose of the ASPECT Program is to:

• Foster industry partnerships in the production of chemicals from alternative feedstocks
• Prototype and pilot technologies and processes proven at the bench scale
• Validate novel chemical manufacturing technologies that address gaps in the U.S. supply chain
• Enable informed decisions, optimize processes, and build confidence in technology scale up
• Accelerate adoption of innovative solutions for chemical production in high impact areas
• Improve domestic supply chain resiliency and expand market growth for chemicals
• Enable domestic production of chemicals with improved properties, such as reduced cost, enhanced durability, higher production efficiency, or lower toxicity.

What are the topic areas?

To address progress from laboratory research to pre-pilot scale and eliminate delays between scale-up phases, ASPECT will implement a staged scale-up approach across two topic areas: Bench ASPECT and Pre-pilot ASPECT.

The Bench Topic Area will support the development and adoption of new technologies for producing chemicals from alternative feedstocks, moving beyond proof-of-concept to bench and pre-pilot scale.

The Pre-Pilot Topic Area will aim to accelerate the development and market entry of strategically valuable, domestically produced chemicals. This topic area will seek proposals to design, construct, and operate pre-pilot scale facilities that convert alternative feedstocks into chemicals.

Who is eligible to apply?

According to the DOE announcement, eligible applicants will include institutions of higher education*; for-profit entities; non-profit entities; state and local government entities and Indian Tribes.

* Institutions of higher education are eligible as prime applicants and subrecipients for Topic Area 1 and as subrecipients only for Topic Area 2.

The following are eligible only as subrecipients: DOE federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs), non-DOE FFRDCs, and federal research agencies

The NOI stipulates that at least one for-profit industry entity is required as part of the proposed project team.

When will the Notice of Funding Opportunity be released?

The ASPECT Notice of Intent states that the DOE anticipates releasing the NOFO on August 24th, 2026. When released, the NOFO will be available in DOE eXCHANGE. The Notice of Intent can be found here. 

For more information on this funding or how to apply with Morrison’s assistance, please contact the Morrison Grants Team by email at grants@morrisonco.net or call us at 530-893-4764.

Photo by Hans Reniers on Unsplash