Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) Consumer Electronics Battery Recycling, Reprocessing, and Battery Collection | DE FOA 0002897

Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0002897

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) Consumer Electronics Battery Recycling, Reprocessing, and Battery Collection grant (DE-FOA-0002897) is a U.S. Department of Energy funding opportunity, administered through the National Energy Technology Laboratory, aimed at strengthening domestic capacity to recover and reuse critical materials from consumer batteries. The core idea is to capture more end-of-life batteries from everyday electronics and battery-containing devices and move them into reliable recycling and reprocessing pathways, ultimately supporting a stronger U.S. supply chain for critical minerals and materials needed for electric vehicle (EV) batteries. This opportunity sits within the DOE energy funding area (CFDA 81.086) and uses a grant funding instrument under a discretionary program.

The program is designed around three connected goals that address the most common bottlenecks in consumer battery recycling. First, it seeks to increase participation by consumers in existing battery recycling programs, recognizing that many batteries still end up stored in drawers or disposed of improperly due to inconvenience, lack of awareness, or confusion about where and how to recycle. Second, it aims to improve the economics of consumer battery recycling so that recycling is not just environmentally beneficial but also financially viable at scale. This includes supporting research, development, and demonstration (RD and D) activities that can lower costs, improve recovery yields, and create innovative, practical approaches that increase reuse and recycling rates. Third, it focuses on expanding the overall number and reach of collection, recycling, and reprocessing programs, with an emphasis on helping establish or enhance state and local efforts and on building more accessible collection points, including at retail locations. Taken together, these three elements are meant to raise collection volumes, reduce friction for consumers, and create sustained market demand and operational stability for recycling systems.

In practical terms, the opportunity supports projects that can strengthen the full pathway from collection to processing for consumer electronics batteries and devices that contain batteries. That may involve improving how batteries are collected and aggregated, designing better take-back or drop-off systems, piloting new approaches for safely handling and sorting different battery chemistries, and advancing recycling and reprocessing techniques that increase material recovery. A key theme is that consumer batteries are often dispersed and heterogeneous, making logistics and processing more complex than single-stream industrial batteries; the FOA targets interventions that make this fragmented feedstock easier and cheaper to capture, consolidate, and process into usable outputs that can feed domestic manufacturing supply chains.

Eligibility is listed as unrestricted, meaning the opportunity is broadly open to applicants, subject to any specific clarifications in the full announcement’s eligibility section. The DOE anticipated a large program footprint, with an expected 70 awards and an award ceiling of up to $10,000,000 per award. The FOA was created on June 12, 2023, and originally closed on November 29, 2023. Overall, this funding opportunity is positioned as a supply-chain and circular-economy investment: it targets consumer-facing collection and participation challenges, funds technical and market improvements that can make recycling pay, and expands state, local, and retailer-based infrastructure so more batteries are captured and turned into domestically available critical materials for the next generation of EV battery production.

• The Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory in the energy sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) Consumer Electronics Battery Recycling, Reprocessing, and Battery Collection" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 81.086.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jun 12, 2023.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Nov 29, 2023. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $10,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 70 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for DE FOA 0002897

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