Revolutionizing Ore to Steel to Impact Emissions (ROSIE) | DE FOA 0003117

Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0003117

Revolutionizing Ore to Steel to Impact Emissions (ROSIE) is an ARPA-E funding opportunity from the U.S. Department of Energy focused on radically lowering emissions from iron and steel production. ARPA-E is set up to back high-risk, high-reward applied research and development that could create entirely new technology "learning curves," meaning approaches that are not just incremental improvements on existing industrial methods but could become genuinely disruptive if they work. In this case, the disruption target is the traditional carbothermic blast furnace route for ironmaking, which is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions because it relies on carbon as both fuel and reducing agent.

ROSIE is structured as a 3-year program with a total program size of about $35 million, aimed at developing pathways to zero-emissions ironmaking and ultra-low lifecycle emissions for steelmaking. The core technical goal is to support development and demonstration of novel processes that can produce iron-based products from iron-containing ores (and potentially alternative iron-bearing feedstocks) without "process emissions" during the ironmaking step. In other words, ROSIE is not only interested in cleaning up the energy supply used by a plant; it is specifically targeting the chemistry and process of converting ore to iron so that the ironmaking reaction itself does not release non-biogenic greenhouse gases.

The opportunity is organized into two technical categories. Category A covers technologies and process routes that go from ore (or other iron-bearing inputs) through ironmaking. Category B must include ironmaking as a central element, but it can also extend further downstream into steel production steps. This setup is meant to accommodate teams that are focusing narrowly on the ironmaking breakthrough as well as teams proposing integrated ore-to-steel solutions, as long as ironmaking is addressed in a way that meets ROSIE's emissions requirements.

ARPA-E lays out performance and scale targets that applicants are expected to aim for, which helps clarify that ROSIE is meant to push beyond lab curiosity into something that looks plausibly industrial. Key targets include: zero non-biogenic greenhouse gas emissions from the ironmaking process itself; ultra-low cradle-to-gate lifecycle emissions for the resulting iron or steel product, expressed as under 0.7 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of hot-rolled coil (HRC) steel; scalability of the process and product pathway to greater than 15 million tonnes (a scale relevant to major industrial deployment); cost parity with the iron or steel product being displaced (so the technology is not only clean but also competitive); and product quality consistent with the commercial product being replaced. On top of those, ROSIE sets concrete end-of-project demonstration expectations: producing at least 10 kg of the proposed product by the end of the project and demonstrating a production rate of at least 1 kg per hour, which signals ARPA-E's emphasis on tangible, measurable progress toward manufacturable processes.

If technologies meeting these metrics succeed, ARPA-E frames the potential impact as very large: more than 65 million metric tonnes of CO2-equivalent reductions annually in the United States (on the order of about 1 percent of total U.S. emissions) and more than 2.9 gigatonnes annually globally (roughly 5.5 percent of global emissions). That scale reflects how emissions-intensive conventional iron and steelmaking is and why ARPA-E is emphasizing breakthroughs that could plausibly displace incumbent blast furnace-based pathways rather than niche improvements.

From an applicant and administrative standpoint, the FOA is managed through ARPA-E's eXCHANGE system. Applicants must register and submit application materials through ARPA-E eXCHANGE, and ARPA-E will not review or consider concept papers submitted through other channels. The FOA number is DE-FOA-0003117. The funding instrument types listed include cooperative agreements, grants, and other mechanisms, and eligibility is described as unrestricted (open broadly to entity types, subject to any additional eligibility clarifications in the full FOA). The listed award ceiling is $10,000,000. The original submission deadline stated is 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time on 08/08/2023, with ARPA-E encouraging submissions at least 48 hours before the deadline to avoid last-minute issues. For submission system help, applicants are directed to ExchangeHelp@hq.doe.gov, and for program/FOA questions they are directed first to ARPA-E's FAQ and then to ARPA-E-CO@hq.doe.gov if the FAQ does not address the question.

Overall, ROSIE is essentially a targeted push to make ironmaking compatible with deep decarbonization without accepting the usual tradeoff of higher cost. The program is written to pull innovations toward industrial relevance: not just cleaner concepts, but processes that can produce real material at meaningful rates, match commercial material requirements, scale to major tonnage, and compete economically with the most entrenched ironmaking technology in the world.

• The Department of Energy, Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy in the opportunity zone benefits, science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Revolutionizing Ore to Steel to Impact Emissions (ROSIE)" 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 Jun 22, 2023.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Aug 08, 2023 Submissions to this FOA are due no later than 930 a.m. Eastern Time on 08/08/2023. Applicants are strongly encouraged to submit at least 48 hours in advance of the due date.. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $10,000,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for DE FOA 0003117

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: