ORNL Launches National Centre to Modernise US Forest Products Manufacturing
The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is leading a new national effort in collaboration with DOE’s National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) to revitalise the U.S. pulp, paper and packaging industry through science and technology innovation. The Center for Research and Advancement of Forest Product Technologies (CRAFT) will unite national laboratories, universities and industry partners to modernise mill operations, reduce costs, improve productivity and strengthen domestic manufacturing competitiveness throughout the forest products supply chain.
Funded by the Industrial Technologies Office in DOE’s Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation, CRAFT is also supported by DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory, as well as a network of industry partners.
The initiative will foster commercialisation of new technologies with the goal of increasing productivity and yield and reducing manufacturing costs for pulp, paper and packaging. By coupling advanced materials research with smart manufacturing tools that accelerate the digital transformation of the industry, CRAFT will advance forest products innovation to support a strong and globally competitive industry.
The U.S. pulp and paper industry is critical to thousands of rural communities, like the one where I grew up in Maine, but much of the existing infrastructure is decades old. CRAFT aims to unify, align and accelerate the nation’s leading centres of forest-products innovation. By linking both industry and the research community through this centre, our goal is to provide a framework to support the growth of U.S. manufacturers.
Daniel Coughlin, Executive Director of CRAFT and senior research and development staff member at ORNL
“We are eager to engage industry to identify critical bottlenecks and innovation opportunities,” said Gregg Beckham, senior research fellow and NLR lead for CRAFT. “We will apply molecular-to-process-scale modeling, AI-enabled discovery, and integrated experimental validation to accelerate the translation of new technologies with real-world impact.”
Research performed by CRAFT will focus on solutions which reduce cost, enhance productivity and increase the abundance of U.S. forest products. Focus areas include next generation pulping, chemical recovery, dewatering and drying, and the digital transformation of the industry.
“This centre will serve as the gateway to innovation for the U.S. pulp and paper industry,” said Art Ragauskas, the University of Tennessee-ORNL Governor’s Chair in Biorefining and chief technology officer for CRAFT. “Together with our partners, CRAFT will de-risk technologies to rapidly transition the most promising solutions from research to full commercial impact.”
During its first phase, CRAFT will work with industry to shape pilot scale investments needed to de-risk innovation. To improve the global competitiveness of existing assets, CRAFT will provide industry access to the latest automation, modeling and data analysis tools that allow industry to extract process insights to improve efficiency, increase productivity, reduce downtime and reduce cost.
“ORNL is uniquely positioned to lead CRAFT because of our deep expertise in advanced manufacturing, materials science and data-driven process optimisation,” said Robert Wagner, Associate Laboratory Director for the Energy Science and Technology Directorate. “Our partnerships across DOE’s national laboratory system and with universities give industry access to unparalleled technical capabilities.”
In addition to advancing research, CRAFT will serve as a collaboration hub for technology commercialisation and workforce development. Industry engagement and guidance will be critical to the success of the centre.
Through its industry and research guidance team, CRAFT will work alongside representatives from pulp, paper and packaging manufacturers, downstream customers, equipment suppliers and solution providers to align with real world priorities and provide a pathway to commercialisation of new technologies.
“DOE’s investment in CRAFT recognises that the nation’s economic security depends on efficient, competitive manufacturing,” Coughlin said. “The innovation developed here in close partnership with industry will strengthen U.S. manufacturing, assist industry to adapt to market shifts and help to secure high-value manufacturing jobs in communities across the country.”
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the U.S. DOE’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time.
For more information, visit energy.gov/science.
