Elevated Materials announced on September 16, 2026, that it has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy for $50 million in federal matching funds to construct a $100 million manufacturing facility. Private investment will fund the remaining half of the project cost.
Elevated Materials wins $50 million DOE grant
Federal matching funds will support a $100 million plant scaling ultra-thin lithium-metal film production to approximately 3.5 GW annually.
All rows are neutral: the source gives no year-on-year changes, and the capital figures are not like-for-like.
The funding comes through the DOE’s Battery Materials Processing and Battery Manufacturing Grants program. The program distributed $500 million across seven companies as part of efforts to strengthen domestic clean energy supply chains.
Elevated Materials, a TPG Rise Climate portfolio company carved out of Applied Materials, plans to use the funding to scale its roll-to-roll vacuum deposition production platforms. The proposed facility is expected to have annual capacity of approximately 3.5 GW, producing the company’s ELi ultra-thin lithium-metal films and pre-lithiated materials.
Ultra-thin lithium-metal anodes can provide higher energy density, faster charging and longer lifespans than conventional lithium-ion batteries using graphite anodes, according to the source. However, pure lithium metal is highly reactive, and producing films with uniform thickness across large formats has presented challenges for commercial-scale manufacturing.
Elevated Materials uses semiconductor-grade vacuum deposition technology to manufacture wide, continuous rolls of ultra-thin lithium. The company reported shipping more than 250,000 meters of ELi material over the past year to more than 30 customers in the electric vehicle, consumer electronics, defense, aviation and stationary grid-scale energy storage sectors.
Jim Cushing, CEO of Elevated Materials, said the technology was developed in California with support from DOE research and development programs. The new funding is intended to help increase production to gigawatt scale.
Source: Business Wire
