Chemfinity technologies, INC develop a new separation process to lower costs and energy in CMM production industries

The Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded Chemfinity Technologies, Inc. a $3 million Cooperative Agreement on August 1, 2026, under the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy program (CFDA 81.135) to develop and demonstrate a porous polymer network column separation process for recovering critical minerals from mining and metal refinery wastewaters.

Chemfinity will design a polyporous polymer column to extract platinum, iridium, and two additional critical minerals at approximately one-third the cost of traditional mining while reducing energy use and emissions by greater than 99 percent. The project pursues three objectives: securing domestic supply of critical minerals by enabling recovery from domestic wastewaters currently inaccessible due to existing technology limitations, with targets of greater than 90 percent extraction of platinum and iridium (work projected to fulfill 100 percent of U.S. demand for iridium and rhodium, 28 percent of palladium demand, and 7 percent of platinum demand); demonstrating the platform's versatility across multiple critical minerals and wastewater sources by extracting at least four critical minerals in commercially relevant pellet form within an integrated multi-column continuous-flow separation process; and validating commercial viability through techno-economic analysis and life cycle assessment to project costs and energy consumption while establishing relationships with industrial partners to access new wastewater sources and expand sorbent product reach.

Work is performed in Brooklyn, New York, with a period of performance extending through July 31, 2029. Chemfinity Technologies is an SBA-certified HUBZone firm and small disadvantaged business.

We aim to create a PPN column to recover platinum, iridium and two other cmms, at 1/3 of the cost of traditional mining and >99% lower energy use and emissions. Objective 1: secure domestic supply of cmms by enabling recovery from domestic wastewaters that are entirely untapped due to extraction roadblocks by existing technology. This project aims to show >90% platinum and iridium extraction from mining and metal refinery wastewater (task 2 & 3). Achieving this goal using wastewater currently accessible to chemfinity could fulfill 100% of U.S. Demand for IR and RH, 28% of PD and 7% of PT demand.objective 2: demonstrate versatility of our platform across a wide variety of cmms and wastewaters. This project will prove our technology's tunability to extract at least four cmms with high recovery rates in a commercially relevant pellet form, which will be demonstrated in an integrated multi-column, continuous-flow separation process (target 5). Objective 3: validate the commercial viability of our separation system by using tea and LCA to project anticipated costs and energy consumption (target 4). This will be done in tandem with forging new relationships with key industrial players to establish new sources of access to wastewater as well as expand the reach of our sorbent product.