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US DOE backs nine projects with $162M to recover critical minerals
The funding targets metals such as scandium, copper, antimony, and rare earth elements by moving processes from lab or pilot stages toward commercial-scale demonstration.
The US Department of Energy selected nine projects for $162 million in potential funding to recover critical minerals from mine waste and other industrial feedstocks, aiming to strengthen domestic supplies for energy, defense, and manufacturing, Mining.com reports.
The projects target materials including scandium, copper, antimony, and rare earth elements, using existing mines, tailings, industrial facilities, and other feedstocks. The DOE says the program is designed to push technologies from laboratory and pilot stages toward prototype demonstrations and commercial production.
DOE Assistant Secretary of Energy Audrey Robertson said leveraging existing bench-scale and pilot-scale facilities is a chance to de-risk commercial production technologies that are needed for US energy, defense, and economic security. The initiative reflects a broader push to extract more value from materials already being mined, processed, or discarded, rather than relying only on new deposits.
The selected efforts include companies and projects such as Felix Gold’s Treasure Creek operation in Alaska, which focuses on recovering high-grade, near-surface antimony using existing mining infrastructure. Mining.com also notes that other projects selected by the DOE range from MIT spinout SiTration, which aims to recover copper and other critical materials from diluted mining waste streams, to demonstrations using pilot-scale technologies at existing sites.
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