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Intel-E-Waste will scale-up and commercialize its metal transformation platform, building on foundational Penn State research, with Penn State as its research partner


From Penn State IE&E, Published:

Old electronics and solar panels could become a new, domestic source for critical and strategic materials through Intel-E-Waste, a startup whose technology builds on foundational research from Penn State.

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), through STRIDE Ventures, selected Intel-E-Waste as one of only eight winners of the inaugural Tech Metal Transformation Challenge, a national program designed to strengthen domestic supply chains for critical and strategic metals. Selected from 130 applicants nationwide, the Intel-E-Waste-led team is now in the first 10-month stage of the milestone-driven program, advancing prototype development, technical validation, and pathways to industrial deployment for complex electronic waste streams.

Penn State serves as a key research partner on the project through the work of Mohammad Rezaee, co-founder and chief technology officer of Intel-E-Waste and Centennial Career Development Professor of Mining Engineering at the University.

Intel-E-Waste researchers conduct experiments at their laboratory at Penn State Innovation Park to develop processes for recovering valuable metals from electronic waste and end-of-life solar panels. The work supports Intel-E-Waste’s metal transformation platform, which builds on foundational Penn State research
Intel-E-Waste researchers conduct experiments at their laboratory at Penn State Innovation Park to develop processes for recovering valuable metals from electronic waste and end-of-life solar panels. The work supports Intel-E-Waste’s metal transformation platform, which builds on foundational Penn State research. Credit: Courtesy Mohammad Rezaee / Penn State. Creative Commons 

The Intel-E-Waste team is receiving up to $2 million in federal funding in the first 10-month stage of the project, with Penn State supporting key research activities as a subrecipient of the award. The team will develop and validate a prototype system designed to extract, convert, and return metals from complex domestic waste streams into high-performance materials for advanced manufacturing. The award will support what industry often calls “de-risking,” helping demonstrate that the system can integrate with current recycling facilities and produce materials that meet industry requirements.

“Our goal is to help build an end-to-end domestic pathway for critical materials by converting the tsunami of e-waste and the upcoming wave of end-of-life solar panels into high-value feedstocks for U.S. manufacturing,” Rezaee said. “We are doing this by utilizing the existing recycling and refining infrastructure and adding the missing transformation steps needed to recover and upgrade materials that are currently diluted or lost.”

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