The purpose of the Center for Critical Minerals (C2M) is to provide the science and technology needed for the commercial sector to reestablish a robust domestic supply chain for the country and the required training for the workforce. This is a multidisciplinary effort. Rather than looking at just one piece of the puzzle, C2M looks at the complete supply chain, from characterization, mining, processing, recovery, and making new materials.
Q: Who is leading this effort?
A: C2M is directed by Sarma Pisupati. However, the accomplishments of the center are a collective endeavor. There are a lot of faculty members who are brought together by the center to support this cooperative effort.
Q: Where are you located?
A: C2M is housed in the EMS Energy Institute. Research labs that contribute to its research are spread throughout the institute’s buildings and around campus.
Q: How are you funded?
A: Most of the funding for C2M is federal funding; however, there are industrial collaborations as well.
Q: What are your big goals?
A: C2M works to mitigate risk posed to the United States’ dependency on raw and semi-finished materials for advanced manufacturing. In 2021, the U.S. produced an estimated $90.4 billion worth of nonfuel materials. Those base materials were used in energy, medical, and defense applications along with consumer electronics. However, in production of those goods, the U.S. was completely dependent on imports of twenty-one out of the fifty nonfuel commodities. C2M’s overarching goal is to help industry establish a strong domestic supply chain that helps fulfill the country’s needs, making the U.S. less reliant on imports.
Q: How do you plan to accomplish these goals?
A: C2M’s approach is a multidisciplinary and comprehensive one. We don’t want to approach the problem from an environmental engineering standpoint, but incorporate geosciences, mineral processing, material sciences, engineering, and energy business economics as well, looking at multiple feedstocks, various methods, and numerous approaches to analyze what is economically feasible and give industry something they can use that will, in turn, reduce the taxpayer burden as well.
Q: Why is this research so important?
A: C2M’s methodologies are not going to eliminate foreign dependence, but the goal is to reduce foreign dependence because that dependency poses a national security and economic risk if the U.S. does not begin to develop methods and technologies to create its own supply of critical materials.
Q: What makes this research new/different/innovative?
A: C2M’s approach is to treat polluted water, particularly acid-mine drainage, using a similar approach to pre-existing methods, so there are no significant additional capital requirements for modifications, but by replacing the environmentally hazardous chemicals used in the extraction process with less harmful ones that will allow the researchers to not only treat polluted water, but also extract critical minerals, providing the domestic supply chain of those minerals.
Q: Is there anything else you'd like to share?
A: The uniqueness is that it is a multidisciplinary and multi-investigator, complete supply chain approach. Penn State is the only university where we have resource characterization, mining, mineral processing, material science, chemistry, chemical and mechanical engineering researchers, and energy and mineral economists work together for a techno-economic and environmentally sustainable solutions. That is the common thread that is unique. None of our competitors have that kind of capacity. C2M has the breadth and the depth to reestablish a robust domestic supply chain, including delivering final products that people can use.