Critical Minerals and Materials for Advanced Energy (CM2AE) Tech Hub
Lead Agency: University of Missouri Systems
State Served: Missouri
Applicant-Defined Region: Carter, Crawford, Dent, Howell, Iron, Madison, Oregon, Phelps, Reynolds, Shannon, St. Francios, Ste. Genevieve, Texas, and Washington Counties
Core Technology Area: critical mineral processing
Contact: Richard K. Brow (brow@mst.edu)
Media Contact: Kwame Awuah-Offei (kwamea@mst.edu)
Organizational Link: https://criticalminerals.mst.edu/techhub/
The Critical Minerals and Materials for Advanced Energy (CM2AE) Tech Hub, led by the University of Missouri System, aims to position south-central Missouri as a global leader in critical minerals processing to provide the materials needed to support battery technology. This Tech Hub will build on the region’s mineral rich geography, expertise in hydrometallurgical refining, and existing assets to increase processing capacity to convert minerals into materials necessary for advanced energy and critical goods, including lithium-ion and primary-lead-acid batteries. In doing so, the CM2AE Tech Hub seeks to meet the demand of U.S. advanced energy manufacturers and reduce dependence on foreign critical minerals while creating thousands of good-paying jobs.
The CM2AE Tech Hub seeks to strengthen production of critical minerals for downstream U.S. advanced energy manufacturing and enhance national security by reducing the risk, cost, and time required to develop commercially viable hydrometallurgical processing and manufacturing operations.
This consortium’s proposal includes plans to:
- Create a test bed to allow access to state-of-the-art characterization facilities, pilot-scale equipment, and advanced process simulation techniques;
- Leverage mineral rights and permits to mine and process critical minerals in the region, which will lead to expanded mining operations and additional technology development plans;
- Focus on business and entrepreneur development to facilitate commercialization of hydrometallurgical processing by building mentorship networks and facilitating debt and equity capital access;
- Implement workforce development programming to ensure talent development, recruitment, and retention strategies leverage existing training and benefits available through employers, education providers, and the state;
- Coordinate technology supply chain programming to develop and strengthen customer-supplier relationships; and
- Empower an inter-organizational network of leaders to cultivate relationships across all partners, and analyze program and ecosystem metrics to inform decisions, recommendations, and course-correction.
To ensure that the impacts of the Tech Hub projects benefit the entire region, the consortium will include people from underrepresented communities in the consortium’s leadership and workforce; representation of historically excluded groups in the entrepreneur pool; full participation of historically excluded groups in workforce development efforts; and representation of women-, minority-, and veteran-owned businesses in the critical minerals and materials supply chain.
This summary is based on information submitted by the applicants.
Strategy Development Grant Amount: $450,000
Designee Narrative (PDF) (submitted by the designee in its Phase 2 application package)