Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Hosted by Oak Ridge National Laboratory for the Department of Energy’s Thermal Energy Recovery & Management Center of Excellence, the workshop focuses on testing, validation, integration, and deployment of high-temperature heat pumps across technology readiness levels. Plenary topics include the U.S. industrial heat-pump landscape, market pathways, technology readiness, economics, deployment pathways, technology advances, R&D priorities, demonstrations, and deployment lessons. Breakout discussions cover OEM roadmaps and product readiness; working fluids, compressors, component supply chains, advanced heat exchangers, and system integration; end-user needs, controls, thermal storage, and grid flexibility; and standards, codes, testing, certification, financing, commercialization, and public-private partnerships. Report-outs and a facilitated discussion address priority needs, gaps, and recommended actions, followed by workshop synthesis on cross-cutting R&D, demonstration, deployment, and partnership priorities.

The technical symposia span ceramic and glass science, engineering, processing, and applications. Topics include ceramic interfaces and grain boundaries; oxide quantum materials; superconductivity, magnetism, and correlated phases; functional ceramics; extreme-environment and microelectronics materials; two-dimensional materials; high-entropy materials; bioceramics; glass surfaces and the glassy state; and computational modeling, data science, and AI/ML for materials discovery and manufacturing. Energy-related subjects include materials for energy storage and conversion, nuclear energy applications, protonic ceramic cells, and materials for a sustainable and resilient energy future. Manufacturing topics include advanced ceramic processing, additive manufacturing, glass manufacturing scale-up, and intelligent manufacturing. The additive-manufacturing symposium covers feedstock design, printing and post-processing, modeling, characterization, process-structure-property relationships, qualification, certification, scale-up, cost, reliability, and industrial implementation. The raw-materials symposium addresses material quality and variability, alternative and recycled feedstocks, sustainable sourcing, circularity, supply-chain resilience, resource security, and decarbonization.