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The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Ames National Laboratory and the Critical Materials Innovation (CMI) Hub today announced a new collaboration with Amazon to advance technologies that recover and recycle critical materials, such as battery-grade graphite, and essential minerals that power modern technologies.
Through this collaboration, Amazon will combine its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities and supply chain scale with the world-class materials science expertise of DOE's Ames National Laboratory and the CMI Hub. Together, these organizations will work to reduce waste, strengthen domestic supply chains, and create opportunities for high-value material recovery.
As part of this effort, CMI researchers will collaborate with Amazon teams to explore methods for producing battery-grade graphite from post-consumer textiles (i.e., discarded clothing items). Converting discarded fabrics into a domestic source of graphite advances DOE's Genesis Mission goal of securing critical materials from waste.
In a second initiative, CMI will collaborate with Amazon Web Services (AWS) teams to investigate the technical and economic feasibility of recovering critical minerals, such as gallium, from end-of-life IT hardware. AWS will leverage its expertise in physical AI and supply chain management, while CMI contributes its expertise in critical minerals recovery and the combined capabilities of its network of partners.
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