The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Defense Sciences Office is sponsoring a hybrid workshop on July 25 to provide information on a program to create new rare earth elements separation and purification strategies.
DARPA said Wednesday it is issuing an advanced research concept opportunity to solicit ideas to develop environmentally sustainable and commercially viable techniques to separate and purify REEs from domestic sources for defense applications.
The U.S. currently relies on foreign sources for REE processing and purification, which may pose risks to the domestic supply chain, according to the agency.
Through the program, DARPA seeks to establish a domestic manufacturing industry to extract and purify REE resources within the U.S. to mitigate potential supply chain vulnerabilities.
“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 Rebecca Chmiel.
REEs comprise 17 elements used in modern technologies, including cell phones, electronic displays and electric vehicles.
