Critical Minerals and Materials Accelerator Notice of Funding Opportunity

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Golden Field Office is seeking cooperative agreement applications for the Critical Minerals and Materials Accelerator, a discretionary energy funding opportunity intended to advance domestic critical minerals and materials technologies. The program supports collaborative industry partnerships that prototype and pilot innovative processing technologies that are currently only proven at bench scale, with work including validation, benchmarking, access to national lab test beds, industry-relevant testing, technoeconomic analysis, and life-cycle assessment. Funding is organized into three topic areas covering critical materials recovery and production, refining and alloying for semiconductor materials, and cost-competitive direct lithium extraction and related processing, with separate subtopics under Topic Areas 1 and 3; cost sharing is required and funded technologies are expected to have a path to domestic commercialization within 3 to 7 years. Applications are submitted through DOE eXCHANGE, the close date is July 20, 2026, and the opportunity lists an award ceiling of $3 million, estimated total program funding of $69 million, about 44 expected awards, and the contact inbox cmmacceleratornofo@ee.doe.gov.