Critical Materials Supply Chain and Sustainability

Strategic and critical mineral supply chains are nationally recognized as being important to the US manufacturing industry, energy supply, and national defense. The White House recently established a subcommittee for strategic and critical mineral supply chains to facilitate a coordinated effort across federal agencies to identify and address important policy implications arising from strategic minerals supply issues. The U.S. Department of Energy recently released the second edition of their Critical Materials Strategy to address the challenge associated with components used in new clean energy technologies being at risk due to their location, vulnerability to supply disruptions, and lack of suitable substitutes. Similarly, the U.S. Department of Defense has recently developed a National Strategic Materials Sustainability Plan. Many facets of the strategic and critical materials supply chain involve “chemistry” or “chemical engineering” from novel digestion and separation processes to reduction and refining to utilization in “old” and “new” products and technologies as well as recycle and reuse. This session includes papers and a round-table discussion to identify the issues and opportunities associated with the critical materials supply and sustainability.