To ‘accelerate the growth of the US critical minerals and materials sector’ the US Department of Energy is to issue notices of funding opportunities (NOFO) totalling nearly $1 billion to advance and scale mining, processing, and manufacturing technologies across key stages of the critical minerals and materials supply chains. The funding announcements are issued in accordance with president Trump’s executive order Unleashing American Energy.
Proposed NOFOs include:
- Mines & metals capacity expansion – approximately $250 m in support of industrial facilities that have the potential to produce valuable mineral byproducts from existing industrial processes, including the coal industry.
- Battery materials processing and recycling programme – to support demonstration and/or commercial facilities processing, recycling, or utilising critical materials such as lithium, graphite, nickel, copper, aluminium, and rare earth elements.
- A critical minerals and materials accelerator, to support the rare-earth magnet supply chain –refining and alloying semiconductors such as gallium, germanium, and silicon carbide for use in semiconductors; technologies for direct lithium extraction and critical-material separation technologies for the co-production of useful products from byproducts and scrap.
- Rare earth elements demonstration facility – an NOFO of up to $135 m to enhance domestic supply chains for rare earth elements.
- To recover critical minerals from industrial wastewater. The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy is planning to announce this autumn project selections for its $40 million programme to develop technologies to recover critical minerals from industrial wastewater.
