RFI on Manufacturing Carbon Negative Materials to Reduce Embodied Emissions in Buildings | DE FOA 0002506

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The Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) issued this notice as a Request for Information (RFI), not a funding opportunity. In practical terms, ARPA-E is gathering ideas, technical input, and perspectives that could shape a future research program. There is no Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) associated with this notice, no money available under it, and no applications are being accepted for financial assistance. The RFI is meant to help ARPA-E understand what is technically plausible, what the biggest barriers are, and what kinds of research and development efforts could have the highest impact if ARPA-E later decides to launch a program in this area.

The core concept behind the RFI is to explore technologies that could turn buildings into long-term carbon sinks by reducing and potentially reversing the embodied emissions of construction materials. "Embodied emissions" refers to greenhouse gas emissions released during the extraction of raw materials, processing, manufacturing, and transport of building products, plus construction and end-of-life impacts. ARPA-E is interested in materials and manufacturing pathways that do more than simply lower emissions; the agency is explicitly interested in "carbon negative" approaches where the net result is storage or utilization of carbon in building materials, ideally at scale and with durable sequestration over the life of the building.

To achieve that vision, the RFI highlights the development of novel construction materials derived from a range of feedstocks. These include forestry products and other purpose-grown biomass, agricultural residues, and the direct use of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane as inputs. The goal is to substitute these carbon-storing or carbon-utilizing materials for conventional materials wherever feasible, while also enabling more efficient building designs. In other words, ARPA-E is looking not only at drop-in replacements (materials that can directly replace existing products) but also at innovations that change how buildings are designed and constructed to reduce the amount of high-emissions material needed in the first place.

The notice frames the challenge in the context of today's dominant construction materials, especially steel, concrete, stone, brick, and other masonry products. These materials are widely used, but their manufacturing is often energy intensive and, in many cases, inherently difficult to decarbonize because emissions are tied to high-temperature processing and chemical reactions (for example, process emissions in cement production). While wood is also a common building material and has gained renewed interest through engineered wood products and mass timber systems that store biogenic carbon, ARPA-E points out that large-scale adoption requires careful accounting of land use impacts, transportation emissions, and the environmental and emissions impacts of adhesives used in engineered wood and mass timber. The RFI suggests there is room for additional pathways that expand carbon storage in the building stock beyond conventional timber solutions, including approaches that incorporate greenhouse gas-based feedstocks into durable building products.

ARPA-E emphasizes that any future program in this space would need to meet real-world building constraints rather than focusing on carbon performance alone. Candidate materials and systems must preserve (or improve) building operational performance, and they must meet structural requirements and fire safety and fireproofing code requirements. Because the construction industry is typically conservative and risk-averse, the RFI also recognizes that the immaturity of alternative materials can be a major barrier to deployment. This implies a need for convincing performance data, clear compliance pathways, manufacturability at scale, and credible demonstrations that address stakeholder concerns from regulators, architects, engineers, builders, insurers, and owners.

A major theme throughout the RFI is the importance of rigorous life-cycle analysis (LCA) and carbon accounting. ARPA-E signals that claims of carbon negativity need to be backed by comprehensive, robust assessments that consider upstream emissions, manufacturing energy, transportation, installation, and end-of-life scenarios. The agency also calls out permanency of storage and end-of-life design, meaning the carbon stored in materials should remain stored for long periods and not be easily released through degradation, demolition, disposal, or incineration. Designing for circularity, reuse, recyclability, or stable long-term storage at end of life is implied as a key component of credible carbon-negative building materials.

This RFI is notable in that ARPA-E explicitly seeks perspectives from both within and outside the buildings sector community. That reflects the idea that relevant breakthroughs may come from adjacent fields such as carbon utilization, chemical engineering, polymer science, advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, agricultural systems, forestry, and industrial decarbonization. ARPA-E is effectively testing what the innovation landscape looks like, what feedstocks and conversion pathways seem promising, what scale-up obstacles exist, and what performance and code compliance issues must be addressed to move from lab results to commercially viable construction products.

From an administrative standpoint, the opportunity is titled "RFI on Manufacturing Carbon Negative Materials to Reduce Embodied Emissions in Buildings" (Funding Opportunity Number DE FOA 0002506) and is associated with ARPA-E under DOE. The activity category is research and development, with CFDA number 81.135, and eligible respondents are listed as unrestricted, consistent with an RFI that is open to broad input. The original closing date for responses was April 21, 2021, and the award ceiling is listed as 0 because this is not a funding solicitation. ARPA-E directs readers to the full RFI at https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov and states that submitted information may be used to support program planning for potential future initiatives.

• The Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy in the oz, science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "RFI on Manufacturing Carbon Negative Materials to Reduce Embodied Emissions in Buildings" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 81.135.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2021-03-25.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2021-04-21. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted.

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