US DOE to invest $17 million in critical minerals technology projects

“DOE is helping reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign supply chains through innovative solutions that will tap domestic sources of the critical materials needed for next-generation technologies,” US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said.

“These investments—part of our industrial strategy—will keep America’s growing manufacturing industry competitive while delivering economic benefits to communities nationwide,” she added.

These projects are coordinated through the DOE’s Critical Materials Collaborative, which is designed to improve and increase communication and coordination among government agencies, and stakeholders working on critical materials projects. This includes supporting real-world innovation through each stage of the research, development and demonstration (RD&D) pipeline.

According to the DOE, the supported small-scale demonstrations for critical materials including lithium, nickel, cobalt, rare earth elements, platinum group metals, silicon carbide, copper and graphite will help de-risk critical materials innovations and accelerate their commercial readiness and adoption.

Selected projects to develop magnets with reduced critical materials content:

• University of Texas at Arlington (Arlington, Texas): $1,000,000  
• Ames National Laboratory (Ames, Iowa): $1,000,000  
• ABB, Inc. (Cary, North Carolina): $1,520,000  
• Niron Magnetics, Inc. (Minneapolis, Minnesota): $2,700,000  

Projects to improve unit operations of processing and manufacturing of critical materials:

• Free Form Fibers (Saratoga Springs, NY): $926,000  
• Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Blacksburg, Virginia): $1,000,000  
• University of North Dakota (Grand Forks, North Dakota): $1,000,000  
• Ames National Laboratory (Ames, Iowa): $1,000,000  
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Oak Ridge, Tennessee): $1,000,000  
• Summit Nanotech USA Corporation (Lafayette, Colorado): $1,000,000  

Recover critical material from scrap and post-consumer products:

• Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University (College Station, Texas): $1,280,000  
• Infinite Elements (El Paso, Texas): $1,500,000  

Reduce critical material demand for clean energy technologies:

• Celadyne Technologies (Chicago, Illinois): $1,000,000  
• COnovate (Wauwatosa, Wisconsin): $1,000,000 

Learn more about the selected projects here.