Workshop planned to discuss novel ideas for establishing domestic capability for DoD needs
Jul 12, 2023
Rare Earth Elements (REEs) are used in a range of products and manufacturing processes – including permanent magnets, catalysts, fiber optics, and phosphor displays – critical to wind turbines, cell phones, and electric vehicles, among other modern technologies. REEs comprise 17 elements, including scandium, yttrium, and the lanthanide series. REE extraction, separation, and purification from a complex feedstock can be environmentally degrading, energy inefficient, and difficult to permit in the United States.
DARPA is sponsoring a hybrid workshop July 25 to provide an overview and facilitate technical discussion regarding the Separation and Purification of Rare Earth Elements (SPREE) Advanced Research Concept (ARC) opportunity. The SPREE ARC opportunity is soliciting ideas to explore the following question: How can we purify Department of Defense (DoD)-relevant REEs using environmentally sustainable, energy-efficient, and commercially viable techniques that can be incorporated by the U.S. domestic mining sector?
“Solving the technological challenge of separating rare earths from each other is critical for establishing a secure domestic supply chain of strategic materials and requires a re-examination of the fundamental physics and chemistries of these elements,” said DARPA Innovation Fellow Dr. Rebecca Chmiel. “The goal of the SPREE workshop is to support researchers with great new ideas by providing governmental and industry insight into the field and information about how to apply for the SPREE opportunity.”
From the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s, the United States was the world’s major supplier of REEs; today, it imports nearly 100% of REEs used in commercial products and exports some domestically mined REE minerals for economic processing overseas.
Dependence on foreign sources for processing and purification represents a significant vulnerability for the U.S. supply chain, which could be mitigated by developing a domestic manufacturing industry to extract and purify REE resources. However, widely used methods of extraction and separation of REEs, especially from each other, can be inefficient, energy-intensive, complex, and produce sizeable amounts of hazardous waste due to the use of toxic reagents and solvents. This results in domestic permitting challenges due to predicted environmental impacts that represent a significant commercial barrier for domestic mining and refining of REEs. SPREE aims to develop novel approaches to separate REEs from a commercially feasible source mixture to a commercially useful product in an economically viable and environmentally friendly method.
The hybrid workshop will be held on Tuesday, July 25, 2023, from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. EDT. The in-person portion of the hybrid workshop will be hosted at the Association of the United States Army Conference and Event Center located at 2425 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA 22201 (www.ausa.org/conference-and-event-center). The online portion will take place via Zoom. Registration is required for all workshop attendees (in-person and online). Registration closes Monday, July 24, 2023 at 12:00 p.m. EDT.
For more details, view the SPREE Workshop special notice: sam.gov/opp/11f0e236ca1245499c3762efbb7d909c/view. To register, visit: events.sa-meetings.com/SPREE
The ARC initiative is designed to speed the pace of innovation by rapidly exploring and analyzing a high volume of promising new ideas. For more information about ARC, to view the open SPREE solicitation, and to see new topics as they become available, visit www.darpa.mil/ARC.
The ARC topics are managed by DARPA’s innovation fellows, who include recent Ph.D. graduates (within five years of receiving a doctorate) and active-duty military with STEM degrees. To learn more about the DARPA Innovation Fellowship, current fellows, and how to apply to become a fellow visit: www.darpa.mil/innovationfellowship.
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