For many years, the United States Department of Energy supported refractory-related research to enable greater efficiency in energy-intensive industries, such as iron and steel, glass, aluminum and other nonferrous metal production, petrochemical, and pulp and paper.

Much of this support came through research projects funded by the former DOE Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office of Industrial Technologies under programs such as Advanced Industrial Materials, Industrial Materials of the Future, and the Industrial Technologies Program. Under such initiatives, work took place at national laboratories (such as Oak Ridge National Laboratory), at universities (such as West Virginia University and the Missouri University of Science and Technology), and at private companies engaged in manufacturing areas once labeled “industries of the future” by DOE because of their strategic and economic importance to American industry.