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| | Clean Earth Environmental Solutions Inc | Sergio Nusimovich | VP Engineering & Technical Director |
Large Business
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Advanced Manufacturing (Industrial)
| Chemical extraction of critical metals from electronic waste | Clean Earth intends to develop a process to chemically extract high purity gallium and indium from electronic waste.
Clean Earth is one of the largest specialty waste companies in the United States providing treatment and recycling of industrial waste, including electronic waste and solar panels. Clean Earth also has expertise and capabilities in the processing of metal bearing waste and organic solvents and have fully equipped analytical laboratories that routinely analyze metals, solvents, and inorganic streams.
The company’s existing recycling businesses, infrastructure and facilities can support prototype, bench-scale, and pilot scale development. Its sites already process over 7,000 metric tons of electronic waste and Clean Earth is expanding this capability with a new site in Lancaster, TX. This site will apply mechanical separation to produce material fractions that contain precious and post-transition metals in a more concentrated form.
Clean Earth is seeking the following partners:
- U.S. R&D partner – An experienced partner with R&D capabilities in the field of chemical engineering and more specifically in metals and inorganic chemistry, with a focus on metal extraction, recovery and purification. Project scope will include bibliographic and intellectual property review, process selection, process testing and validation, development of process recipes, chemical analysis, mass and energy balance, life-cycle assessment, techno-economic assessment, and prototype design.
- Technology developers – An experienced firm to develop a pilot process with a feed capacity of no less than 100 kg/hour that can be installed at the Clean Earth Texas facility. The pilot unit will be used to collect process data to enable future scale-up to full-scale industrial operations.
- Manufacturer – A manufacturer interested in incorporating the recovered critical metals directly into products. This partner will assist in defining quality control protocols and technical product specifications. |
| PA |
| | University of Washington (UW) | Rachel Woods-Robinson | Senior Staff Scientist; LCA Hub |
Academic
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Cross-Cutting
| Life cycle assessment (LCA) of pre-commercial materials & technology to inform R&D and scale-up | I lead life cycle assessment (LCA) to guide R&D of emerging energy technologies and advanced materials at UW's Testbeds facility. With over a decade of cross-cutting research spanning computational materials design, thin film synthesis, device prototyping, and scale-up, my approach is grounded in both fundamental thermodynamics and how materials and processes are developed, manufactured, and deployed—enabling modeling that connects lab-scale design choices to system-level impacts.
We focus on prospective, decision-oriented LCA to inform R&D from the earliest stages, when material selection, synthesis routes, process parameters, and supply chain configurations are still flexible. We work across pre-commercial technology readiness levels (TRL 1–8, with capability for commercial systems) to identify environmental, resource, energy, water, and supply chain hotspots early enough to influence design, rather than reporting impacts after scale-up.
Our LCA experience includes critical minerals recovery across end-of-life (EoL) supply chains, including e-waste (PCBs), mining tailings, refining waste, solar photovoltaics (PV) waste, and battery waste. Prior work has informed process redesign and scale-up, identifying dominant impact drivers and enabling lower-impact pathways.
The Testbeds provides an open-access, non-IP-retaining environment where LCA is embedded alongside fabrication and process development. We combine open-source tools with proprietary databases, developing transparent models, datasets, and workflows. We also build custom, physics-informed process and life cycle inventory (LCI) models for novel materials and chemical systems where no data exists.
What sets us apart:
-Integration into experimental R&D, pilot-scale systems & scale-up pathways
-Focus on emerging technologies, critical materials & domestic supply chain resilience
-Iterative, tiered LCA to support decision-making under uncertainty
-System-level hotspot identification, scenario analysis & design tradeoff evaluation
-Open, transparent, and reproducible workflows with growing open-access data infrastructure
We are particularly interested in partnering on projects involving critical minerals recovery, separations, recycling and reuse, novel materials and processing routes, and circular systems—where early-stage analysis informs R&D decisions before impacts are locked in, guiding lower-impact, lower-cost, and more resilient supply chain pathways. |
| WA |
| | 3M | Kevin Eberman | Product Development Director |
Large Business
|
Advanced Manufacturing (Industrial)
| Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) | 3M has scale and strength in alumina particles that can be used for Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE). We are open to partnering on a DOE project in this direction. |
| MN |
| | Element Sourcing LLC | Kelsy Horton | Principal |
Small Business
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Cross-Cutting
| 1B/2/3A/3B/3C | US-based company with access to significant upstream feedstock abroad, (i.e. lithium), for project purposes. Waiver to work outside of US will be requested. Open to partnerships, collaborations, co-applying. |
| IL |
| | Night Wizards Industrial Complex, Inc. | Austin Dishman | Individual |
Individual
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Advanced Manufacturing (Industrial)
| 1C | Background: Night Wizards Industrial Complex Inc is an agile deep-tech firm specializing in the development of autonomous resource recovery systems. We are currently scaling our operations in Nebraska, with plans to establish a dedicated, high-security industrial testing facility in the Valentine region for extreme-environment hardware validation.
Capabilities: Next-Gen R&D: Proprietary engineering designs for the SRS-50 Autonomous Swarm, a decentralized robotic fleet for 3D multi-spectral mineral mapping in complex feedstocks.
Thermal Liberation Logic: Advanced conceptual and bench-scale models for Optical Spalling modules, designed to achieve non-contact REE liberation with significantly lower energy intensity than mechanical grinding.
Agile Validation: Capability to conduct field-testing in Nebraska’s rugged analog environments, providing a rapid TRL-advancement pipeline for swarm coordination and sensor fusion.
Interests: Seeking Tier-1 industrial partners and National Laboratories to co-develop commercial pilot sites. We are interested in integrating our "Viking Foundry" tech into established domestic processing chains and are looking for collaborators with existing pilot facilities to host early-stage hardware demonstrations. |
Website: NA
Email: austinddishman@gmail.com
Phone: 3083032512
Address: 915 West Loup River Road, St. Libory, NE, 68872, United States
| NE |
| | Wolfspeed Inc | Adrian Powell | Director, Materials Development Engeneering |
Large Business
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Advanced Manufacturing (Industrial)
| Critical Minerals and Materials Accelerator Task 2 | BACKGROUND
Wolfspeed, Inc. (NYSE: WOLF) is the world's leading pure-play silicon carbide semiconductor company. Headquartered in Durham, NC, Wolfspeed operates a U.S.-based end-to-end silicon carbide corridor — from crystal growth and substrate production to finished power devices.
INTERESTS
Wolfspeed targets the world's fastest-growing electrification and power-intensive markets. Its core focus areas include 800V SiC power solutions for electric vehicle drivetrains and charging systems, and AI data centers, driven by demand for ultra-efficient high-voltage power conversion. Beyond mobility and compute, Wolfspeed serves renewable energy and grid modernization with SiC solutions for solar inverters and utility-scale infrastructure, aerospace and defense with high-reliability power systems aligned to U.S. domestic supply chain priorities, and 5G telecom and industrial markets through GaN-on-SiC RF power and motor control applications.
CAPABILITIES
SiC Crystal Growth & Substrate Manufacturing
At its foundation, Wolfspeed is a materials company. It grows and manufactures 4H-SiC single-crystal substrates in 100mm, 150mm, and 200mm formats, and in January 2026 demonstrated 300mm (12-inch) SiC wafers, unlocking the next era of manufacturing scalability. Substrates are available in two critical variants: N-Type Conductive (Power Grade), with resistivity of 0.015–0.028 Ω·cm and ultra-low micropipe defect density (MPD ≤1/cm²), leading the industry's transition to 200mm production; and High Purity Semi-Insulating (HPSI), with resistivity ≥1×10⁶ Ω·cm and non-vanadium doping, a key differentiator for RF and optical reliability.
SiC & GaN Epitaxy
Wolfspeed produces n-type and p-type SiC epitaxial layers with the industry's widest thickness range — 0.2 μm to 200 μm — on 350 and 500 μm thick substrates. On 200mm wafers, thickness uniformity is ±6% and doping uniformity ±12%. For RF applications, Wolfspeed grows GaN, AlₓGa₁₋ₓN on HPSI SiC substrates, enabling HEMT devices with world-class bandwidth and frequency performance.
Power Devices
Wolfspeed's device portfolio spans Gen 4 SiC MOSFETs, Schottky diodes, power modules, and the industry's first commercially available 10kV SiC MOSFET for grid and AI data center applications. |
| NC |
| | Determinant Materials, Inc. | Nikhil R. Gupta | Founder & CEO |
Small Business
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Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO)
| Topic 1B | Determinant Materials is a U.S.-based technology company developing revolutionary MicroParticle Refining Technology for the domestic recovery of critical minerals and materials from electronic waste and other secondary feedstocks. Our patented hydrodynamic separation process eliminates toxic chemicals, reduces energy consumption by over 90%, and enables high-purity extraction of copper, aluminum, rare earth elements, precious metals and other critical materials.
SEEKING PARTNERS WITH:
- National laboratory: Research capabilities, computational capabilities; CMI Hub (Ames National Laboratory) and/or METALLIC facility preferred
- Academia - Research capabilities, computational capabilities
- Startups - AI computational capabilities, novel process technologies
- Industrial Partners - E-waste Feedstock, Multi-metal Offtake, laboratory testing facilities
- Certified assay laboratory (ICP-MS, LA-ICP-MS, SEM, Microwave Digestion) |
| FL |
| | Carbon to Rare Elements | Daniel Wood | CEO |
Small Business
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Advanced Manufacturing (Industrial)
| | C2RE is deploying a modular, mobile "mine-to-metal" processing technology to extract strategically important Gallium (Ga) and Gold (Au) from a variety of post-industrial feedstocks, namely red mud and operational mine tailings. Utilizing a disruptive myco-mining (fungal bio-leaching) approach, this project addresses the Department of Energy’s mandate for increased material efficiency and domestic production of critical minerals. Traditional processes are often cost-prohibitive and environmentally taxing. C2RE’s innovation replaces these with a scalable, fermentation-based biological solution that utilizes off-the-shelf industrial equipment, significantly lowering the barrier to entry for domestic midstream processing.
This project can implement a "factory on wheels" infrastructure to enable on-site mineral and metal extraction. It will transition the technology from TRL3/4 to a TRL 6 industrial prototype. By optimizing selective biological mobilization within repurposed fermentation vessels, C2RE will produce metal salts thus reducing post processing time and costs. This agile manufacturing approach transforms industrial waste into high-value strategic assets, validating a cost-competitive and sustainable domestic supply chain for the semiconductor and defense sectors. |
| MA |
| | University of Houston | Kyung Jae Lee | Associate Professor |
Academic
|
Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO)
| 3B, 3C | 3B: CO2-enabled pretreatment for geothermal brines
We have custom-built experimental system that enables more than 90% of impurity removal and less than 10% lithium loss
3C: Reactive transport + geochemical controls for CM/REE in geothermal systems
From NSF CAREER awarded project since 2021 in this topic, we have obtained significant amount of dataset and pore-to-basin-scale modeling capability.
We are looking for Geothermal brine access, Geothermal operators/lease holders, Field validation partners, DLE technology developers |
| TX |
| | PhosphorTech Corporation | Yongjun Chen | Principal Scientist |
Small Business
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| recovery and reuse of mine tailings | PhosporTech Corporation is a U.S.-based high-technology company. Backed by federal grant funding, we have successfully executed numerous research and development initiatives and scaled pilot processes across several key sectors, including advanced materials, solid-state lighting, environmental remediation, and carbon dioxide conversion and utilization.
Since receiving Department of Transportation (DOT) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards in 2017, our team has focused on developing and commercializing innovative technologies for the concrete industry and the recovery and beneficial reuse of industrial solid wastes, particularly coal combustion products. We have pioneered cost-effective methodologies to evaluate the adsorption capacity of fly ash in the presence of air-entraining admixtures, segregate landfill ashes based on varying loss-on-ignition (LOI) values, and recover valuable metals (critical minerals) and inorganic ceramic materials from coal ash and other waste streams, such as mine tailings.
Currently, we are engineering advanced multistage processes designed to selectively separate and recycle critical minerals from legacy landfill ash. To accelerate the commercialization of these technologies, PhosporTech is actively seeking strategic partnerships and research collaborations with industry leaders and academic institutions, particularly those focused on the recovery and beneficial reuse of mineral waste streams. |
| GA |
| | PhosphorTech Corporation | Yongjun Chen | Principal Scientist |
Small Business
|
Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO)
| recovery and reuse of mine tailings | PhosporTech Corporation is a U.S.-based high-technology company. Backed by federal grant funding, we have successfully executed numerous research and development initiatives and scaled pilot processes across several key sectors, including advanced materials, solid-state lighting, environmental remediation, and carbon dioxide conversion and utilization.
Since receiving Department of Transportation (DOT) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards in 2017, our team has focused on developing and commercializing innovative technologies for the concrete industry and the recovery and beneficial reuse of industrial solid wastes, particularly coal combustion products. We have pioneered cost-effective methodologies to evaluate the adsorption capacity of fly ash in the presence of air-entraining admixtures, segregate landfill ashes based on varying loss-on-ignition (LOI) values, and recover valuable metals (critical minerals) and inorganic ceramic materials from coal ash and other waste streams, such as mine tailings.
Currently, we are engineering advanced multistage processes designed to selectively separate and recycle critical minerals from legacy landfill ash. To accelerate the commercialization of these technologies, PhosporTech is actively seeking strategic partnerships and research collaborations with industry leaders and academic institutions, particularly those focused on the recovery and beneficial reuse of mineral waste streams. |
| GA |
| | Rare Earth Technologies, Inc. | Chuck Joffe | Chief Commercial Officer |
Small Business
|
Cross-Cutting
| Rare Earth Separation; Midstream Rare Earth Processing | Rare Earth Technologies, Inc. (RETI) is commercializing a breakthrough technology that solves critical challenges in rare earth element (REE) separation and purification. Our patented Extraction Chromatography (ExC) process represents a generational advancement over conventional methods, offering superior purity, significantly reduced energy consumption, and complete elimination of solvent waste. With pilot-scale validation and detailed commercial plans, RETI is positioned to restore U.S. independence in REE supply chains essential for national security, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing.
RETI's technology displaces the outdated solvent extraction (SX) method that has dominated the industry for decades. Our approach delivers:
• ≥99.9+% purity for all REEs
• 30% reduction in energy consumption (12-14 kWh/kg REO vs. 16-20 kWh/kg for SX)
• Zero solvent waste through use of recyclable mineral acids
• Single or Fewer-step operation versus multiple stages required in conventional SX
• Proven scalability from bench to pilot scale to commercial scale
• Peer-reviewed validation published in Journal of Chromatography A (Kifle, 2025) |
| OH |
| | Firepoint Energy, Inc | Lauren Smith | Business Analyst |
Small Business
|
Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO)
| 1A & 3C | Firepoint Energy develops integrated processing technologies to recover critical minerals, including rare earth elements (REEs) and lithium, from unconventional and secondary feedstocks. The company’s platform combines thermochemical processing, aqueous treatment, and chemical separation to enable co-production of critical materials, energy, and treated water. Firepoint is advancing deployment at its Tunnelton, PA site, where existing infrastructure will support pilot-scale validation using real-world feedstocks such as waste coal, acid mine drainage (AMD), and produced water from natural gas operations.
Firepoint Energy is seeking collaborators to support prototype-scale development and validation under Topic Areas 1 and 3. Areas of interest include REE recovery from mixed secondary feedstocks and lithium extraction from produced water and brines. The team is particularly interested in partnerships focused on process optimization, materials characterization, pilot-scale testing, techno-economic analysis (TEA), life-cycle assessment (LCA), and downstream commercialization pathways. |
| PA |
| | Stochastic Research Technologies LLC | Dr. Urmila Diwekar | president |
Small Business
|
Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO)
| Novel Adsorbents | Designing Novel solvents and adsorbents using Computer aided Molecular design. Modeling, optimization, and uncertainty analysis of processes, systems. |
| IL |
| | University of Virginia | Mool Gupta | Professor |
Academic
|
Solar
| Critical Minerals and Materials | Laser processing for the recovery of critical minerals and materials and their characterization. A significant prior experience in this area and has state of the art research infrastructure. |
| VA |
| | Alma Energy | Dr. Hermann Lebit | Principal |
Small Business
|
Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO)
| 3A Cost competitive Direct Lithium Extraction | We are seeking partnership with technology developers from industry, national laboratories and research facilities, to advance Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) technology from produced water at oil field operations.
Alma Energy recently discovered a new lithium play within a mature domestic hydrocarbon basin with confirmed aqueous Lithium concentrations of up to 200 mg/l.
Alma Energy is using this real world brine/produced water for validating and advancing technologies suitable for commercial lithium recovery.
Alma Energy focus on critical mineral and geothermal exploration and resource development leveraging expertise from existing upstream industries for innovative solutions in a transitional landscape. |
| TX |
| | Alma Energy | Dr. Hermann Lebit | Principal |
Small Business
|
Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO)
| 3A Cost competitive Direct Lithium Extraction | We are seeking partnership with technology developers from industry, national laboratories and research facilities, to advance Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) technology from produced water at oil field operations.
Alma Energy recently discovered a new lithium play within a mature domestic hydrocarbon basin with confirmed aqueous Lithium concentrations of up to 200 mg/l.
Alma Energy is using this real world brine/produced water for validating and advancing technologies suitable for commercial lithium recovery.
Alma Energy focus on critical mineral and geothermal exploration and resource development leveraging expertise from existing upstream industries for innovative solutions in a transitional landscape. |
| TX |
| | Arizona State University | E.H. Fini | Academics |
Academic
|
Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO)
| TPL-0000069: Critical Minerals and Materials Accelerator | We develop sustainable materials and technologies for aqueous separations to recover critical elements from complex, low-grade streams, with particular expertise in selective ion-exchange systems for rare earth elements. Our capabilities include adsorption testing, materials characterization, computational modeling, and process evaluation supported by techno-economic analysis. We seek partners under Topic Area 1C (mixed feedstocks including mine tailings, postindustrial, and postconsumer streams) and Topic Area 3B (Advancing pre- and post-treatment and disposal technologies for direct lithium extraction from geothermal brines) to support securing relevant feedstock, pilot-scale testing and demonstration. |
| AZ |
| | Missouri S&T | Ahmed Sobhy | Research Professor |
Academic
|
Integrated Strategies
| | Integrated mineral processing and green hydrometallurgy of critical minerals from primary and secondary resources |
| MO |
| | EnviTrace LLC | Velimir Vesselinov | CTO |
Small Business
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Geothermal
| 3 A | EnviTrace can lead an integrated field-and-modeling project to explore and characterize critical mineral and rare earth element-bearing geothermal brines in a selected volcanic-hosted geothermal system in the western United States. Our company has been active in compiling existing geologic, geophysical, geochemical, thermal, and hydrologic. We aim to pair them with field data including sampling of geothermal fluids, gases, altered rocks, and surface manifestations, together with targeted geophysical and remote-sensing surveys. These data will be integrated with 3D geologic-reservoir models and physics-informed AI to identify economically relevant concentrations of lithium, REEs, and co-products; quantify the size and character of the coincident geothermal resource; determine the geologic, hydrologic, and geochemical controls on concentration, solubility, and transport; and evaluate depletion trajectories under alternative co-production scenarios for geothermal power and direct use. |
| NM |
| | University of Colorado Boulder | Juliet Gopinath | Professor |
Academic
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Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO)
| Lithium extraction | I run a photonics group, and am an expert on optical spectroscopy, that can be used for high resolution imaging, chemical identification and concentration measurements in situ. I also have extensive experience on membrane fouling, in terms of early detection and cleaning. Other capabilities of the group include: integrated photonics, nonlinear microscopy, quantum photonics, and ultrafast lasers. |
| CO |
| | The University of Texas at Dallas | Yue Zhou | Associate Professor |
Academic
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Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO)
| | Energy storage materials and manufacturing |
| TX |
| | University of Illinois | Lorenzo Vergari | Assistant Professor |
Academic
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Nuclear
| | Leads a research group performing experimental research on high-temperature molten salts. Our research focuses on molten salt (bulk and interfacial) chemistry and electrochemistry. Capabilities in our group include multiple gloveboxes, custom electrochemical cells for salt (halides, carbonates, nitrates) experiments, coupled gas analysis via RGA and GCMS, potentiostats, furnaces, sample preparation equipment, in-glovebox characterization equipment (LIBS, microscope, combustion analyzer) and access to a wide suite of ex-situ characterization equipment through the Illinois Materials Research Lab (which hosts our lab). Our expertise can support proposals to this NOFO by enabling critical mineral recovery, processing, and separation at high-temperature using molten salt electrolytes. |
| IL |
| | George Washington University | Xitong Liu | Associate Professor |
Academic
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Geothermal
| 3A, 3B | Xitong Liu is an Associate professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the George Washington University. He obtained his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Nanjing University. He obtained his Ph.D. degree from Johns Hopkins University and received postdoctoral training at Carnegie Mellon University. He is a recipient of the AAEES 40-under-40 Recognition Program, the George Washington University OVPR Early Career Award, DOE Geothermal Lithium Extraction Prize Award, the Inaugural ACS ES&T Engineering Best Paper Award, ACS PRF Doctoral New Investigator Award, and the C. Ellen Gonter Environmental Chemistry Award. His research has been published in journals including Environmental Science & Technology, Nature Communications, and Journal of Membrane Science. His research has been supported by NSF, SERDP, USDA, and ACS. His research group studies environmentally relevant interfacial phenomena and aims to develop durable, selective, and cost-effective separation technologies for water purification and recovery of critical materials. His current research interests include 1) elucidating fouling and scaling phenomena for water desalination membranes; 2) applying colloidal amendments for groundwater remediation; and 3) developing selective separation technologies for direct lithium extraction from water streams. |
| DC |
| | XLight Corporation | Robert Uhrin | President/Owner |
Small Business
|
Cross-Cutting
| Selective separation of rare-earth magnet materials | Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Rutgers University. Consultant on the Materials Science of inorganic materials. Most recent experience in the recovery of rare-earth elements from coal associated waste materials. Successfully completed a DOE contract related to the sampling and analysis of coal related materials. Laboratory hands-on researcher. Experience as an expert witness for the plaintiff in a major laser patent case won by the plaintiff. Life-long experience in crystal growth and optical materials processing. |
Website: N/A
Email: ruhrin@aol.com
Phone: 724-961-1528
Address: 65 Galway Drive, Mendham, NJ, 07945, United States
| NJ |
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