Indium Awarded $3.2 Million DOE Grant to Establish Domestic Gallium Supply Chain

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Indium Corporation announced it has been awarded a $3.2 million grant by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation (CMEI) to develop a domestic process for recovering high-purity gallium from manufacturing by-products—a critical step toward establishing a secure, domestic supply chain for a material essential to modern defense systems, semiconductors, and advanced electronics.

Indium Corporation is one of five organizations selected under the DOE’s Technology for Recovery and Advanced Critical-material Extraction – Gallium (TRACE-Ga) initiative, which aims to rapidly prototype novel technologies for gallium recovery from U.S. metal processing feedstocks. The U.S. has not produced gallium domestically since 1987 and remains 100% net import reliant.

Gallium is a foundational element essential to a wide range of technologies that drive both national security and economic competitiveness—from enabling GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular communications, to components powering electric vehicles and radar systems, to LEDs, solar cells, and semiconductor thermal management.

"This project marks an important step toward restoring domestic gallium production for the first time in nearly 40 years,” Indium Corporation President and CEO Ross Berntson said. “Our efforts will support the commercialization of innovative technologies, strengthen domestic critical minerals production, and advance supply chain independence."

Work under the grant will be conducted at Indium Corporation’s facility in Rome, New York, which already hosts the metal-processing infrastructure, utilities, and in-house analytical capabilities needed to develop, validate, and scale a domestic gallium recovery process.

As a leading producer of gallium metals, alloys, and compounds, including gallium trichloride, gallium acetylacetonate, and gallium oxide, Indium Corporation generates substantial quantities of gallium-bearing scraps during routine production. The project will leverage established electrochemical methods and advanced purification techniques to convert gallium-bearing residues into high-purity metallic gallium suitable for reuse in semiconductors, electronics, and energy technologies.

Indium Corporation’s TRACE-Ga work will proceed in two phases. Phase 1 will design and validate a prototype capable of producing reclaimed metallic gallium. Phase 2 will scale the technology to a production-ready system capable of producing at least one metric ton of 4N-grade (99.99% pure) gallium per year, with the potential to expand capacity as commercial demand grows.

"We are incredibly excited about this initiative and what it means—not just for Indium Corporation, but for U.S. national security and technological competitiveness,” Berntson said. “Gallium is foundational to the electronics and defense industries, and being selected to help restore domestic production is something our team takes great pride in."

The TRACE-Ga initiative is managed by ENERGYWERX in partnership with DOE under a Partnership Intermediary Agreement established by the DOE’s Office of Technology Commercialization. The agreement is designed to broaden DOE’s engagement with innovative and non-traditional partners to accelerate the development and deployment of energy solutions.