Image: National Science FoundationNSF Announces Winners of U.S. Critical Minerals Challenge for Domestic Supply Chain Security
β’ The U.S. National Science Foundation on March 24, 2026, named winners of the multi-year Critical Minerals Challenge, including alkaLi Labs, ChemFinity Technologies, Intel-E-Waste, and University of Wisconsin-Madison, to secure domestic supply chains for lithium, cobalt, rare earths, and other metals. β’ Winners develop innovations like engineered biosorbents recovering lithium from byproducts, tunable polymer sorbents capturing over 25 metals at room temperature, modular e-waste processing platforms, and electrochemical electrodes generating acids in situ. β’ The program, co-designed with Germanyβs SPRIND Tech Metal Challenge, uses donated e-waste from IBM and Aurubis with U.S. Naval Research Laboratory collaboration for national security relevance and real-world validation.
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