Enabling the lightweight materials industry through a network of national laboratories
The Lightweight Materials Consortium, or LightMAT, is part of the Energy Materials Network (EMN), a network of 11 national laboratories with technical capabilities highly relevant to the development and commercial use of lightweight materials and manufacturing processes. LightMAT leadership provides straightforward access to laboratory resources and expertise via a single point of contact, matching industry research teams with expertise and equipment found only at national laboratories.
Funding opportunities are available for industry to directly access national laboratory capabilities and work with LightMAT. For more information, visit the LightMAT Directed Funding Assistance page.
The 2023 funding opportunity (May 15 through June 12) is now closed.
Established as part of the Energy Materials Network (EMN), under the Department of Energy's Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative, the mission of the Lightweight Materials National Laboratory Consortium is to create an enduring national laboratory-based network, enabling industry to utilize the national laboratories' unique capabilities related to lightweight materials.
High-performance materials, including both functional materials and structural materials, hold the key to innovation across many energy technologies critical to national security and economic growth. But with ambitious national targets to increase America’s energy supply and reduce energy costs for the consumer, advanced materials’ traditional 15–20 years to market time frame isn’t keeping pace with America’s goals to achieve a dominant clean energy economy.
Through the EMN, the Department of Energy is taking a different approach to materials research and development (R&D) that aims to accelerate solutions to the nation’s toughest materials challenges in the energy sector. The EMN has established a network of laser-focused consortia leveraging the world-class capabilities at the national laboratories to better integrate all phases of R&D, from discovery to scale-up. The EMN consortia are set up to facilitate stakeholder access to the national laboratories’ capabilities, tools, and expertise to accelerate the materials development cycle and enable U.S. manufacturers to deliver innovative, made-in-America products to the world market.
Each EMN consortium brings together leaders from the national labs, industry, and academia to focus on specific classes of materials aligned with the nation’s most pressing energy challenges. Each consortium has its own website with a designated point of contact dedicated to facilitating stakeholder engagements.
The LightMAT national laboratory network makes the following capabilities available to industry partners.