Event held July 20-21, 2022

DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy asked Argonne to host a second two-day CABLE Big Idea Workshop, following the successful 2021 workshop. The multi-office CABLE (Conductivity-enhanced materials for Affordable, Breakthrough Leapfrog Electric and thermal) program, which won EERE’s Big Idea Summit in 2020, supports the development and commercialization of enhanced electrical and thermal conductors for energy applications and is led by the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO) with participation by many other entities, including other EERE technology offices, Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), the DOE Office of Science’s Basic Energy Sciences program, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the private sector. Hosting this workshop was a major opportunity to enhance Argonne’s reputation with sponsors and partners, demonstrate thought leadership and convening power, and network with potential collaborators.

More than 80 people representing forty-five companies attended the workshop, with many university, DOE and other national laboratory partners attending for a total of nearly 150 participants. Argonne presented topics including were testing, characterization and computing with Ilke Arslan, Beihai Ma, and Jini Ramprakash, thermal conductors with Bill Worek and Jie Li,  and CABLE Theory and Modeling with Santanu Chaudhuri, Maria Chan and Subramanian Sankaranarayanan. Several facilitated discussions, a competitor showcase, and a discussion on mining responsibly rounded out the event.

“The 2^nd Annual CABLE Big Idea Workshop provided valuable input for Stage 2 of the CABLE Prize, the new Conductivity enhanced metal materials system MTFOA topic as well as potential forthcoming CABLE-efforts,” said Tina Kaarsberg, Technology Manager at U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO).