Search Results for: carbon fiber technology facility

New director hired at ORNL Carbon Fiber Technology Facility

Posted at 11:17 am July 4, 2017
By Oak Ridge Today Staff Leave a Comment

Merlin Theodore, new director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Carbon Fiber Technology Facility. (Photo by ORNL)

A new director has been hired at theÂ Carbon Fiber Technology Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Merlin Theodore most recently worked inÂ Moses Lake, Washington, where she established a laboratory and promoted organizational excellence at a startup facility, SGL Automotive Carbon Fiber, ORNL said in a story published on its website in March. SGL Automotive Carbon Fiber is one of the largest carbon fiber production facilities in the United States, ORNL said.

While at SGL Automotive Carbon Fiber, Theodore boosted workflow efficiency by 97 percent and achieved 94 percent cost savings by developing new testing methods to determine sizing concentration on fiber surface, ORNL said. She also played an instrumental role in resolving technical issues for automaker BMW.

Theodore was the first in her family of 11 siblings to pursue graduate studies and then take up a career as a technology innovator. Her path eventually led her to ORNL, the lab said.

Before the Carbon Fiber Technology Facility andÂ SGL Automotive Carbon Fiber, Theodore worked forÂ Bayer Pharmaceuticals, Georgia Tech, and Universal Technology Corporation, or UTC, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base as a research scientist and laboratory manager. [Read more…]

LeMond Composites strikes agreement to accelerate commercialization of low-cost carbon fiber

Posted at 11:30 am July 14, 2017
By David Cusick Leave a Comment

lemond-composites-greg-lemond-2-oct-12-2016-web

Greg LeMond, three-time Tour de France champion, celebrated the announcement of LeMond Composites, a new company he co-founded, during a ceremony on Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 12, 2016, at Heritage Center in west Oak Ridge. The company is expected to make composite bicycles and carbon fiber, and invest $125 million and create 242 new jobs. (File photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

LeMond Composites of Oak Ridge has entered into a global, exclusive 20-year licensing agreement with Deakin University in Australia to commercialize their patent pending manufacturing process to increase production of high performance, low-cost carbon fiber, a press release said.

The licensed process will enable LeMond Composites to commercialize carbon fiber production faster than anyone else currently in the marketplace, the press release said.

“This means LeMond will deliver more of its low-cost carbon fiber faster to industries that benefit from using lighter, stronger materials, like those addressing global energy and transportation challenges,” the press release said.

â€œDeakin Universityâ€™s process oxidizes carbon fiber faster, with lower capital and energy costs and greater output of carbon fiber over a shorter period,â€ said Nicolas Wegener, chief operating officer of LeMond, who negotiated the $44 million dollar deal. â€œThe process requires 75 percent less energy and also reduces the amount of process equipment by 75 percent. These factors make the production of low-cost carbon fiber scalable at a velocity that can keep up with the market demand.â€ [Read more…]

LeMond Composites to make carbon fiber, composite bicyclesâ€”invest $125 million, create 242 jobs

Posted at 8:32 pm October 13, 2016
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

Greg LeMond, three-time Tour de France champion, celebrated the opening of LeMond Composites, a new company he co-founded, during a ceremony on Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 12, 2016, at Horizon Center in west Oak Ridge. The company is expected to make composite bicycles and carbon fiber, and invest $125 million and create 242 new jobs. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

A new company co-founded by Greg LeMond, aÂ three-time Tour de France champion, will make composite bicycles and carbon fiber for other products in Oak Ridge, and the business, called LeMond Composites, will invest $125 million and create 242 new jobs, officials said during a Wednesday afternoon ceremony.

Among the officials celebrating the opening on Wednesday were LeMond, and TennesseeÂ Economic and Community Development Commissioner Randy Boyd.

Carbon fiber has advantageous properties, but cost has been a barrier to using it, said Connie Jackson, chief executive officer of LeMond Composites. She said the manufacturing process has been changed to reduce production cost.

“We have overcome a significant part of the cost barrier,” Jackson said.

Carbon fiber is light, stiff, and strong, making it the perfect material for advanced composites in a variety of applications. It can be used to improve efficiency, save energy, and build or repairÂ vehicles and planes, wind turbines and containers, and bridges and tunnels. [Read more…]

Oak Ridge supports ORNL, LeMond Composites carbon fiber partnership

Posted at 8:38 am September 1, 2016
By City of Oak Ridge Leave a Comment

Jones LeMond Watson and Creswell Aug 31 2016

Pictured above at a meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2016, on a new carbon fiber partnership between Oak Ridge-based company LeMond Composites and Oak Ridge National Laboratory are, from left, Steve Jones (Oak Ridge economic development consultant), Greg LeMond (LeMond Composites), Mark Watson (Oak Ridge city manager), and Wade Creswell (president of The Roane Alliance). (Photo by City of Oak Ridge)

By City of Oak Ridge

The City of Oak Ridge is proud to support the recent announcement that LeMond Composites, a new company in Oak Ridge offering solutions for high-volume and low-cost carbon fiber, has secured a licensing agreement with Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The news was made public on August 29 in a release from LeMond Composites. The company, founded earlier this year by three-time Tour de France champion Greg LeMond, focuses on making carbon fiber composites with global applications. The agreement with ORNL will make LeMond Composites the first company to offer these newly developed products to the transportation, renewable energy, and infrastructure markets.

LeMond Composites plans to build their first carbon fiber production line at their recently purchased facility on Palladium Way at Horizon Center in west Oak Ridge. Their first commercially available product is expected to be ready in early 2018.

â€œI am ecstatic about this unique technological application for carbon fiber in our community,â€ Oak Ridge Mayor Warren Gooch said. â€œWe look forward to working with LeMond Composites to create jobs and further investment in Oak Ridge.â€ [Read more…]

LeMond, Tour de France champion, plans production in Oak Ridge, thinks area could be world hub for carbon fiber

Posted at 9:35 pm August 30, 2016
By John Huotari 2 Comments

Greg LeMond at the Carbon Fiber Technology Facility

Three-time Tour de France champion Greg LeMond, right, chairman and co-CEO of LeMond Companies, which owns LeMond Composites, tours ORNL’s Carbon Fiber Technology Facility. (Image courtesy of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy)

A new carbon fiber company that includes three-time Tour de France champion Greg LeMond plansÂ toÂ build a carbon fiber production line in west Oak Ridge toÂ make composites for use in transportation, renewable energy, and infrastructure, and LeMond thinks theÂ Knoxville area will become the world hub for carbon fiber.

The new company, LeMond Composites, has signed a licensing agreement with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and it has purchased the former Theragenics building at Horizon Center, where CVMR, an international company that uses ore concentrates to create pure metal powders, had once planned to locate itsÂ headquarters and research and development.

LeMond Composites closed on the property, which includes about 21 acres, on July 21 for $5.4 million. It’s right next to ORNLâ€™s Carbon Fiber Technology Facility, or CFTF, at Horizon Center. Renovations at the former Theragenics building are already under way.

Carbon fiber is light, stiff, and strong, a press release said. That makes it the perfect material for advanced composites in a variety of applications, includingÂ transportation, renewable energy, and infrastructure, the release said. It can be used to improve efficiency, save energy, and build or repairÂ vehicles and planes, wind turbines and containers, and bridges and tunnels.

But the biggest obstacle to its widespread use has been its high cost. [Read more…]

ORNL makes low-cost carbon fiber available to American manufacturers

Posted at 9:13 am July 23, 2013
By Oak Ridge National Laboratory Leave a Comment

Operated by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Carbon Fiber Technology Facility is accepting proposals from companies that want to test low-cost carbon fibers manufactured at the pilot scale plant. Pictured here are textile-grade acrylic fibers entering the first of four oxidation ovens, where they gradually turn from white to yellow, auburn, brown, then black. Once fully oxidized, the fiber is ready to run through the higher-temperature furnaces, which convert the oxidized fiber to carbon fiber. (Submitted photo)

Companies interested in testing the latest in low-cost carbon fiber have a new opportunity to partner with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Carbon Fiber Technology Facility.

The CFTF, operated by Oak Ridge National Laboratory as part of the department’s Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative, opened earlier this year to find ways to reduce carbon fiber production costs and to work with the private sector to stimulate widespread use of the strong, lightweight material.

In its first months of operation, the CFTF used traditional raw materials to assure the new pilot scale manufacturing line would produce a commercial-quality product. With that goal accomplished, the facility now will use less expensive “precursor” materials that can be turned into carbon fiber more cost-effectively. [Read more…]

Guest column: H.M.S. Carbon Fiber

Posted at 12:51 pm June 2, 2013
By Oak Ridge Today Guest Columns 1 Comment

By Leslie Agron and Pat Fain

Anyone a Gilbert and Sullivan fan?

â€œWhen I was a lad I served a term / As office boy to an attorney’s firm. /â€¨I cleaned the windows and I swept the floor, / And I polished up the handle of the big front door.â€ (HMS Pinafore)

So, how does this go in Oak Ridge? Perhaps: Oak Ridge National Laboratoryâ€™s Carbon Fiber Technology Facility will revolutionize the choice of materials used in manufacturing. Major manufactures, such as auto companies, will be falling over themselves soon to locate here, so as to capitalize on the technical information to be transferred from ORNL (possibly, but it might be a few years out yet). They will all want sites in Horizon Center, next to the ORNL demonstration facility, to be closest to the technology (maybe, but remember that Nissan found a Middle Tennessee location adequate for transfer of battery technology they consider vital to their future).

Carbon fiber manufacturing is a high energy-utilizing process. ORNLâ€™s demonstration facility could take most of the 10-megawatt energy capacity at Horizon Center (true, but Horizon Center was designed as a commercial park, not as an industrial park). So we need a large project to bring 20 megawatts of additional electrical capacity into Horizon Center right away to meet this pressing need (hmmâ€¦has there been someone knocking at our doors lately that they have not been telling us about? What we seem to need right now is an incremental project to put in a lesser amount of power, especially at peak load times, so that the one or two parcels we might sell soon at Horizon Center will have adequate power availableâ€”else they are correct that nothing might sell). [Read more…]

Oak Ridge carbon fiber plant could lower cost of strong, lightweight material

Posted at 4:26 pm March 26, 2013
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

Gary R. Lownsdale of Plasan Carbon Composites, right, talks to Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, center, near a Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 hood at the Carbon Fiber Technology Facility on Tuesday as federal, University of Tennessee, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory officials listen.

A unique manufacturing plant in west Oak Ridge that started operating about six weeks ago can make 25 tons of carbon fiber each year. It’s material that could be used for prototype parts in products ranging from cars and airplanes to wind turbine blades and natural gas tanks.

The $35 millionÂ Carbon Fiber Technology Facility at Horizon Center Business Park is designed to “scale up” laboratory research on low-cost carbon fiber, make enough material to help industrial partners build prototype carbon-fiber composite parts, and develop a skilled manufacturing workforce.

Carbon fiber isÂ strong and lightweight, but it is also expensive and that has limited its use.

Officials hope to use the 42,000-square-footÂ Carbon Fiber Technology Facility to change that. They want to make producing carbon fiber as cost-efficient as manufacturing steel or aluminum. [Read more…]

DOE, ORNL to celebrate carbon fiber facility, announce manufacturing initiative

Posted at 8:07 pm March 25, 2013
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

Officials from the U.S. Department of Energy and Oak Ridge National Laboratory will celebrate a uniqueÂ carbon fiber facility on Tuesday morning.

DOE will also announce a newÂ U.S. manufacturing initiative during the ceremony at the Oak Ridge National Laboratoryâ€™sÂ Carbon Fiber Technology Facility atÂ Horizon Center Business Park in west Oak Ridge. [Read more…]

NNSA purchases LeMond building

Posted at 7:03 pm December 29, 2021
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

LeMond-Composites-Building-Aug-30-2016-2-Web

The National Nuclear Security Administration has purchased the LeMond Carbon building at Horizon Center in west Oak Ridge. The building is pictured above in August 2016.

Note: This story was updated at 9:45 a.m. Dec. 30 to correct that the building has been purchased.

The National Nuclear Security Administration has purchased a building in west Oak Ridge that has been the site of two major industrial announcements, one by CVMR and the other by LeMond Composites. Both projects had promised at least $125 million in investments and hundreds of jobs, but neither has proceeded as expected.

In the five or six years since those announcements, there have been few signs of activity at the facility when Oak Ridge Today has stopped by, although company executives have held out hope, when contacted, that their projects could still proceed.

The LeMond Carbon Facility is on Palladium Way at Horizon Center. The NNSA plans to use the building for the development organization at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge.

The sale price was $6.9 million, and the NNSA had 18 months to buy the building under an option-to-purchase agreement, the first of its kind for the agency. The sale was completed December 15. The NNSA is part of the U.S. Department of Energy, and it maintains the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, among other activities.

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Note: This story was updated at 9:45 a.m. Dec. 30 to correct that the NNSA has purchased the LeMond building.

The National Nuclear Security Administration has purchased the LeMond Carbon building at Horizon Center in west Oak Ridge. The building is pictured above in August 2016.

Note: This story was updated at 9:45 a.m. Dec. 30 to correct that the building has been purchased.

The LeMond Carbon Facility is on Palladium Way at Horizon Center. The NNSA plans to use the building for the development organization at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge.

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