SwRI receives DOE grant to turn captured CO2 into graphite

SAN ANTONIO — August 25, 2026 — Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has received a $1 million, two-year grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation to develop a sustainable domestic supply of graphite by converting captured carbon dioxide.

For decades, the U.S. has relied on foreign countries to import graphite, which is essential to modern technology powered by lithium-ion batteries. Graphite is used to make the anode, or negative terminal, in these batteries. Its electrical conductivity and chemical stability also make it ideal for brushes in electric motors and for refractory materials and furnace components used in the steelmaking industry. Beyond batteries, graphite is vital to a variety of industries, including the aerospace, steel, and defense sectors.

“The U.S. doesn’t have a vast domestic supply of graphite, but we do have an excess of carbon dioxide (CO ₂ ) emissions,” said Dr. Josh Mangum, a senior program manager in SwRI’s Mechanical Engineering Division. “Carbon capture is a proven technology. Instead of storing CO ₂ , which can be costly, why not convert it into something valuable, like graphite?”

SwRI will route CO ₂ into a reactor instead of compressing it into a storage container. Inside the reactor, the researchers will generate an ionized gas, or plasma, with highly energetic electrons designed to excite and break apart the CO ₂ molecules.

“In these conditions, CO ₂ usually wants to become carbon monoxide,” Mangum explained. “The challenge is to tune that process window, removing both oxygen atoms to allow the carbon to solidify into carbon allotropes, like graphite.”

Using transmission electron microscopy and other materials characterization techniques, the team will examine the structures of the resulting solid carbon and optimize methods to produce graphite. From there, the researchers will address the processing steps to scale up graphite production.

DOE’s Critical Material Innovation, Efficiency, and Alternatives funding opportunity provides federal funding to build a secure domestic supply of critical minerals from sources across the United States, including ore deposits, mine and industrial waste, and recycled materials.

For more information, visit https://www.swri.org/markets/chemistry-materials/materials .