The U.S. Department of Energy selected Arizona State University (ASU) to receive up to $70 million to establish a new Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute devoted to fighting greenhouse-gas emissions from industrial process heating. ASU will lead the multi-institution effort known as Electrified Processes for Industry Without Carbon, or EPIXC. The institute will support expanded use of clean electricity for industrial process heating in steelmaking and ironmaking. It will operate as a public-private partnership conducting research, development, demonstration and deployment of relevant technologies as well as necessary workforce training. 

“The industrial sector accounts for more than 30% of the nation’s greenhouse-gas emissions, and fossil-fuel-driven process heating (including melting steel) is the most significant contributor to those emissions,” said Sridhar Seetharaman, vice dean for research and innovation in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU and the director of EPIXC.