The goal of this FOA is to engage industry in the
prototyping and validation of technologies and processes proven at the bench
scale to accelerate commercial readiness and adoption. Successful projects
will:

• Validate the materials and manufacturing technologies
  that reduce demand or extend the lifetime of critical materials;
• 
  
  Enable informed decisions, optimize processes, and build
  confidence in technology scale up through life-cycle assessment (LCA) and
  techno-economic analysis (TEA);
• 
  
  Address the urgency to meet critical material demand with
  secure and sustainable critical material manufacturing technologies.

The topics listed in this FOA address specific
manufacturing challenges facing critical material supply chains in the U.S.:

• Topic 1 – Use of Magnets with Reduced Critical Materials
  Content
• 
  
  Topic 1a – Critical Material Lean/Free Magnets for
  Clean Energy Technologies
• 
  
  Topic 1b – Motors and Drivetrains using Critical Material
  Lean/Free Magnets
• 
  
  Topic 2 – Improved Unit Operations of Processing and
  Manufacturing of Critical Materials
• 
  
  Topic 3 – Critical Material Recovery from Scrap and
  Post-Consumer Products

Anticipated funding: EERE expects to make a total of
approximately $10,000,000 ($10M) of federal funding available for new awards
under this FOA, subject to the availability of appropriated funds. EERE
anticipates making approximately 10-20 awards under this FOA. EERE may issue
one, multiple, or no awards. Individual awards may vary between $0.5M and $3M.

Performance Period: 1-3 years

Cost sharing: Cost share must be at least 20% of the project.