Celebrating Lasting Impact: A Year of Advanced Materials and Manufacturing

The United States currently lacks refining capabilities for the critical metals that are high in demand for many sectors, including energy, national defense, and telecommunications. This deficit in a crucial supply chain stage poses vulnerabilities for both energy and national security. While the United States could follow the current technical approach by building large, centralized refining facilities, that is a complex, years-long process with a multi-billion-dollar price tag. Instead, innovative AMMTO-supported U.S. startup Nth Cycle has developed a revolutionary alternative: a clean, inexpensive, modular critical metals refining technology that can be deployed in under one year at virtually any mining site or recycling facility.

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Nth Cycle’s novel technology, called the Oyster, is a modular system that integrates easily into a partner’s existing equipment. Using a patented electro-extraction process that can accommodate a wide variety of feedstocks—including mined ore, end-of-life electronics, and recycled batteries—the Oyster can be calibrated to target, separate, and recover nearly any metal or group of metals for extraction at efficiencies greater than 95%. The end product is a high-value, market-ready metal precipitate that can be sold to clean energy manufacturers. 

In September 2024, Nth Cycle became the first U.S. company to extract critical metals from scrap at a commercial scale, proving its Oyster technology at an existing facility in Ohio. The company produced a premium nickel cobalt precipitate using feedstocks from recycled lithium-ion batteries and other nickel-containing scrap. The Oyster unit at this facility can process 3,100 metric tons of scrap per year, yielding 900 metric tons of premium precipitate.

Compared to typical refining methods, the Oyster’s sustainability and economic benefits are substantial. Its electro-extraction process uses only electricity and water, eliminating the environmentally harmful waste streams associated with traditional smelting and hydrometallurgy. Due to the Oyster’s small environmental footprint and low use of chemicals, the permitting process that would take years for a centralized metals refining facility is shortened to a mere six months. And with a total installation time of less than twelve months, the Oyster can quickly begin producing valuable critical metals—while reducing transportation costs, time-to-market, and, crucially, U.S. industrial reliance on foreign sources for metals refining. 

AMMTO’s support has directly impacted the success of this company and its technology’s commercialization. Nth Cycle founder and CEO Megan O’Connor is a graduate of the AMMTO-funded Innovation Crossroads program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), part of AMMTO’s broader Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program (LEEP). At Innovation Crossroads, Nth Cycle benefited from access to ORNL expertise, equipment, and lab space that helped the company quickly scale its technology. In addition, with the help of Innovation Crossroads as well as the CMI Hub, Nth Cycle was able to better understand the market landscape and identify its prospective customers, both upstream and downstream. Since then, Nth Cycle has been highly successful in closing multiple rounds of private capital investment. Nth Cycle’s modular processing technology has the potential to play a critical role in driving stronger, more secure critical metals supply chains across the United States.

Demand is rising for rare earth elements (REEs), such as the critical neodymium used in permanent magnets for consumer electronics, electric vehicle motors, and offshore wind generators. Making better use of REEs already in the economy is one way to build more secure supply chains and help meet that demand. Unfortunately, just one percent of REEs is currently recycled. Therefore, enhancing the recovery and recycling of REEs from used products like computer hard disk drives (HDDs) and small motors is a key area of interest for materials R&D.

Ames National Lab researchers at the AMMTO-funded CMI Hub previously developed acid-free dissolution recycling (ADR), a new process for more sustainable and cost-effective recovery of REEs from electronic waste. This innovative process has earned a patent, two R&D 100 awards, and millions of dollars in follow-on funding. In partnerships forged through the CMI Hub, Ames National Lab is now collaborating with private and academic partners to bring ADR closer to commercialization.

Ames National Lab’s patented ADR process dramatically improves upon the prevailing method of e-scrap recycling used today. Whereas typical magnet recycling uses harsh hydrochloric or sulfuric acid solutions to leach REEs from shredded HDDs and other e-scrap, water-based ADR is acid-free. This eliminates the need to safely store acids and dispose of the acid-contaminated wastes remaining after dissolution.

ADR also avoids pre-sorting for magnets mixed in the e-waste and excludes the usual expensive physical processing steps of heating, grinding, and screening the material. No specialized equipment is needed. Reagents can be reused. Further improving the economics, ADR allows for the recovery of valuable non-REE components, such as copper wire, that can be sold to other recyclers instead of being landfilled. (Copper is also considered critical, making this process a double win for critical materials circularity.) In summary, ADR is safer, simpler, and more efficient than traditional acid-based REE recycling.

Seeing the technology’s potential, a small business in Iowa called TdVib, LLC, has licensed ADR from Ames National Lab and is partnering with the lab to optimize and commercialize the process. Funded by a DOE small business technology transfer (STTR) award, the partners have achieved impressive results for kilogram-scale REE recovery from shredded HDDs: ADR profitably recovers greater than 90% of REEs; the recycled rare earth oxides (REOs) that result are of greater than 99.5% purity; and ADR’s chemical costs are less than 25% of those seen in acid-based recycling. The STTR project also demonstrated that these high-purity REOs can be used to make neodymium metal, which in turn is used to produce the alloy for manufacturing neodymium-iron-boron permanent magnets. Now in STTR Phase IIB, TdVib and Ames National Lab are exploring the application of ADR to traction motors from end-of-life hybrid and all-electric vehicles.

With further support from AMMTO, TdVib will partner with three other private firms, as well as Ames National Lab and the University of Arizona, to build a pilot scale ADR e-waste recycling demonstration in the Midwest region to strengthen domestic REE supply chains. TdVib has already begun supplying its recovered REEs to Massachusetts-based HELA Novel Metals, which turns this material into pure metallic powders that can then be used to directly produce fully dense (i.e., sintered) permanent magnets. This partnership demonstrates how ADR technology, born in a national lab with AMMTO support, is now commercially viable.

Aluminum is an energy-critical material that is used in solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, transmission lines, electrolyzers for clean hydrogen production, and alloys for vehicle lightweighting. As aluminum demand grows, both for clean energy applications and throughout the broader economy, aluminum recycling has gained attention because it uses much less energy than making new aluminum from virgin ore does. However, high levels of contamination in recycled aluminum—from diverse alloys, fasteners, cables, and other sources—currently prevent it from being used as a feedstock for higher-value products.

Innovations in sorting and characterizing the quality of aluminum scrap can boost the role of recycled aluminum, with potentially major environmental and economic benefits. In pursuit of such innovations, AMMTO awarded an industry team $4 million in 2021 for their “Enhanced Processing of Aluminum Scrap at End-of-Life Via Artificial Intelligence and Smart Sensing” project. The six industry partners, led by Massachusetts-based Solvus Global, will deliver a commercially viable process control software tool, called value-based intelligent melt control (VALI-Melt), for optimal blending of post-consumer aluminum scrap.

VALI-Melt performs quality control and analysis of aluminum scrap both before and after a buyer melts a scrap seller’s feedstock. First, VALI-Melt’s scrap quality assessment (SQA) inspection tool evaluates a sample of the seller’s shredded scrap for composition, contamination, and other characteristics. Then, after the buyer melts the scrap at their facility, VALI-Melt uses an in melt compositional analyzer to measure the elemental concentrations of a melt sample in real time and confirm whether the results match the SQA data. VALI-Melt can then suggest adjustments to the aluminum blend to meet the buyer’s specifications as needed. By minimizing uncertainty for aluminum scrap sellers and buyers about the makeup of the scrap feedstock, the tool will increase confidence in using scrap to produce recycled aluminum.

The VALI-Melt tool has the potential to unlock significant efficiencies for the aluminum industry. Based on projected 2030 aluminum demand, the performers estimate that using VALI-Melt could lead to a 30% reduction in energy from primary aluminum production and, for auto makers, a 24% to 40% increase in post-consumer scrap content. With delivery expected in late 2025, this tool may soon help manufacturers incorporate recycled aluminum in high-value products.

Current data shows that roughly 85% of plastics used worldwide currently end up as waste in landfills. With plastics use having already doubled in the twenty-first century—and with estimates that plastics use will triple as early as 2060—new approaches are becoming increasingly necessary. 

Biologically produced polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are a promising class of plastics that are among the most biodegradable and biocompatible. However, their adoption in conventional plastic packaging remains limited due to challenges with their thermal stability (particularly their low degradation temperature) and mechanical strength (brittleness). Developing solutions to these issues could beneficially increase both the adoption and recyclability of PHAs. 

With the support of DOE’s BOTTLE Consortium—which is co-funded by AMMTO and the Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO)—a team of researchers at Colorado State University worked to develop and test a process of synthesizing PHAs. The researchers used bio-based feedstocks to precisely control polymer structure, which in turn would enable more customizable thermal and mechanical properties. They discovered that they could create thermal stability superior to any other known PHA structures by using a substituted synthesized gem dimethyl. Testing of this unique PHA resulted in the first reports of a melt processable, recyclable PHA structure. 

Incorporating thermal stability—and thereby enhancing melt processability—could enable these materials to serve as direct replacements for the unrecyclable, petroleum-based plastics that currently dominate the market. Additionally, the BOTTLE team demonstrated that these materials exhibit superior mechanical properties, with significantly higher ductility and strength than standard PHAs, effectively approaching the performance of high-grade plastics like polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyolefins. 

Various adoption opportunities for these PHA materials are currently being explored: for example, the BOTTLE team is collaborating with The North Face to conduct PHA-based fiber processing trials with one of the company’s supply chain partners, with the goal of eventually scaling and licensing production of the materials. The potential broadened use of this process could significantly increase the adoption, recyclability, and circularity of PHAs. 

Power electronics are systems that control the flow of electricity. This key set of technologies underpins critical infrastructures in today’s economy, including the electric grid, industrial systems, electric vehicles, and data centers. The problem, however, is that conventional silicon-based power electronics devices have nearly reached their limits in terms of operational voltage, temperature, and switching frequency. More advanced semiconductor materials are needed to enable grid modernization, the electrification of transportation, and other trends currently under way that are transforming how we use electricity. PowerAmerica—an AMMTO-funded consortium linking industry, academia, and national labs—is leading the charge to address this need for new materials and accelerate the commercialization of next-generation power electronics. 

Since its founding in 2015 as the first Manufacturing USA institute, PowerAmerica has worked to spur the adoption of the superior semiconductor materials silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN). SiC and GaN are so-called wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductors that work at higher temperatures, frequencies, and voltages than traditional silicon-based semiconductors can. Incorporating these advanced materials into power electronics systems and devices makes possible much smaller, more energy efficient devices, which also enables faster switching and reduced power losses.

PowerAmerica’s membership has continued to grow in number and influence over its near decade of existence. Ninety members now participate, including Fortune 500 companies; small businesses; entrepreneurs; industry associations; federal partners; and leading colleges, universities, and research institutes. The group has selected and funded 212 projects, which have led to several patents and commercialized products. This work has helped to improve WBG economics, making the technology cost-competitive with traditional power electronics and boosting confidence in the marketplace. The institute has also made a firm commitment to education and workforce development: PowerAmerica has trained thousands of individuals in power electronics manufacturing skills through short courses, seminars, internships, and graduate research projects. 

PowerAmerica’s work has helped mature WBG technology such that it is already used in applications that many people see or use daily. Fast chargers for smart devices use GaN, for example, while solar panels, data centers, and newer electric vehicle batteries and chips contain SiC. 

In another PowerAmerica project, Virginia-based GeneSiC Semiconductor became the first company to produce and commercialize 3.3 kV and 6.5 kV SiC metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs). Commercial availability of these medium-voltage transistors was a key advancement for electric traction, extreme fast-charging infrastructure, and some grid applications. Now California-based Navitas Semiconductor, which acquired GeneSiC in 2022, sells a diverse line of GeneSiC MOSFET products, including medium voltage ones that resulted from the PowerAmerica project.

The institute’s efforts have also helped develop and strengthen domestic supply chains for WBG technology. In Texas, for example, PowerAmerica established the first U.S. SiC foundry. As a result, many companies that otherwise would have likely moved overseas were able to begin manufacturing semiconductor chips here in the United States.

Because of PowerAmerica’s contributions in advancing power electronics for the modern economy, AMMTO renewed the institute in 2023 with an additional five years of support to expand its focus and activities. With this latest infusion, AMMTO has emphasized the importance of the institute as a public-private partnership and its role in the sustainment of a long-term vision for the industry. A successful PowerAmerica means stronger core infrastructures that rely on power electronics, more secure domestic supply chains for critical systems and devices, and more prosperous American workers in a thriving U.S. power electronics industry.

AMMTO’s Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program (LEEP) works to support and advance new-energy-related businesses and leaders who are developing innovative technologies to confront the energy challenges of today. Supporting new businesses and their cofounders at the earliest stages of technology development not only increases success rates, but can also dramatically accelerate the time to market, critically shortening the time necessary for the adoption and impact of game-changing new energy and manufacturing technologies.

Many of the initial startups that were funded and supported by AMMTO’s LEEP program have been able to use this support to achieve additional successes and accolades—further demonstrating the value of the program, the significance of the technological innovations, and that selected LEEP innovators have the skills, strong business ideas, and the technological advances to achieve long-term success and improve the competitiveness of U.S. markets.

Examples of early-stage technology and business successes stemming from LEEP investments and support include LEEP-supported startups Olokun Minerals, Expand Power, and Helix Earth Technologies—who are all making valuable leapfrog advancements in energy technology. 

Olokun Minerals strives to address two major environmental and manufacturing problems at once: the contamination of brine waste from mining, fracking, and industrial processes and the lack of reliable, domestic sources of critical materials like lithium for energy storage. Olokun Minerals is developing a process for filtering brine waste from currently untapped water sources and reclaiming lithium from the filtered material to create a new domestic lithium source. 

LEEP-supported Expand Power is innovating to address our nation’s aging electric power infrastructure, which needs updating to make it more resilient and efficient to handle the accelerating shifts in today’s energy landscape. New power electronics leveraging improved wide bandgap materials and improved system designs can help achieve this, while also strengthening U.S. supply chains. Expand Power is developing a new medium voltage transformer that can help update and upgrade important pieces of the U.S. power grid.  

Helix Earth Technologies is developing a solid-state high-efficiency technology for removing water content from air, which aims to increase the efficiency of air conditioning systems and industrial drying processes, in turn leading to significant energy and cost savings. 

In the past year, these three current LEEP-supported startups have each won EPIC Pitch Competition prizes, where the top tech incubators and startups across the country compete to see who has the strongest, most compelling business pitches. The additional successes of these and other LEEP innovators reflect the skills and talent of the innovators, as well as how far they can take their ideas by leveraging the early support and resources that AMMTO’s LEEP offers. Providing talented people who have strong technology ideas with the time and R&D resources to turn those ideas into reality is a winning recipe to generate success, advance valuable technology, and improve our nation’s energy and manufacturing competitiveness.

Learn more about LEEP and how AMMTO continues to leverage national labs to find and support the manufacturing innovators of tomorrow in the "Developing the Next-Generation Manufacturing Workforce" section below.

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One of the many challenges of meeting future U.S. energy goals is current limitations for the U.S. manufacturing industry to produce the large near-net-shaped metal components—such as castings and forgings—necessary for many existing and emerging energy systems and sectors. Near-net-shape refers to the manufacturing of parts that are close to the final shape and size necessary, so that the part can then be used with minimal machining or finishing, which, in turn, greatly lowers production costs.

Partnering with the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility (MDF) Innovation Ecosystem, and with funding from AMMTO, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) accelerated the creation of a new and novel U.S. production capability. MedUSA is a multi-agent additive manufacturing system that uses three robotic arms, each equipped with a welder, to create near-net-shape parts via wire-arc additive manufacturing. In addition to addressing domestic supply-chain challenges in the production of near-net-shape components, the flexibility of the system means that large parts, which generally are produced in small volumes, can be made more economically. The positive benefits of the commercialization of this process will only grow over time, making the production of components for large-scale clean energy applications—like wind energy, hydropower, or next generation nuclear power—much more viable for, and attractive to, industry. 

Because of AMMTO’s work, Lincoln Electric, the country’s largest supplier of welding wire, now has a vertically integrated, large-scale metallic component supply business that is internationally competitive, which represents not just an advancement for a single process, but for a whole R&D wing of a U.S. company to grow. More recently, the ORNL MDF demonstrated a new approach for multi-agent manufacturing to be employed in future large-scale foundries at the International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS), which is one of the largest meetings for the manufacturing community. These efforts will ensure sustained competitiveness through innovation for domestic large-scale manufacturing for energy systems.

Today, the United States generally does not domestically manufacture the large or medium-scale titanium components necessary for air and spacecraft. Most flight-critical titanium components are currently sourced from overseas suppliers, which represents a considerable national security risk. Additionally, most current manufacturing processes result in inefficient waste of energy intensive titanium feedstock. The development of new additive manufacturing processes explored by AMMTO may fundamentally change both the energy efficiency and the cost structure of processing these components—enabling entirely new pathways toward domestically producing more energy efficient, high-value titanium components that will ensure continued U.S. competitiveness in the critical aerospace sector.

With the multi-year support and direction of AMMTO, a novel additive manufacturing process was developed in partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and their Manufacturing Demonstration Facility (MDF) Industrial ecosystem, which allowed the project to reach commercialization. AMMTO directed and approved the work scope and developed the tools and process knowledge that led to project success. 

The newly developed system incorporates advanced additive manufacturing technology to produce high-value titanium components while driving down costs enough to enable economical production in the United States, successfully “reshoring” production through a new process technology. 

Critically, this technology also offers considerable energy savings. For example, this type of titanium component typically has a buy:fly ratio of about 50:1, meaning that just a mere fraction of the purchased, energy intensive titanium feedstock makes it into the final part, with the rest being downcycled and/or discarded as industrial waste. However, the AMMTO partnership’s novel process generally produces parts at around 2-10:1, meaning that this new system consumes 5-25 times less materially embodied energy than its conventional counterpart. 

This now commercialized process will likely continue to expand its manufacturing footprint across the United States. GKN Aerospace has commissioned its first plant in Fort Worth, TX built around the process technology to supply domestic large scale titanium components, which will lead to the creation of approximately 100 new high-paying jobs. The impacts to the U.S. workforce will be significant as this sector grows to support the needs of future aircraft.

The components of energy systems are exposed to a wide range of harsh service condition stressors, such as extreme heat and pressure, thermal cycling, corrosive chemicals, irradiation, and mechanical wear. Frequently, component materials are exposed to two or more of these stressors simultaneously, which can degrade performance, reduce efficiency, and eventually lead to equipment failure. As energy demands continue to grow, new materials and manufacturing approaches for harsh service environments are required to advance power generation, energy storage, and other sectors while helping equipment operate more effectively and affordably.

In gas turbines and jet engines, hot gas path (HGP) sections are a highly corrosive setting where parts experience extreme temperatures, mechanical loads, and caustic compounds. High gamma prime (γ') strengthened nickel superalloys such as René 41 and René 80 perform well in such harsh environments, but these superalloys are expensive. Furthermore, the traditional manufacturing approach of making an entire part from a high γ' strengthened superalloy further drives up costs, even for systems that require only one section with high γ' properties. 

One potential solution is to make the part largely from a low or no γ' superalloy, such as Inconel 718, and simply join (via welding) René 41 or René 80 to the exact location where the advanced properties are needed. This approach, however, has a major drawback: the joining interface is a common site of part failure. A more durable solution is to produce a functionally graded material (FGM) via additive manufacturing, wherein the two superalloy types can be mixed in precise proportions such that the transitions between them are seamless. 

One recently completed project in AMMTO’s portfolio made a significant advancement in this space. Supported by AMMTO, the engineering services firm EWI produced a novel Inconel 718 to René 41 FGM for jet engines. The EWI team used directed energy deposition (DED) additive manufacturing to build a full-scale jet engine case with the FGM. 

To assist in selecting the materials and in manufacturing the final product, EWI also developed a machine learning and modeling toolkit as part of the project. Among other process enhancements, the toolkit allowed the team to predict the FGM microstructure, optimize printing parameters, and avoid defect formation.

The results of the project are promising. Compared to the baseline technology—common rotary friction welding—EWI’s FGM for jet engines showed a 10% higher ultimate tensile strength and a 45% improvement in average fatigue life. In addition, the team demonstrated the potential for a 10% reduction in cost over conventional manufacturing. Beyond the specific applications addressed in this project, EWI’s innovation could be used in many other situations to increase energy efficiency, reduce costs, and limit premature component failure.