NLR-NRRI Partnership Advances Industry-Scale Innovation and Process Demonstration

The National Laboratory of the Rockies and the University of Minnesota's Natural Resources Research Institute have started a new research partnership called IMPACT, aimed at scaling up ways to process and recycle critical minerals like lithium, scandium, and copper. The idea is to take promising lab-scale discoveries and prove they can work at industrial volumes, closing what researchers call the "valley of death" between a good idea and an actual product.

Two projects are already underway. One, done with the Department of War, looks at recovering lithium from aluminum alloys used in military aircraft, since current recycling methods can't pull that lithium back out. The other, called the Tramp Element Removal Innovation Center, tackles a problem in steel recycling: copper from scrap metal contaminates the melt and weakens the finished steel. New processing methods aim to strip that copper out so US scrap can keep being turned into high-quality steel while also recovering the critical minerals.

This is early-stage industrial and materials research, not a program tied to home energy upgrades or rebates. But it points to a broader effort to secure the domestic supply of minerals used in batteries, electronics, and manufacturing — materials that eventually show up in things like heat pumps, electric vehicles, and home batteries. There's nothing here that changes what's available to homeowners today, but it's a sign of the kind of groundwork being laid for future supply chains in clean energy technology.