Conventional and Unconventional Feedstock Characterization

NLR is building national-scale capabilities to assess and quantify critical minerals in U.S. waste streams, spanning mining byproducts (e.g., drainage, tailings, produced waste), industrial waste (e.g., coal ash, spent catalysts, manufacturing swarf), end-of-life products (e.g., e-waste, batteries), and other secondary sources. Leveraging extensive expertise in waste resource evaluation, infrastructure and market development, and advanced geospatial modeling, NLR identifies high-value feedstocks, quantifies recovery potential, and assesses market viability. These capabilities will produce the first integrated assessment of critical mineral quantities from secondary sources, linking resource potential, geographic distribution, and market dynamics to guide competitive funding strategies and prioritize targeted R&D investments for domestic mineral supply security.

Contact: Anelia Milbrandt

NLR focuses on integrated resource characterization, subsurface modeling, and techno-economic analysis to evaluate resource potential, inform exploration strategies, identify technology gaps, define the minimum concentrations required for economically viable extraction, and guide the development of production and separation technologies. NLR also assesses potential impacts of new production pathways on water and air quality, chemical usage, waste management, and induced seismicity in the region. Collectively, this work aims to inform strategies for integrating critical mineral recovery into existing energy production and industrial systems, support regional economic diversification, and advance productive and responsible resource development.

Contacts: Sertac Akar and Xiaofei Pu

NLR's microscopy and imaging researchers perform mineral identification and classification using spatially resolved instruments to obtain sensitive elemental quantification from feedstocks. NLR's multiscale characterization tools can evaluate solid materials and solid–liquid interfaces to identify material distributions across the desired length scales, from the millimeter to the atomic scale. Depending on the resource of interest, NLR has related projects in hydrated membrane analysis, electrochemical interfaces, and ion mapping in solution, which can be paired with parts-per-billion elemental quantification. NLR offers unique expertise within the interfacial, in-situ, cryogenic, and multiscale/multimodal characterization of mineral feedstocks.

Contact: Katie Jungjohann