With federal agencies rolling out nearly $1 billion for critical minerals and materials (CMM) development, a convening last week at Penn State University Park brought together about 100 scholars, industry representatives and government experts with a central goal: cooperation.
Drawing on the University's historic strengths across industry and the public sector is pivotal as momentum grows for domestic CMM supply chains, participants said at the two-day assembly. Hosted at research facilities and the Bryce Jordan Center, it was the latest Penn State gathering to promote partnerships and collaborations among business, academic and government interests in minerals and materials development in the U.S.
The EMS Energy Institute led the event amid multi-million-dollar funding opportunities that the Department of Energy (DOE), the U.S. National Science Foundation and others announced recently to bolster CMMs, now sourced mostly abroad. The Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences (EMS) launched its Center for Critical Minerals (C2M) in 2019, part of what college leadership called a head start in the field.
CMMs include 50 federally designated minerals that underpin clean energy and military technology, electric vehicle batteries, cell phones, medical devices, the power grid and other advanced systems.
"The nation is looking for leadership - institutions that can bring together science, engineering, workforce training and industry partnerships to accelerate solutions," said Lee Kump, the John Leone Dean of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences and a speaker at the convening: "Accelerating Partnerships for DOE's 2025 CMM Supply Chain Initiatives."
Penn State is stepping into a leadership role as "the place the nation turns for innovation, demonstration and talent," Kump said. It's among few universities with comprehensive expertise throughout CMM supply-chain processes, from geology and mineral separation to refining, manufacturing and practical applications, he said.
That scope gives Penn State a distinct advantage in solving national problems that can't be addressed in a single discipline, Kump told event participants. About 90 faculty members at the University have expertise and interest in CMMs.
Many of them joined the convening, where some 20 speakers and panelists explored funding prospects, research advancements, industry practices and other mechanisms in CMM use and development. Participants from industry and government made up about half the event's turnout.
Among the speakers was Larry Feinberg, a Boston-area entrepreneur and an industry partner of C2M. Researchers at the center developed a patent-pending process to separate vital elements such as aluminum, cobalt and manganese from acid mine drainage and other solutions. Cobalt and manganese are especially important for high-performance magnets used in energy generation, research and other applications.
Feinberg is collaborating as C2M looks to move from a pilot-scale operation at University Park to larger-scale field work in 2026. In-person events like the convening are valuable venues for networking and identifying collaborative potential, he explained.
"It's a way to assimilate a lot of information really quickly," said Feinberg, founder and CEO of Petric Co. He held an entrepreneur residency at C2M as part of his partnership, helping to develop a cooperative relationship.
Seth Darling, a keynote speaker and a distinguished fellow at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago, emphasized novel approaches to sourcing CMMs, like extracting usable material from industrial wastewater.
"We really need to be creative enough to create new supply chains - that don't currently exist - from things like unconventional sources. That's the path for the United States to come into the leadership position," said Darling, the chief science and technology officer for the Advanced Energy Technologies directorate at Argonne.
To Thandazile Moyo, a convening panelist and an assistant professor in the Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering, it's one thing to identify the presence of a given element. Establishing how much of it can be extracted, and the implications of that extraction, is another - and a focus of her research, which includes hydrometallurgy and electronics-waste recycling.
"I think there are streams we're not capturing," Moyo said in an earlier presentation as part of the EarthTalks seminar series. She cited used phone, laptop and electric-vehicle batteries as prospective resources that public policy and overall infrastructure could help unlock.
Industry leaders also underscore the value of resource reuse as expenses climb. Metaltech Inc., a Pennsylvania powdered-metal manufacturing company, is working with Penn State DuBois faculty and students to develop iron-air batteries that use a byproduct of steelmaking.
"We're looking at the cost of our raw materials constantly going through the roof," said company founder and President Tony Zaffuto at the convening. Securing materials at little to no cost opens a slew of opportunity, he added.
Face-to-face exchanges help bridge gaps between industry and academic research, said Athanasios Karamalidis, a convening panelist and an associate professor in the Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering.
While academic researchers are adept at predicting the future, he said, they need direct insight into immediate problems to inform their work.
"We need to calibrate ourselves with the industry doing the actual production," Karamalidis said.
Joshua A. Robinson, the convening host, director of the Penn State Silicon Carbide Innovation Alliance (SCIA) and inaugural EMS director of strategic initiatives, highlighted a range of University laboratories that can identify and utilize rare earth elements, a segment of critical materials, in various source materials. SCIA is advancing research in silicon carbide, a key for electric-vehicles efficiency, energy infrastructure and decarbonization.
"Our goal is to align Penn State, industry and national labs to create impactful teams that advance critical materials research and workforce," Robinson said at the event.
As federal agencies move swiftly to solicit research proposals, he said, cross-sector partnerships can spark new teams and groundbreaking proposal concepts.
Robinson described the convening as a starting point in a broader effort to position Penn State and its partners as a national hub for CMMs. He encouraged potential collaborators to contact him as regional and national initiatives - and proposal teams - take shape.
"With talented faculty and industry partners across the entire mines-to-magnets spectrum, we are uniquely positioned to lead the nation toward a resilient CMM supply chain," Robinson said.
