Michelman recently announced it has been chosen to be part of an elite, 122-member consortium that will make up the new Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI). Led by the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, the IACMI intends to connect the world’s leading manufacturers across the supply chain, with universities and national laboratories pioneering advanced composites technology development and research. It will focus on lowering the cost of advanced fiber-reinforced polymer composite materials by 50%, reducing the energy used to make composites by 75% and increasing the recyclability of composites to more than 95% within the next decade.

The institute is a $259 million public-private partnership made possible by a $70 million commitment from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and $189 million from IACMI’s partners. It intends to help advance the state of knowledge and commercialization of carbon fiber composites technology in response to market demands for strong, lightweight materials by creating a platform to overcome technological and cost barriers to the widescale adoption of carbon fiber composites in a variety of industrial sectors, including pressure vessel, infrastructure and wind, and automotive.

For more information, visit www.michelman.com or http://iacmi.org/.