Selected projects with the ultimate goal of turning buildings into net carbon-storage units are getting $39 million from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the agency announced this week.

The 18 participating teams, selected from universities, national laboratories and private companies, will research and develop building materials and designs that are net carbon negative, the DOE reports in the June 13 announcement. The agency reports participants in the Harnessing Emissions into Structures Taking Inputs from the Atmosphere (HESTIA) program will focus on ways to mitigate obstacles to creating carbon-storing structures, such as expensive and scarce building materials.

"We're leveraging the power of another tool in our toolkit to help us reach net-zero: buildings," the DOE posted to Twitter at the time. "Our $39M in funding will invest in over a dozen projects focused on developing materials to help these structures decarbonize the atmosphere."

The University of Pennsylvania, SkyNano LLC in Knoxville, Tenn., Purdue University and the National Renewable Energy Lab in Fairbanks, Alaska are among the selectees for the HESTIA project, according to the DOE.  

Among HESTIA's decarbonization goals is to create "carbon sinks" by increasing the amount of carbon that can be stored in buildings. By developing sustainable, affordable building materials capable of absorbing carbon emissions or that have a carbon-negative footprint will help achieve President Biden's plan of zero carbon emissions by 2050.

DOE Sec. Jennifer Granholm said reinventing building materials and construction to work as "carbon sinks" holds "huge, untapped potential" in the DOE announcement.

“This is a unique opportunity for researchers to advance clean energy materials," Granholm said in the statement, "to tackle one of the hardest to decarbonize sectors that is responsible for roughly 10% of total annual emissions in the United States.”