Critical Minerals and Materials

Critical minerals and materials, including rare earth elements, are crucial resources for energy, electronics, and security applications. However, the United States currently relies on foreign nations for the mining, processing, and refining of these resources, causing supply chain vulnerabilities. In order to address this, the Zhou group is developing novel porous materials and post-synthetic methods for the selective capture and release of targeted critical minerals. By integrating engineered porous materials with dynamic capture/release systems, we seek to tackle challenging separations spanning a variety of heterogeneous feedstock including ores, metallurgy and other waste streams, mining brines, etc. By utilizing the broad tunability of porous materials, the Zhou group is actively exploring important elements such as Li, Ga, REEs, etc. and more importantly, the mechanisms required to leverage specific properties of each element of interest for selective capture, followed by utilizing the properties of the material for low-energy release, providing a cost-effective alternative to traditional sequestration and refinement techniques.