Tag: Materials science

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Aerospace Tech Hub’s federal funding is put on hold

The leaders of Spokane's Tech Hub hoped to make use of a 386,000-square-foot facility near the city's airport. (ATC Manufacturing Photo)
The leaders of Spokane's Tech Hub hoped to make use of a 386,000-square-foot facility near the city's airport. (ATC Manufacturing Photo)

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has blocked $48 million in federal funding for an advanced aerospace materials test bed in Spokane, triggering protests from lawmakers.

The decision also affects five other Tech Hub projects around the country that were approved for federal support in the final days of the Biden administration. Lutnick had approved a $220 million loan from the Treasury Department as part of a plan to make funding available for the six projects — but in a statement released May 16, he said he was rescinding the grants.

Lutnick said the process was “rushed, opaque and unfair,” and added that the Economic Development Administration would come up with a new process to select grant recipients by early 2026. The six blocked projects would be allowed to reapply for funding in that selection round. Lutnick’s decision does not affect 12 other Tech Hub projects that were approved last July.

The Biden administration designated 31 public-private consortiums as Tech Hubs in 2023, in an effort to support regional tech innovation. A fact sheet from the EDA said the six awards that were made in January “resulted in some criticism from those Tech Hubs that did not receive awards and their members of Congress.” It said the new selection process would follow the Trump administration’s directives on issues ranging from energy and labor policy to diversity, equity and inclusion.

U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, D-Wash., both objected strenuously to the decision.

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Tech Hubs win $504M in grants, but Spokane loses out

The leaders of Spokane's Tech Hub hoped to make use of a 386,000-square-foot facility near the city's airport. (ATC Manufacturing Photo)
The leaders of Spokane's Tech Hub hoped to make use of a 386,000-square-foot facility near the city's airport. (ATC Manufacturing Photo)

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration today awarded $504 million in grants to 12 regional Tech Hubs across the country, but Spokane’s Tech Hub for developing advanced aerospace materials missed out.

Leaders of the Inland Northwest Tech Hub said they’d keep looking for ways to implement their ambitious plans — and the Department of Commerce is planning a field trip to help them fine-tune their strategy.

“No region is better equipped than ours to meet the unprecedented global demand for equipping 40,000 new airplanes with lightweight aerospace parts that reduce carbon emissions. Within a few years, the Inland Northwest Tech Hub can have prototypes ready for high-rate production, enabling thousands of new domestic manufacturing jobs to lessen our growing reliance on foreign technology and foreign labor,” the consortium said in an emailed statement.

“Missing this opportunity will increase our reliance on foreign labor, threatening our national and economic security,” the consortium said. “We will be working on every possible opportunity to make new American jobs and supply chains a reality.”

The Spokane-based American Aerospace Materials Manufacturing Center is one of 31 consortiums that won Tech Hub designation last October as part of the Biden administration’s effort to fire up engines of innovation in places that are typically off the beaten tech track.

“Every American deserves the opportunity to thrive, no matter where they live,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in today’s announcement of the Phase 2 Tech Hub grants. She said the federal funding “will ensure that the benefits of the industries of the future – from artificial intelligence and clean energy, to biotechnology and more – are shared with communities that have been overlooked for far too long, including rural, tribal, industrial and disadvantaged communities.”

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Spokane’s Tech Hub puts a big bet on advanced materials

Worker inspects thermoplastic assembly
A worker at ATC Manufacturing performs a quality check on an airduct assembly of thermoplastic tubing. (ATC Photo)

“There’s a great future in thermoplastics.”

If anyone ever does a remake of “The Graduate,” that’s how the famous advice given to Dustin Hoffman’s character about the promise of the plastics industry might be updated. And the movie’s locale just might be shifted to Spokane.

At least that’s what a private-public consortium centered in Eastern Washington and North Idaho is banking on. The Advanced Aerospace Materials Manufacturing Center Tech Hub, or AAMMC, sees a great future in the development of thermoplastic composites for aircraft and spacecraft.

Last October, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration designated the AAMMC as one of 31 Tech Hubs based at sites across the country. That status made the Spokane-based group eligible to apply for a $72 million Phase 2 grant.

The first five to 10 recipients of federal funding are due to be announced in late June or early July — and the leaders of the Spokane Tech Hub are hoping to be on the list.

“The Tech Hub designation marks in inflection point for the City of Spokane. While innovative manufacturing and collaborative research are already happening here, the Tech Hub will take the region to new heights by bolstering that work, boosting our local economy, and creating desirable, good-paying jobs,” Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown said in an emailed statement.

What’s the Tech Hub all about? Aerospace companies with a Pacific Northwest presence, from Boeing on down, are already spending billions of dollars on carbon composite materials — so what difference could tens of millions of dollars of federal funding possibly make?

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OceanGate picks its supplier for carbon fiber

Titan submersible
OceanGate’s Titan submersible made use of carbon composite for its pressurized hull, and the company’s future submersibles will up the ante when it comes to carbon fiber. (OceanGate Photo)

Everett, Wash.-based OceanGate says Toray Composite Materials America is its preferred provider for the carbon fiber material that will be used in the company’s next-generation submersibles.

Toray CMA is the world’s largest supplier of carbon fiber and the leader in providing fibers for numerous aircraft, including the Boeing 777 and 787. The company’s U.S. head office is in Tacoma, Wash.

OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush said in a statement that Toray CMA “will play a critical role as we develop the next generation of manned submersible, to usher in a new era of exploration using aerospace-quality composites.”

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UW teams up with national lab on materials science

Researcher at work
A new collaboration between the University of Washington and Pacific Northwest National Lab will support the development of new materials for a wide spectrum of applications. (PNNL via YouTube)

The University of Washington and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are joining forces on a new research venture that spans 200 miles to advance the frontiers of materials science.

The venture — known as the Northwest Institute for Materials Physics, Chemistry and Technology, or NW IMPACT — will be co-located at UW’s campus in Seattle and PNNL’s campus in Richland, Wash. Eventually, NW IMPACT will involve at least 20 joint UW-PNNL appointments for existing researchers, and at least 20 UW graduate students in UW-PNNL collaborations.

UW President Ana Mari Cauce and PNNL Director Steven Ashby formally launched the program on Jan. 31 during a ceremony at the Richland campus.

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Boeing HorizonX invests in Gamma Alloys

Gamma Alloys bars
Gamma Alloys’ nano-reinforced aluminum can be extruded into bars. (Gamma Alloys Photo)

Boeing’s latest venture-capital investment, in a company called Gamma Alloys, aims to give a boost to next-generation aluminum alloys that may show up one day in Boeing’s airplanes.

The investment by Boeing’s HorizonX venture arm, announced today, is the first to focus on advanced materials and machining development and applications.

Gamma Alloys, founded in 2008 with its headquarters in Valencia, Calif., is developing alloys that use alumina nanoparticles (Al2O3) to reinforce aluminum. Boeing says the alloys provide increased stiffness, improved wear resistance and greater strength than current materials across a wider range of temperatures.

Nano-reinforced alloys are particularly well-suited for applications in aerospace and automobile manufacturing.

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UW center targets moonshots in materials science

Students in materials science
College students work with researchers as part of the UW Clean Energy Institute’s Research Experience for Undergraduates program. (UW Clean Energy Institute Photo / Matt Hagen)

The University of Washington has received a $15.6 million, six-year grant from the National Science Foundation to fund its Molecular Engineering Materials Center and take on “moonshots” that could lead to cleaner energy, advanced light-based electronics and quantum computing.

The grant was awarded as part of the NSF’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Center program, or MRSEC. Funding was provided to continue work at six MRSEC centers and start up three more centers, including UW’s.

UW’s center brings together an initial team of 15 faculty members, including researchers who work at the university’s Clean Energy Institute and Molecular Engineering and Sciences Institute.

The first targets for research are nanocrystals, quantum dots and thin films. Those technologies could produce solar-concentrating window coverings to boost photovoltaic cells for energy conversion, as well as ultra-thin semiconductors for energy generation, optoelectronics and exotic computing applications.

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