Ten research universities are among the recipients of $39 million in Department of Energy grants to ... [+] discover new decarbonizing building materials and construction techniques.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced Monday that it was awarding $39 million in grants for 18 projects that will focus on developing materials and design and construction techniques that can turn buildings into net carbon storage structures.

The awards - the majority of which went to research universities - are part of DOE’s Harnessing Emissions into Structures Taking Inputs from the Atmosphere (HESTIA) program, which supports research on how to design and build structures that will be net carbon negative during their construction.

The program is part of efforts to advance President Joe Biden’s call for the federal government to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, and it aims to increase the amount of carbon that can be stored in buildings so they become what are called “carbon sinks,” which are materials or processes that absorb more carbon from the atmosphere than they release.

Most buildings, on the other hand, particularly during their construction, are “carbon sources,” meaning they release more carbon into the atmosphere than they absorb.

“There’s huge, untapped potential in reimagining building materials and construction techniques as carbon sinks that support a cleaner atmosphere and advance President Biden’s national climate goals,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm in the agency’s news release. “This is a unique opportunity for researchers to advance clean energy materials to tackle one of the hardest to decarbonize sectors that is responsible for roughly 10% of total annual emissions in the United States.”

According to DOE, greenhouse gas emissions are concentrated at the start of a building’s construction, making it important to address them in materials, design and building techniques. Among the various projects DOE will fund are those seeking to develop carbon-negative replacements for cement, as well as new forms of wood, insulation, floor systems, paneling, and bamboo.

The titles, locations and award amounts of the HESTIA projects are as follows:

Decarbonization technologies have become a very fertile area for innovation and investment, and these new DOE research grants signal the priority that federal policy will place on their further development and refinement.