Batteries are everywhere, even on the battlefield, which helps explain the Pentagon\u2019s recent interest in building more domestic manufacturing capacity.<\/p>\n
The 12-year-old, North Andover, Massachusetts-based startup 6K announced Thursday that it won conditional approval for a $250 million loan from the Department of Defense to build a factory in Tennessee. The plant will use a unique microwave-powered process to produce battery materials that don\u2019t rely on Chinese suppliers.<\/p>\n
The company previously received a $50 million grant from the Department of Energy under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, though that 2023 grant was canceled by the Trump administration in a chaotic sweep of Biden-era awards, forcing 6K to reapply.<\/p>\n
The factory was originally slated to open in 2024, but the grant cancelation and uncertainties in the EV market forced the company to rejigger its plans.<\/p>\n
6K\u2019s manufacturing process uses microwaves to heat metals into a plasma and then deposit them onto a surface, reducing the number of steps required to make cathode material, a key battery component. The company says the process can work on a number of different battery types, including lithium iron phosphate (LFP).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/11\/06\/pentagon-offers-battery-startup-6k-250m-loan-to-build-u-s-factory\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/GettyImages-2157883094.jpeg?resize=1200,742″] Batteries are everywhere, even on the battlefield, which helps explain the Pentagon\u2019s recent interest in building more domestic manufacturing capacity. The 12-year-old, North Andover, Massachusetts-based startup 6K announced Thursday that it won conditional approval for a $250 million loan from the Department of Defense to build a factory in Tennessee. The plant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2244780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2244780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2244780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2244780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2244780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2244780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2244780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}