DOE Announces $12 Million for New Projects through the REMADE Manufacturing USA Institute

The Department of Energy (DOE) has made $12 million available for new research and development (R&D), education, and workforce development projects through the Reducing Embodied Energy and Decreasing Emissions (REMADE) Manufacturing USA Institute. The $12 million will fund 12 to 18 R&D projects and 4 to 8 workforce development or manufacturing education projects seeking to increase plastics recovery, recycling, reuse, and remanufacturing.
 
The funds come from DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s (EERE) Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO). The REMADE Institute is one of 14 Manufacturing USA Institutes working to bridge the gap between manufacturing innovation and commercialization of the technology. REMADE specifically works to enable early-stage applied R&D of technologies that could dramatically reduce embodied energy and carbon dioxide emissions resulting from industrial-scale materials production and processing. This particular opportunity will focus on projects that align with REMADE’s research focus areas, including:
 

• Developing novel manufacturing and recycling technologies to increase secondary feedstock use by 20 percent without loss of properties or performance;
• Designing alternatives to increase recovery, recycling, reuse, and remanufacturing of products at the end of their life cycles;
• Developing technologies to separate and recover specific polymers and metal in e-waste materials;
• Advancing technology to remove pigments from polymers; and
• Enabling cutting-edge training in recycling for the American workforce and in support of the development of a new REMADE professional certificate program.

 
Full proposals are due on December 18, 2019. REMADE will notify awardees in February 2020, with anticipated project start dates in July 2020.