The Department of Energy (DOE) will distribute up to $500 million to develop demonstration and commercial facilities to support the domestic supply of critical minerals and materials for advanced batteries. Applications are due by April 24.
These solutions will play an essential role in evolving the nation’s critical mineral and materials processing and derivative battery manufacturing and recycling systems. Recipients will deploy facilities designed to process, recycle or utilize for manufacturing of critical materials including lithium, graphite, nickel, copper, aluminum and other minerals commonly contained within traditional commercially available batteries. The department anticipates that full implementation will increase critical minerals production by up to 15% by 2030.
This represents the third round of funding through the DOE’s Battery Materials Processing and Battery Manufacturing and Recycling programs. All recipients will be required to provide a 50% minimum cost share for awards distributed for projects across three topic areas:
- Domestic Critical Minerals Processing from Raw Feedstocks.
- Domestic Critical Materials Recycling.
- Domestic Battery Materials and Component Manufacturing.
The DOE will allocate up to $200 million for Domestic Critical Materials Processing from Raw Feedstocks projects. The department expects to deliver between two and four awards in a range of $50 million to $100 million. This topic area prioritizes the expansion of processing capacity for critical minerals and materials for use in advanced batteries.
Raw feedstocks typically refer to primary and secondary ores, clays, tailings and geothermal and oilfield brines. Each facility should take these materials and process them into mineral concentrates, hydroxides, sulphate and other relevant forms that can be used in batteries. High priority projects in this field that will be of particular interest to the DOE include projects that:
- Produce minerals identified with specific vulnerabilities for advanced battery supply chains, including lithium, nickel and cobalt.
- Can demonstrate market traction by securing feedstock supply and offtake agreements with credible counterparties.
- Produce multiple critical minerals and/or materials.
- Focus on process innovations that lower production costs or improve yield rates.
The topic area is further broken down into two sub-areas of interest: demonstration-scale projects and commercial-scale projects.
Demonstration-scale projects should be beyond pilot scale and illuminate innovation or impact within the materials processing sector. Projects may include processing raw products, focusing on domestic capacity development and developing large-scale demonstration projects to process battery critical minerals and/or materials.
Commercial-scale projects should target the construction of relevant facilities or expand, retool or retrofit existing facilities contributing to the program’s holistic goal. Featured projects would largely resemble and entail the same goals and expectations for their demonstration-scale counterparts.
Another $100 million will support initiatives chosen for Domestic Critical Materials Recycling. The DOE will provide either $50 million for two projects or $100 million for a single selection. While qualifying facilities don’t need to exclusively prioritize recycling processes, they should handle recycled feedstocks including end-of-life batteries, off-specification/recalled/rejected batteries or battery manufacturing scrap.
Priority minerals for these facilities should include graphite, nickel, cobalt, mixed precursor cathode anode materials, copper and rare earths. These feedstocks can then be recycled into black mass, mixed hydroxide precipitates, battery-grade sulphates and other relevant forms. Applicants must propose projects that develop facilities focusing on battery recycling, domestic capacity development, demonstration, new commercial facilities or to retrofit, retool or expand existing facilities. High priority initiatives include those that:
- Maximize full value-chain material production by co-producing multiple critical minerals and/or materials.
- Recycle minerals or materials that are associated with specific vulnerabilities for batter supply chains.
- Demonstrate market traction by securing feedstock supply and offtake agreements with credible counterparties.
- Demonstrate competitiveness under current market conditions.
- Focus on process innovations that lower production costs or improve yield rates.
The remaining $200 million will cover project targeting Domestic Battery Materials and Component Manufacturing. The DOE will cover up to four projects with awards ranging from $50 million to $100 million. These projects will build commercial-scale facilities or retrofit, retool or expand existing facilities to develop domestic manufacturing capacity for strategic battery components and technologies, including cells intended for both energy and specialized applications.
Applicants must propose projects that result in relevant manufactured forms, including active material powders, coated electrode, thin film metal current collectors, battery cells and other relevant products. The facilities must also prioritize domestic capacity development. High priority submissions include those that:
- Prioritize vulnerabilities in battery supply chains, including synthetic graphite, cathodes active materials and specialty metals manufacturing.
- Demonstrate market traction by securing feedstock supply and offtake agreements with credible counterparties.
- Demonstrate competitiveness under current market conditions.
- Focus on process innovations that lower production costs or improve yield rates.
Image by Iqram Shawon from Pixabay
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