The REMADE Institute, a 150-member public-private partnership established with the U.S. Department of Energy through an initial investment of $140 million, announced $4.86 million in new technology research, selecting 10 new research demonstration, verification and validation projects in its latest round of funding.
The new DV&V projects will demonstrate tools and technologies currently at Technology Readiness Level 6, aiming to reach TRL 7 by the end of their projects, addressing what the institute describes as the “Valley of Death,” the critical gap between early-stage research and commercial viability where promising innovations often fail to move from the laboratory to the marketplace.
Beyond bridging that gap, the projects are intended to increase U.S. manufacturing competitiveness, strengthen domestic supply chain resilience, decrease manufacturing energy consumption, and advance the circular economy by increasing the reuse, remanufacturing, recovery, and recycling of critical minerals, rare earth elements, aluminum, textiles, electronics scrap, diesel engine blocks, steel, and paper.
Specific project areas include recovering total rare earth oxides from electronic scrap, using computer vision and AI to reduce electronics recycling costs, recovering and recycling aerospace and automotive aluminum, repairing diesel engine blocks, using secondary steel to produce new tires, improving paper recycling, expanding textile recycling, and increasing the circularity of new product designs.
This latest round of investment, the institute’s seventh, is cost-shared between REMADE and the funding recipients, and includes some new partners joining REMADE’s existing network, which spans companies and academic institutions including Caterpillar, John Deere, Michelin, Nike, Adidas, MIT, RIT, Honda, Volvo, and Yale University. Since its founding in 2017, REMADE has launched or selected 103 technology R&D and workforce development projects with a total combined value of $104 million.
KEY QUOTES:
“By focusing REMADE’s investment on these projects, we are getting closer and closer to fully commercializing these novel technology solutions, which once fully implemented are capable of achieving significant positive energy, manufacturing, environmental, and economic impacts for us as a nation.”
Nabil Nasr, Chief Executive Officer, REMADE Institute
“This is exactly why the Manufacturing USA institutes were established in the first place more than a decade ago. These new DV&V projects will, for example, explore better ways to recover total rare earth oxides from electronic scrap; utilize computer vision and AI to reduce the cost of electronics recycling; recover and recycle aerospace and automotive aluminum; repair diesel engine blocks; use secondary steel to produce new tires; improve paper recycling; expand textile recycling; and increase the circularity of new product designs.”
Magdi Azer, Chief Technology Officer, REMADE Institute
