Critical Minerals and Materials Accelerator (CMMA)

CMMA Topic Area 1 — Rare Earth Elements Recovery

Supports production and material efficiency innovations for rare earth and critical minerals.

⚠ This may reflect a past cycle — verify the current call on the funder's site.

The Critical Minerals and Materials Accelerator (CMMA) Topic Area 1, administered by DOE's Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO) under the Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation (CMEI), funds prototyping and piloting of innovative production and material-efficiency technologies for domestic rare earth element (REE) recovery. Issued under FOA DE-TA1-0003589, Topic Area 1 is one of three tracks within the $69 million CMMA program umbrella. The program targets technologies that have been proven at bench scale but have not yet been demonstrated at pilot or prototype scale, with a focus on building domestic supply chains for critical materials used in clean energy, defense, and advanced manufacturing sectors.

Eligibility requires American, industry-led partnerships — a U.S. company must lead the team. Academic institutions, research organizations, and nonprofits are eligible as partners but cannot serve as the prime applicant. A Letter of Intent was required by April 24, 2026 — applicants who did not submit an LOI are not eligible for this topic area. The CMMA program expects awardees to leverage DOE lab investments, particularly the Critical Materials Innovation (CMI) Hub at Ames National Laboratory and the Minerals to Materials Supply Chain Research Facility (METALLIC). Total program pool is up to $69 million shared across three topic areas; individual award floors and ceilings are specified in the FOA PDF (DE-TA1-0003589), which was not extracted at ingest. The application deadline for Topic Area 1 was May 29, 2026, meaning this track has closed.

Organizations with REE separation, processing, or recovery technology at bench-scale readiness and existing relationships with CMI Hub or METALLIC should prioritize positioning for future CMMA cycles or related AMMTO solicitations. Contact for program questions is cmmacceleratornofo@ee.doe.gov. Industry partners should review the FOA PDF carefully for cost-share requirements, scoring criteria, and page limits before applying to any open CMMA topic area.