ORNL partnership helps ACP Technologies scale materials for graphite and carbon fiber

A long-running partnership between ACP Technologies and the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has helped move advanced pitch materials from laboratory development to pilot-scale production — supporting new domestic capabilities in synthetic graphite and carbon fiber manufacturing. 

Pitch is a petroleum- or coal-derived, carbon-rich material that can be transformed into advanced carbon products such as graphite and carbon fiber — materials that underpin domestic supply chains for energy storage, transportation, aerospace, and defense. Carbon fiber enables the production of lightweight, high-strength components for aircraft, spacecraft, automobiles, and other critical systems. 

The collaboration spans fundamental materials science at ORNL and scale-up work at the Department of Energy’s Carbon Fiber Technology Facility (CFTF), a pilot-scale manufacturing facility located at ORNL. Together, these efforts helped ACP refine and demonstrate isotropic and mesophase pitch materials that are now being produced at a new 75-pound-per-hour continuous pilot facility in Ashland, Kentucky. A larger commercial plant is scheduled to begin operations in 2029. 

“We’ve been working with Oak Ridge for years, and the quality of the work has been outstanding,” said Tom Holcombe, chief executive officer of ACP Technologies. “They gave us the process-property feedback we needed to improve our mesophase pitch and make it spin reliably into fiber. That was critical for us.” 

A partnership that predates commercialization 

ACP began working with ORNL about seven years ago. The company was pursuing lower-cost pathways to produce carbon fiber using petroleum-derived pitch materials. ORNL, which has led research into alternative carbon fiber precursors for more than a decade, was a natural partner. 

Holcombe said the company initially engaged ORNL through sponsored research with Nidia Gallego, who managed the lab-scale fiber spinning systems at the time. 

“We were trying to develop technology for the carbon fiber market, and we knew Oak Ridge had deep expertise,” Holcombe said. “Nidia and her team were able to spin our mesophase pitch and give us very direct feedback. We learned what we had to improve in our material — its properties, how it behaved during spinning — and we kept refining it.” 

“Pitch chemistry is very complex,” Gallego said. “It’s not a simple, single-component material — it’s a mixture of many compounds, and there isn’t one property that tells you whether it will make good carbon fiber. There’s a lot of experimental work and trial and error involved.” 

Working at lab scale allowed ORNL and ACP to test quickly and refine materials before moving to larger-scale production. The team used characterization and spinning trials to assess process consistency and identify limits to extended operation. 

One key learning came when the team observed an issue that wasn’t obvious from bulk measurements alone. 

“Those particulates weren’t necessarily changing the softening point or viscosity in a way that was obvious, but they were affecting the filtration and preventing longer spinning runs,” Gallego said. 

“It was very much an iterative process,” Gallego said. “We would characterize and test the material, provide feedback, and then they would refine their process and bring back a new batch.” 

Holcombe added that stabilization — the heat and oxygen treatment that prevents fibers from deforming during high-temperature processing — was another important focus area. 

“There was a lot of work on the stabilization step,” Holcombe said. “Nidia’s team looked at different temperature ramps and approaches to try to reduce the time and improve consistency. That kind of detailed work really matters when you’re trying to make a commercially viable product.” 

Contributors included Chris Janke and former staffers Ryan Paul and Justin Fink.  

Scaling up at the Department of Energy’s Carbon Fiber Technology Facility (CFTF) 

As the materials matured, the partnership expanded to CFTF, where Merlin Theodore and her team supported pilot-scale trials and helped ACP evaluate process performance in a manufacturing-relevant environment. 

CFTF provides pilot-scale manufacturing infrastructure that bridges laboratory research and commercial production. Its melt-spinning line, rated at up to 65 tons per year for precursor fiber production, enables companies to test materials and processes at industrially relevant scale and generate the data needed to support commercialization. 

“The most difficult part of developing any advanced chemical process is getting over the commercialization hump,” Holcombe said. “You have to show you can make the product at a larger scale and generate the data needed to justify major capital investment. The CFTF gave us that opportunity.” 

Theodore said this is the kind of partnership that motivates the CFTF team. 

“It’s deeply fulfilling to work side by side with industry partners and help them move from promising ideas to real manufacturing decisions,” Theodore said. “When that progress contributes to new facilities and jobs in rural communities, it reinforces why ORNL’s applied R&D capability matters.” 

Holcombe emphasized the value of CFTF’s integrated end-to-end perspective. 

“The CFTF isn’t just about making fiber,” he said. “It’s the whole downstream system — stabilization, chopping, handling. Being able to envision the entire train is very valuable when you’re designing a commercial facility.” 

Key contributors to the CFTF effort included Theodore, Daniel Webb, Jason Newport, Dexter Nelson, and Sefa Yilmaz. 

Materials for energy, industry and beyond 

Pitch-based materials can serve multiple markets, including lithium-ion batteries, carbon fiber composites and high-temperature carbon/carbon systems. Mesophase pitch can be converted into synthetic graphite and used in a range of advanced applications. 

“The battery market has accelerated rapidly,” Holcombe said. “Mesophase pitch can be converted into graphite for that sector, and that demand is here now. At the same time, we continue to see long-term opportunity in carbon fiber.” 

ORNL’s work was supported by DOE’s Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation Office, including the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO) and the Transportation Technologies Office (TTO), which invest in research and pilot-scale capabilities that strengthen domestic manufacturing and supply chain resilience. 

“Facilities like the CFTF allow companies to move their novel ideas out of the lab and into real manufacturing — reducing risk so that industry can build new plants, create jobs, and strengthen our domestic supply chains,” said Diana Bauer, AMMTO director. “That’s how R&D translates into tangible commercial impact and helps U.S. manufacturers compete in strategically important sectors.”  

“Through our partnerships with industry and national laboratories, DOE supports research and pilot-scale capabilities like the Carbon Fiber Technology Facility that help bring to market high-performance vehicle materials while keeping manufacturing on U.S. soil," said Austin Brown, TTO director. "Using pitch materials can be a gamechanger for the industry, and we're proud to be a part of ACP's journey to commercialization.” 

Theodore said the broader impact is a key part of the work. 

“When we help partners establish domestic supply chains, we’re also helping communities compete for new manufacturing opportunities,” she said. “That’s the real payoff — translating DOE investments into durable economic value.” 

UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science. 

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