Announcing the 2025 Mines-NREL Nexus Seed Award Winners
The Mines-NREL Nexus is proud to announce the awardees of the 2025 Nexus Seed Funding Program.
This program supports collaborative research efforts between Colorado School of Mines (Mines) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) aimed at advancing bold, high-impact ideas in energy and materials science.
This year’s selected projects span robotics, critical mineral recovery, materials discovery, and geothermal innovation, and each demonstrate strong potential for securing major federal funding.
We had a record number of high-quality seed proposals, 43 in total, and awarded funding to seven outstanding submissions. We are grateful to all who participated and hope you will continue to do so in the future.
2025 Awardees:
Close-Loop Recovery of Critical Metals from Spent Lithium-Ion Batteries via High-Temperature/Eutectic Molten Salt Electrolysis
PIs: Leiming Hu, Staff Scientist IV, Chemistry and Nanoscience Center, (NREL) and Steven DeCaluwe, Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering, (Mines)
This project aims to create a low-carbon, energy-efficient platform for selectively extracting valuable metals like Li, Co, and Ni from recycled lithium-ion battery “black mass.” The team will develop a novel molten-salt electrolysis system combining in-situ diagnostics and predictive modeling, addressing major bottlenecks in U.S. battery supply chain resilience and supporting DOE’s Critical Materials Strategy.
Synthetic Digital Environments for Training Robots on Earth and Beyond
PIs: Frankie Zhu, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, (Mines) and Naveen Muthumanickam, Research Engineer, Industrialized Construction Innovation, (NREL)
Creating physical replicas of real-world environments to train robots for challenging outdoor tasks, whether constructing energy infrastructure like solar farms on Earth or on the Moon and Mars, is prohibitively expensive. This project will prototype a high-fidelity digital twin framework using NVIDIA IsaacSim to create realistic digital representations of robotic systems and their operating conditions, including varied terrains and environmental factors, allowing robots to learn and adapt in a faster, safer, and more affordable way to tackle unpredictable challenges in terrestrial and extraterrestrial applications.
Multiferroic Wurtzite Nitrides
PIs: Kei Yazawa, Research Assistant Professor, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, (Mines) and Rebecca Smaha, Researcher III, Materials Science, (NREL)
Seeking breakthroughs in energy efficient memory technologies, this project will explore wurtzite nitrides—a promising but underexplored class of possible multiferroics that possess simultaneous ferroelectric and magnetic ordering. Combining Mines’ expertise in thin film ferroelectrics and NREL’s in magnetic nitrides, the team will investigate magneto-electric coupling associated with ferroic domain interactions in wurtzite multiferroics, which could unlock new memory architectures with ultralow write/read energy consumption.
Addressing Scientific Knowledge and Technology Gaps in Geophysics and Chemistry for Industrial Bio-oil Storage
PIs: Anne Ware, Researcher, BioSciences Center, (NREL) and Manika Prasad, Professor, Geophysics, (Mines)
In partnership with Charm Industrial, this team will explore the subsurface storage of biomass-derived bio-oils, including fluid-rock interactions and geophysical monitoring strategies. The goal is to address knowledge gaps around bio-oil reactions around bio-oil reactions at geologic storage pressures and temperatures and support DOE’s carbon management initiatives.
A Flexible Framework for Coupled Subsurface-Surface Techno-Economic Modeling of Advanced Geothermal Systems
PIs: Pejman Tahmasebi, Associate Professor, Petroleum Engineering, (Mines) and Jabs Aljubran, Researcher, Thermal Energy Science & Technologies, (NREL)
To accelerate geothermal deployment, this project will link high-fidelity multiphysics models of the subsurface with NREL’s Flexible Geothermal Economics Modeling (FGEM) tool. The integrated framework will support optimized system design and investment strategies for hybrid geothermal and energy storage systems.
Medium-voltage Modular Power Distribution for Commercial-scale PV, Storage, and EV Charging Applications
PIs: Omid Beik, Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering, (Mines) and Xiaoling Li, Electrical Engineer Researcher III, Power Electronics, (NREL)
To meet the growing energy demands and efficiency requirements of modern data centers this project will prototype a modular solid-state transformer architecture that enables medium-voltage DC distribution. The team aims to reduce system cost, footprint, and complexity while supporting bidirectional power flow for data center, solar PV, battery storage, and EV charging systems. Their approach will position them for upcoming DOE and ARPA-E funding calls focused on next-generation power electronics.
Designing Reactivity of Metal-Halide Materials for Selective Gasochromic Sensing
PIs: Lance Wheeler, Materials Physics Group Manager, (NREL) and Eve Mozur, Assistant Professor, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, (Mines)
This project works towards selective gas sensing using metal-halide materials as transformative materials for low maintenance and user-friendly gas sensing. We take advantage of their unparalleled optical properties coupled to low formation energies of metal-halide materials to allow for low fundamental detection limits and high efficacy of the readout.
Congratulations to all awardees! We look forward to seeing these innovative collaborations moving forward. Stay tuned for project updates at future Nexus events.