Ames Laboratory | Better Buildings Initiative

Ames Laboratory is a government-owned, contractor-operated national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), operated by and located on the campus of Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. With its roots in the Manhattan Project, Ames Laboratory today seeks solutions to energy-related problems of national importance through the exploration of physics, chemistry, engineering, applied mathematics, and materials sciences. Key areas of expertise are materials design, synthesis and processing; analytical instrumentation design and development; materials characterization; catalysis; computational chemistry; condensed matter theory; and computational materials science and materials theory.

Ames Laboratory accelerates the discovery of new materials and adds value by sharing these materials and its expertise with the scientific community and partners throughout the U.S. and the world. Through Strategic Partnership Projects, Ames Laboratory enhances our national and economic competitiveness while reducing technical barriers for U.S. industry.

For a general overview of Ames Laboratory, including its core capabilities, visit Ames' Solution Center profile or their home page. Learn more about individual user facilities below.

Critical Materials Institute (CMI)

CMI is a public/private partnership led by Ames Laboratory that brings together the best and brightest research minds from universities, national laboratories, and the private sector to find innovative technology solutions that will help avoid a materials supply shortage that would threaten our clean energy industry as well as our security interests. Many materials deemed critical by the U.S. Department of Energy are used in modern clean energy technologies, including wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles, and energy-efficient lighting.

The purpose of CMI is to help the United States in four key areas:

Diversifying supplies. If one source goes offline, we can rely on production from a different source.
Developing substitute materials that can meet needs without using the materials we use today.
Using the available materials more efficiently: reducing waste in manufacturing processes, and increasing recycling for a circular economy.
Delivering enabling capabilities: Having tools to accelerate discovery and inform what materials might become critical in the future.

The Institute’s industrial collaborators work to incorporate CMI innovations in their products and processes, across the areas described above – source diversification, materials substitution, and improved stewardship of existing resources. Opportunities for industrial partners to engage with CMI include:

CMI Affiliates: CMI Affiliates attend CMI meetings, are informed about CMI research outcomes, and provide input to CMI. Affiliates pay an annual fee based on the organization type, and sign a Membership Agreement. CMI Affiliates may become CMI Team members or sponsor research in other ways with different levels of financial commitment and ownership of intellectual property.
CMI Team Member: CMI Team members participate in CMI research through research subcontracts or provision of cost sharing funds. Requirements include specific research project deliverables within the entity's areas of expertise, an agreed scope of work with negotiated budget, including cost-share as applicable, as approved by the CMI Director. CMI Team Members are required to sign CMI's Master Non-disclosure Agreement and the Intellectual Property Management Plan (IPMP).

For more information, please visit the CMI website or contact:

Chris Haase
Director, Critical Materials Institute
(515) 296-4500
cmidirector@ameslab.gov

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Materials Preparation Center (MPC)

The Materials Preparation Center is a one-of-a-kind specialized research center. The MPC prepares, purifies, fabricates, and characterizes research-sized quantities of rare-earth, alkaline-earth, and refractory materials.

Established in 1981, the MPC gives scientists at university, industry, and government laboratories access to novel materials and new technologies as they are developed. Each year, the MPC satisfies hundreds of requests for customized materials and services not available from commercial suppliers and that are unmatched in quality anywhere else in the world. The MPC prepares research-quantity, pure metals and alloys in single and polycrystalline forms. The center also develops processing techniques required for special preparations of these metals and alloys and transfers new knowledge about materials-processing equipment.

For more information, please visit the MPC website or contact:

Matt Besser
Director, Materials Preparation Center
(515) 294-5236
mpc@ameslab.gov

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Sensitive Instrument Facility (SIF)

Ames Laboratory's Sensitive Instrument Facility houses state-of-the-art and next-generation materials characterization instruments. This uniquely constructed space enables the study of structure and chemistry at the atomic scale by isolating instruments from thermal, vibration, and electromagnetic interference. Unique details include two-feet thick concrete floors with built-in vibration dampening layers, aluminum-plate lined bays, and fiberglass reinforced concrete for electro-magnetic isolation, and vibration-free heating and ventilation. These features help ensure the instrumentation achieves the highest possible resolution.

The SIF provides a suite of four electron microscopes, three specialty optical scanning systems, sample preparation spaces, control rooms, and staff support space. Sample preparation facilities include dry and wet laboratories equipped for sample preparation for scanning and transmission electron microscopy.

For more information, please visit the SIF website or contact:

Sarah Wiley
SIF Program Coordinator
(515) 294-5241
sif@ameslab.gov

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