If it involves critical minerals or the domestic supply chain.
SAFE Critical Minerals
Bringing domestic critical-minerals recovery home — starting with a containerized system built to recover gallium and lithium from feedstocks the U.S. already has.
- Critical mineral processing
- Strategic materials
- Supply chain resilience
- Defense industrial base support
See the Mission in Action
Inside SAFE Critical Minerals
Watch how SAFE is applying its design, engineering, and manufacturing capabilities to bring domestic critical-minerals recovery home — and strengthen the supply chain America’s warfighters depend on.
A New Mission for SAFE
Gallium and lithium are essential to the batteries, electronics, and communications systems that modern defense platforms depend on — and today, the United States relies heavily on foreign sources for both. SAFE Structure Designs is applying its design, engineering, and manufacturing expertise to help change that.
SAFE is building a compact, containerized critical-minerals recovery system — engineered to fit in the footprint of a single connex unit — capable of recovering gallium and lithium from feedstocks like electronic waste and mine tailings that are already above ground and already accumulating, rather than requiring new mining projects to start from scratch.
Proven Technology, Reengineered for the Field
The thermal recovery process behind this system was developed and proven at industrial scale by Biomass Energy Systems, Inc. (BESI). SAFE has secured the rights to reconstruct that proven technology at a fraction of its original footprint — condensing a full industrial processing line down to a single mobile, container-sized unit that SAFE can manufacture and deploy wherever the feedstock is, instead of requiring a massive fixed processing plant.
At a high level, the process works by feeding mixed material — electronic waste, mine tailings, and similar sources — through a controlled, high-temperature thermal process that removes organics and contaminants and converts the material into a clean, concentrated mineral oxide ready to be routed to a refiner for final recovery.
Built Responsibly
Contained, Closed-Loop Processing
Because the unit is transportable, it's built to operate right where the feedstock already is — not the other way around.
- No open discharge
- Lined and bermed processing zones
- Closed-loop water, recycled internally
- Minimal footprint — deploys at the feedstock, no new permanent construction
Interested in This Program?
Get in touch to learn more about SAFE's critical-minerals recovery program.
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