REMADE launches $4.86M in funding to advance material recovery and recycling in manufacturing

The REMADE Institute is a 150-member public-private partnership established in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) with an initial investment of $140 million. Using the initial investment, the group will disburse $4.86 million to fund 10 research demonstration, verification, and validation (DV&V) projects. 

REMADE's new DV&V projects will demonstrate tools and technologies that are at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6 and will reach TRL 7 by the end of their project. 

Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) describe the various phases of technology development, with TRLs 4-7 typically referred to as the "Valley of Death" — the critical gap between early-stage research and commercial viability where promising innovations often fail to transition from the laboratory to the marketplace.

REMADE's funding will take projects from research to market viability 

These new DV&V projects will not only address the Valley of Death for these technologies but will also increase U.S. manufacturing competitiveness; strengthen the resilience of the domestic supply chain; decrease manufacturing energy consumption; and advance the Circular Economy by increasing the reuse, remanufacturing, recovery, and recycling of critical minerals and rare earth elements, aluminum, textiles, electronics scrap, diesel engine blocks, steel, and paper.

"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," said REMADE Chief Executive Officer Nabil Nasr.

This latest round of investment, the Institute's seventh, is cost-shared between REMADE and the funding recipients. Of the 10 new projects, some involve new partners for REMADE. They will join the Institute's existing partners, including industry innovators and academic researchers with Caterpillar, John Deere, Michelin, Nike, Adidas, MIT, RIT, Honda, Volvo, Yale University, and many more.

REMADE Chief Technology Officer Magdi Azer emphasized the importance for research institutes like REMADE to provide ongoing investment in technologies to ensure they advance through the Valley of Death, noting that REMADE had previously funded six prior Requests for Proposals (RFPs).

"This is exactly why the Manufacturing USA institutes were established in the first place more than a decade ago," Azer said. "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."

Since the Institute's founding in 2017, REMADE has launched or selected 103 technology R&D and workforce development projects, representing a total combined value of $104 million. For a list of the 10 new technology projects and their project team members, see below.