Critical Minerals & Materials Accelerator (CMMA)

Critical Minerals & Materials Accelerator — Topic 3: Direct Lithium Extraction

Administers research teams and institutions for Critical Minerals & Materials Accelerator : Direct in materials science, energy systems, and climate technology.

The Critical Minerals and Materials Accelerator (CMMA) is a Funding Opportunity Announcement issued by the DOE Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO) under the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). Topic 3 of the FY2026 CMMA FOA — designated DE-TA3-0003589, under parent notice DE-FOA-0003588 — funds technologies for direct lithium extraction (DLE), including separation and downstream processing steps, with the goal of producing battery-grade lithium from domestic brines, geothermal fluids, oilfield produced water, or other unconventional sources at costs competitive with conventional evaporation-pond methods. Lithium is a critical input to battery supply chains supporting electric vehicles, grid storage, and defence applications.

Eligible applicants include universities, non-profit research organisations, for-profit companies, and national laboratories operating in the United States; individual applicants are not eligible. A Letter of Intent was required by April 24, 2026, and the full application deadline is July 23, 2026 — the latest of the three CMMA topics — submitted via eere-exchange.energy.gov (the DOE-EERE portal, cross-posted on Grants.gov). Award amounts, cost-share requirements, period-of-performance length, and evaluation criteria are defined in the FOA PDF (not extracted at ingest) and must be confirmed there. The three-month extension beyond Topic 1's deadline reflects the additional complexity of DLE process demonstrations.

Proposals for Topic 3 should articulate a specific DLE technology approach — membrane-based, adsorption, ion exchange, electrochemical, or hybrid — and describe a credible path from current technical readiness to demonstration scale. AMMTO prioritises projects that show cost reduction potential relative to conventional lithium carbonate or hydroxide production and that can be deployed at domestic resource sites. Teams combining process chemistry expertise with access to a domestic brine or geothermal resource, or with industry partnerships for downstream battery-grade purification, align well with the programme's objectives.