The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation (CMEI) announced Tuesday approximately $5.4 million for five projects to help establish a secure, domestic supply chain for gallium (Ga)—a critical material for the defense and semiconductor sectors.
Currently, the US is 100% net import reliant on gallium and has not domestically produced the critical mineral since 1987.
China controls 98% of global primary production and has tightened its grip — export licensing in 2023, a full ban on US exports in December 2024, and restrictions on gallium processing technology itself in January 2025. In November 2025, China’s commerce ministry said it will pause its export ban on these minerals and related end-use items — but only for about one year.
Funded through the Technology for Recovery and Advanced Critical-material Extraction – Gallium (TRACE-Ga) initiative, the DOE project will complement other federal investments in the gallium supply chain, by rapidly prototyping novel technologies for gallium recovery from U.S. metal processing feedstocks.
Projects are divided into two distinct phases where performers recover gallium at defined cost, purity, and quantity.
“These five projects support President Trump’s commitment to strengthen America’s critical minerals supply chains,” Assistant Secretary of Energy Audrey Robertson said in a news release.
“Using novel and innovative approaches to gallium extraction, these projects demonstrate the focus on restarting domestic primary gallium recovery for the first time in almost 40 years,” Robertson said. “Technological breakthroughs foster the commercialization of cutting-edge technologies, expand the nation’s critical minerals production capacity, and reduce our reliance on foreign sources.”
The DOE has selected five technology companies for a project to design and validate a flowsheet to restart domestic primary gallium production:
PHNX Materials Inc. In San Leandro, California, will integrate a novel processing pathway to extract gallium from wastes not compatible with traditional flow sheets, producing supplementary cementitious materials, alumina, and ammonium sulphate in addition to gallium.
Atlantic Alumina Company, LLC in Gramercy, Louisiana, will use a novel process (counter-current ion exchange and electrochemistry) with commercially demonstrated and innovative resins to recover gallium at higher temperatures and under continuous operation.
Found Energy Co in Charleston, Massachusetts will use the company’s Direct Bayer Extraction (DBE) technology, a continuous electrochemical process that recovers gallium directly from dilute Bayer liquor without ion-exchange preconcentration of chemical modification of the underlying alumina production circuit.
Kunin Technologies, Inc in Chattanooga, Tennessee will develop a pathway for producing 12 ton per annum gallium utilizing innovative processing methods to recover gallium from metal streams with highest gallium concentration.
Indium Corporation in Clinton, New York will develop a capability to recover gallium from recycling scrap from a combination of commercial and innovative processes.
The TRACE-Ga initiative is managed by ENERGYWERX in partnership with DOE, a collaboration made possible through a Partnership Intermediary Agreement set up by the DOE’s Office of Technology Commercialization.
