DOE grants $162 million to nine projects extracting critical minerals from waste streams

In a move to diversify the United States’ supply chain, the Department of Energy announced a $162 million award to nine firms across the country for extracting critical minerals from industrial byproducts. Assistant Energy Secretary Audrey Robertson explained that the money is intended to help the private sector devise new methods for retrieving metals such as scandium, copper, antimony and rare-earth elements from existing infrastructure.

Recipients include Anactisis, Still Bright, Nusano, SiTration, Thompson Creek Metals Company, Felix Gold, DISA Technologies, Alcoa Corporation and Trigg Minerals, many of which are pursuing non-traditional sources like old tailings, abandoned mines and aluminum facilities. One highlighted project is Felix Gold’s antimony operation near Fairbanks, Alaska, which will leverage its current gold mine. Another is MIT spin-out SiTration, which has developed a process to pull copper and other critical materials from diluted waste streams. This allocation is part of a DOE initiative that could ultimately fund up to $275 million for companies turning industrial and coal byproducts into strategic minerals, supporting national security goals set by the Trump administration.