UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — 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.
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.”
Electronic waste, or e-waste, is one of the fastest-growing waste streams in the world and one of the richest secondary resources for critical and strategic materials, he said. In the United States, most e-waste is processed through systems built primarily around bulk material recovery. Those systems can recover high-volume commodities such as steel, aluminum and copper, but many critical and valuable materials are present in small concentrations and can be diluted, downgraded or lost during conventional processing.
“The most valuable materials can represent less than 1% of the mass, but a very large fraction of the potential value,” Rezaee said. “That is exactly why selective recovery and upgrading are so important. If we treat all e-waste the same way, we lose the materials that matter most.”
Intel-E-Waste sits between material recovery facilities and downstream processors. Its metal transformation modules are designed to integrate with existing recycling infrastructure and upgrade complex end-of-life material streams into cleaner, higher-value fractions suitable for smelters, refiners and manufacturers. The NSF award will support scale-up, industry validation and partnership development to help move the platform toward real-world deployment.
“Intel-E-Waste was built to solve a supply-chain problem, not just a waste problem,” said Hassan Amini, CEO and co-founder of Intel-E-Waste. “The United States has growing volumes of end-of-life electronics and solar panels, while manufacturers need secure access to critical materials. Our platform is designed to connect those two realities through scalable, industry-compatible recovery and upgrading.”
The NSF Tech Metal Transformation Challenge is structured as a multi-stage program to move breakthrough technologies from research and development toward market validation, scale-up and commercial deployment. Up to six teams may advance to Stage 2 for market validation, and up to four finalists may advance to Stage 3 to scale their technologies toward the market. That structure is central to Intel-E-Waste’s strategy.
During Stage 1, the team is focusing on prototype development, product characterization, process validation and industry engagement. The work will help determine how the platform can be integrated into existing recycling facilities and how recovered materials can meet the specifications of downstream users, all within the U.S. The project is intended to help demonstrate that a domestic circular supply chain for critical materials can be technically feasible, commercially relevant and ready for scale-up.
“The Tech Metal Transformation Challenge is an exciting program that addresses a national security imperative to secure the domestic supply chain for critical minerals through research and innovation,” said Erwin Gianchandani, NSF assistant director for the Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (NSF TIP ), which administers the award program, in a press release announcing the winners . “The winners of this challenge demonstrated their capability to create solutions that tackle the hardest technical gaps in critical materials recovery, gaps that directly impact U.S. manufacturing competitiveness and national security. Their work will reduce reliance on foreign sources and enable on-shoring of advanced manufacturing capabilities across key sectors like defense and energy.”
Industry partners IBM and Aurubis are supporting the initial stage of the project by providing real-world material streams and reference material, enabling the team to evaluate its platform under practical conditions. The work will also involve collaboration with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory , reflecting that the recovery of critical materials from domestic end-of-life electronics has potential national security implications, Rezaee said. Many of these materials are currently sourced through fragile or foreign supply chains, so developing domestic secondary sources could strengthen the nation’s ability to advance high-tech research and manufacturing, he added.
While the technology has clear real-world applications today, the basis of the work started as fundamental science. The scientific foundation behind several elements of the company’s recovery approach traces to federally funded basic research at Penn State, supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s REMADE Institute, Rezaee said. Intel-E-Waste later used support from the DOE E-SCRAP Prize to begin scale-up planning and industry validation, helping shape the company’s pathway toward a deployable commercial platform.
At Penn State, Rezaee is collaborating with co-principal investigators Sarma Pisupati, director of the Center for Critical Minerals at Penn State; Barbara J. Arnold, chair of the mining engineering program at Penn State; and Olumide Ogunmodimu, assistant professor of energy and mineral engineering. The team brings expertise in critical minerals, mineral processing, separation science, process design and scale-up to support Intel-E-Waste’s technology validation and deployment pathway.
The project highlights the University’s role in translating foundational research into practical technologies that address national needs, Rezaee said. It also shows how federal research funding, NSF I-Corps, university innovation programs, startup formation and industry partnerships can work together to move discoveries from the laboratory toward deployment.
The team went through the regional and national NSF I-Corps programs to test the feasibility of the business and commercialization pathway, talking to recyclers, manufacturers, policymakers, smelters, and downstream users. The I-Corps program helped pave the way for the formation of Intel-E-Waste and its commercialization strategy.
The team also received support from Penn State’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence program, which connects startup teams with experienced entrepreneurs and executives who provide hands-on guidance as they navigate commercialization. The University’s Startup Leadership Network Board of Advisors Program, an industry-specific advisory board made up of experienced executives and entrepreneurs, also worked with the team to review progress, work through strategic and operational challenges, and provide guidance on areas such as market entry, funding, organizational development and growth.
“At the end of the day, this technology has to work for the recycling industry and for the manufacturers who need these materials,” Rezaee said. “That is what makes this project exciting. We are not just developing a process; we are building a pathway from discarded electronics and solar panels to domestic manufacturing.”