Federal Program Promotes E-Waste Innovation with Prize Awards

Highlights

• DOE’s E-SCRAP prize program awarded $50,000 and technical assistance to ten innovative companies.
• The awarded companies are developing advanced electronic waste recycling technologies.
• Projects focus on novel methods for extracting rare earth elements, critical metals, and valuable materials from electronic waste.
• Technologies in development include bioleaching, use of microorganisms, and sustainable processes.
• The initiative aims to strengthen U.S. energy industry supply chains.
• It promotes a circular economy.
• It addresses environmental challenges posed by growing e-waste.

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The Department of Energy’s E-SCRAP prize program has allocated significant funding to innovative companies tackling electronic waste (e-waste) recycling challenges. This initiative aims to enhance e-scrap recycling methods and align with federal material sourcing and climate goals. In its first phase, ten projects received $50,000 in cash and $30,000 in technical assistance from national laboratories.

Awardees include companies pioneering diverse approaches:

1. Infinite Elements (El Paso, Texas): Innovating a bioleaching-based process for extracting rare earth elements and critical metals using metal-binding peptides.
2. Garner (Roseville, California): Introducing the DiskMantler, a machine that disassembles hard drives and SSDs for rare earth magnet recovery.
3. Tikal Industries (Chicago): Developing the Bluerock Filtration system for selective recovery of materials like neodymium and lithium in existing e-scrap facilities.
4. RareTerra (Berkeley, California): Using bioleaching to separate rare earth elements without harsh acids or solvents.
5. Insource Materials Collective (Rancho Palos Verdes, California): Recovering magnet powder from e-scrap, ready for reuse without further processing.
6. Critical Materials Recycling (Boone, Iowa): Offering an acid-free process to recover rare earth elements from low-value e-scrap, collaborating with industry partners.
7. GaCycle (West Lafayette, Indiana): Harnessing microorganisms to extract gallium from e-scrap materials with higher efficiency than traditional methods.
8. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: Achieving over 90% recovery of platinum group metals and gold using energy-efficient electrochemical separation.
9. Intel-E-Waste (State College, Pennsylvania): Introducing a chemical-free process called REACT for cost-effective material recovery.
10. Galvanix (Cleveland, Ohio): Employing a sustainable molten salt electrolysis method to recover rare earth elements from hard drive magnets.

The program, led by the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office, progresses in phases, with prototype and demonstration rounds offering larger prizes. These efforts aim to bolster the U.S. energy industry, strengthen supply chains, and address environmental challenges posed by growing e-waste reports E-ScrapNews (opens in a new tab).

While the program promotes innovation, it does not address critical challenges such as scaling technologies for widespread industry adoption, overcoming cost barriers, or integrating recovered materials into existing supply chains. Moreover, the long-term environmental impact and lifecycle analysis of new methods remain underexplored.

The second funding round invites additional applicants, with winners to be announced in October. This underscores a sustained effort to address e-scrap recycling challenges and foster a circular economy.