The Elements of Innovation Discovered
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Perpetua receives two DOD grants to study military-grade antimony from Stibnite, ID Geopolitical tensions with China and Russia's war with Ukraine has the Pentagon concerned about securing domestic supplies of antimony, a metal-like element that is critical to military hardware and emerging renewable energy storage technologies. To investigate the potential of securing this supply from an Idaho antimony mine that was attributed to saving 1 million American soldiers during...
Seeking an affordable and safer alternative to lithium-ion batteries for the storage of intermittent clean energy from wind and solar, a global team of researchers led by an award-winning chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a new rechargeable battery made with affordable and readily available materials – aluminum, sulfur, and molten salts. "I wanted to invent something that was better, much better, than lithium-ion batteries for small-scale s...
Summit spotlights Saskatoon as an emerging rare earths hub in North America Saskatoon, a small city in the heart of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, is emerging as the master link in a North American rare earth supply chain with connections in Canada, Australia, Europe, and the United States. This city of just over 300,000 people on the Canadian Prairies is not gaining notoriety as a major North American rare earth hub due to rich deposits of this suite of 15 enigmatic...
Proposed merger with GXII would provide Nasdaq listing, access to cash for Elk Creek. To fund the development of a mine at its Elk Creek project in Nebraska that produces niobium, rare earths, and other metals critical to American industry, NioCorp Developments Ltd. is merging with GX Acquisition Corp. II, a blank check corporation with nearly US$300 million in the bank and a Nasdaq stock exchange listing that will make access to additional capital possible. In fact, NioCorp...
Recycling hub will offer supply of critical battery materials in US After advocating for Zinc8 Energy Solutions Inc. to develop its zinc-air energy storage systems manufacturing plant in New York, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, paid a visit to Li-Cycle Holdings Corp.'s Rochester lithium-ion battery recycling facility in his home state. You can read about Sen. Schumer and Zinc8 at NY Sen. Schumer calls Zinc8 with an offer in the July 11, 2022, edition of...
Sheep Creek rare earths project in Montana hosts 13 US critical metals With the transition to electric vehicles charged with low-carbon energy shining a spotlight on America's need for secure and reliable supplies of critical minerals, the Sheep Creek project in southwestern Montana has emerged as a potential high-grade domestic source of nine rare earths and four other metals that have been deemed critical to the United States. High-grade rare earths were found at Sheep...
The Inflation Reduction Act offers American car buyers a $7,500 tax credit for buying a new electric vehicle, as long as the ingredients in the battery of that automobile are mostly produced domestically, and none of the critical minerals in the EV comes from "foreign entities of concern" in China and elsewhere. The nearly decade-long process to permit a mine in the United States, however, has automakers concerned that none of the shiny electrified models they put on the...
Encouraged by the support it has received from U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, along with the clean energy battery tax credits offered up in the Inflation Reduction Act, Zinc8 Energy Solutions Inc. has decided to move forward with building its first commercial zinc-air battery production facility in New York. "It is abundantly clear that with the introduction of the IRA, US policymakers, led by Senator Schumer, are taking real action by introducing incentives...
Jervois ramps up Idaho cobalt mine; concentrates must be shipped out of U.S. for refining. The ramping up of commercial production at Jervois Global Ltd.'s Idaho Cobalt Operations mine will provide American automakers with a domestic source of a metal critical to the performance of the lithium-ion batteries going into an increasing number of electric vehicles rolling off assembly lines. Foreseeing a sharp rise in the demand for cobalt in the United States and around the globe...
SABERS research team at NASA are developing solid- state batteries for electric aircraft. Knowing that the electrification of air transportation requires batteries that are lighter, store more energy, and are safer than the lithium-ion batteries being used for ground transportation, a team of researchers at NASA are advancing new battery technology that achieves this trifecta. While range anxiety and concerns about the durability and fire hazard are on the minds of those...
When Ontario unveiled its critical minerals strategy earlier this year, the idea was to leverage the rich mineral endowment in the northern reaches of the province and the established manufacturing in the south to attract investment from some of the biggest names along the electric vehicle supply chain. With LG Energy Solution, one of the world's largest lithium-ion battery companies, inking two deals to source battery-grade cobalt and lithium from the province, it seems that...
Begins systematic investigation of overlooked rare earths project in SW Montana. To gain a deeper understanding of the high-grade rare earth mineralization coming to surface at Sheep Creek, and investigate the potential for a larger deposit of this group of technology elements, US Critical Metals Corp. and US Critical Materials Corp. are carrying out detailed mapping and sampling of this overlooked and underexplored project in southwestern Montana. While high-grade rare...
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory have found a way to add a dash of boron to a tungsten tokamak fusion reactor to keep its plasma clean during operations. Because of its high melting point, tungsten is a metal of choice for helping tokamak components withstand the intense heat of the fusion process – often upwards of 150 million degrees Kelvin, or ten times the temperature at the core of the Sun. While it is not new to use boron...
Techno-clothing company utilizes graphene to make jacket invisible to infrared cameras. Thanks to the "wonder material" graphene, the invisibility cloak often seen in fantasy and science fiction will likely soon be a thing of reality, as Vollebak unveils the world's first thermal camouflage jacket that brings us one step closer to disappearing into thin air. Home to the initial discovery of graphene and two researchers that won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their pioneering...
In another example of global automakers heading to the very front end of global supply chains to source the materials they need to transition to electric mobility, General Motors is making up to a US$69 million strategic investment into Queensland Pacific Metals, an Australian company that is developing a refinery that will produce the nickel and cobalt needed for EV batteries. "The collaboration with Queensland Pacific Metals will provide GM with a secure, cost-competitive...
In a move that demonstrates automakers need all the battery materials that can possibly be produced by the global mining sector, Stellantis has entered into a preliminary agreement to buy battery-grade nickel and cobalt from a future mine developed at GME Resources Ltd.'s NiWest project in Western Australia. NiWest is an advanced stage nickel-cobalt project that lies less than 20 miles away of Glencore's Murrin Murrin operation, the largest nickel-cobalt mine and refinery in...
Researchers at Drexel University in Philadelphia have succeeded in using a new method of analysis to peel back the atomic layers of two-dimensional metallic compounds known as MXenes (pronounced max-eens), opening the door to development of a wide range of new materials. Two-dimensional materials are substances with a thickness of a few nanometers or less. Electrons in these materials are free to move in the two-dimensional plane, but their restricted motion in the third...
Tellurium, a rare byproduct of mining copper and gold, may be the secret ingredient to longer-lasting lithium batteries that allow electric vehicles to travel more than twice as far on a single charge. With the support of industrial partner Fenix Advanced Materials, researchers at the University of British Columbia Okanagan are developing solid-state lithium-tellurium batteries that could deliver such advantages to EVs. Earlier this year, a UBC Okanagan research team...
Washington State researchers add to out-of-this-world 3D printer materials Scientists from Washington State University have discovered that a small amount of simulated crushed Martian dirt mixed with a titanium alloy made for a stronger, high-performance material for 3D printing that could help build a future on the Red Planet. "In space, 3D printing is something that has to happen if we want to think of a manned mission because we really cannot carry everything from here,"...
Monash University researchers discover durable microstructure makes stronger titanium A world-first study led by Monash University engineers in Australia has demonstrated how cutting-edge 3D printing techniques can be used to produce ultra-strong titanium alloy – a significant leap forward for the aerospace, space, defense, and biomedical industries. "Titanium alloys require complex casting and thermomechanical processing to achieve the high strengths required for some c...
A liquid metal being explored for use in shapeshifting soft robots and enhancing carbon-capturing properties of platinum, gallium is proving to be the missing link to many questions materials scientists have been attempting to answer for years. Now, when the need for clean alternative energy is at its peak, University of California Santa Cruz researchers have found that gallium could unlock the doors to cheap hydrogen production. Researchers have tried to find efficient and...
Major step along the path to establishing Saskatchewan as rare earths hub In another milestone along the path to establishing a major rare earths hub in Saskatchewan, the province announced that the Saskatchewan Research Council poured the first rare earth metal ingots ever in Canada at the REE processing, separations, and metals facility it is developing near the city of Saskatoon. Saskatchewan's mission to become a leader in rare earths processing and production began with...
Xcel Energy eyes Ambri antimony batteries for clean energy storage Xcel Energy, a utility company that generates enough electricity to power roughly 23 million homes across eight states, has selected the liquid-metal batteries produced by Amri Inc. as a potential long-term clean energy storage solution. "Partnering with a progressive and innovative utility such as Xcel Energy is an exciting opportunity for Ambri as their clean energy vision is directly aligned with our...
MIT develops a wearable sensor able to target any biomarker Using a gold-gallium "band-aid" could prove the next generation of biological monitoring as researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have devised a new kind of wearable sensor capable of communicating wirelessly without the need for microchips or even batteries. Wearable sensors are ubiquitous due to wireless technology, which enables the monitoring of glucose concentrations, blood pressure, heart...
At a time when American automakers are looking for potential domestic supplies of the graphite that makes up nearly half of all the materials that go into the lithium-ion batteries powering electric vehicles, Graphite One Inc. offers up details of its plans to develop a mine at its Graphite Creek project in Alaska and processing facility in Washington that would produce roughly 75,000 metric tons of advanced graphite products per year. Earlier this year, S&P Global Platts...