Separation Science

This program accepts and reviews proposals continuously under the annual Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) entitled, “Continuation of Solicitation for the Office of Science Financial Assistance Program” available on the BES Funding Opportunities page. Target dates for preproposals and full applications for consideration in a given fiscal year can be found in the current NOFO. For fiscal year 2026, these dates are October 31, 2025, and December 10, 2025, respectively. Materials submitted after these dates are not guaranteed consideration for funding in a given fiscal year. Preproposals (white papers) are strongly encouraged for all new and renewal proposals. These should be submitted through PAMS well in advance of a full application. Please see BES guidance for New Grant Applications from Universities and Other Research Institutions.

This program supports fundamental, hypothesis-based experimental and computational research questions that seek to discover, predict, and control de-mixing chemical and physical states, including the kinetics and dynamics of these transitions, thereby providing mechanistic and molecular insight into a separation process or phenomena. Goals should focus on fundamental chemical separation mechanisms and paradigms, and result in chemical insight that may become the basis for solutions to current and long-term energy challenges, including those associated with critical minerals and materials. Basic research in separation science relies on understanding chemical and physical properties at multiple length and time scales, quantum through macroscopic properties, and molecular interactions and energy exchanges that determine the efficiency of chemical separation mechanisms. Emerging fundamental separation science projects that are in the nascent stage and would result in mechanistic and molecular insight are of particular interest. While issues of capacity, durability, energy input, selectivity, and/or throughput are important parameters for separations and should be of concern for separation science research, these issues should not be the singular focus of a project.

Specific topics of interest can be found in the current NOFO. Some selected topics that may be of interest include:

  • Elucidating how dynamics and molecular criteria limit mass transfer at interfaces or interfacial regions during a separation process.
  • Developing and elucidation how non-thermal, non-traditional, and other mechanisms exhibit efficient, selective, and energy-relevant separations. Possible novel mechanisms include but are not limited to magnetic, magneto-reactive, bio-inspired, etc.
  • Determining the mechanism(s) of how separation parameters and processes such as high selectivity, capacity, and throughput are impacted by emergent separation system properties.
  • Controlling and developing mechanistic understanding of how temporal changes in separation systems occur. Consideration of timescales and molecular understanding must be central to these ideas.
  • Discovering, understanding, and predicting mechanistic paradigms for removal of dilute constituents from a mixture. Mechanisms arising from emergent phenomena that result from correlation and amplification of individual molecular processes are of particular interest.

Pre-applications and applications must explicitly articulate a research question, identify a fundamental hypothesis to be tested, and describe the separation science knowledge gap that will be addressed. These submissions should clearly detail how the proposed project addresses one of the programmatic topics. Scientific research questions that utilize experimental, computational, or artificial intelligence/machine learning approaches are encouraged.

The Separation Science Program does not support goals that primarily focus on (a) technology development, engineering design, optimization, or scale-up; (b) synthetic and/or characterization approaches for materials or ligand optimization; or (c) technoeconomic analyses of chemical separation processes. The program also does not support goals that primarily seek to (d) develop narrowly defined processes or devices; (e) advance established desalination approaches; microfluidics technology; or sensors; or (f) develop databases, characterization methods, computational methods, or theoretical methods, rather than advancing separation science.

Research opportunities identified in recent reports from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, serve as references for some of the basic science topics outlined above: A Research Agenda for Transforming Separation Science.  Applicants should also examine relevant reports of Basic Energy Needs workshops and roundtables (https://science.osti.gov/bes/Community-Resources).

To obtain more information about this research area, please see the proceedings of our Principal Investigators' Meetings. To better understand how this research area fits within the Department of Energy's Office of Science, please refer to the Basic Energy Science's organization chart and budget request.

For more information about this research area, please contact Dr. Amanda Haes.