U.S. Department of War through the Defense Logistics Agency has awarded Flash Metals Texas, Inc. a million-dollar Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SIBR) contract to continue to pursue the recovery of gallium and germanium from electronic waste streams. Flash Metals Texas is a wholly owned subsidiary of Metallium.

This award follows the successful completion of Phase I, which demonstrated the ability of Metallium`s proprietary Flash Joule Heating electrothermal chlorination technology to recover Gallium from semiconductor and electronic waste streams.

The Phase II program will expand on this work to focus on the extraction of both gallium and germanium from electronic waste streams. The activities on the same will be centred at the Company’s Texas Technology Campus. The program will advance the technology toward pilot-scale deployment, including improvement of recovery efficiency, and demonstration of repeatable, industrially relevant operation.

This twelve-month project will culminate with process readiness that is appropriate beyond pilot demonstration, placing Metallium and Flash Metals Texas to potentially work on a Phase III award, as well as on broader commercial deployment.

Company overview

Metallium is an industrial technology company headquartered in Subiaco, Western Australia. It is pioneering a new category of clean metallurgy and metal recycling. The company`s patented Flash Joule Heating (FJH) platform, developed at Rice University, is a transformative process technology that enables selective recovery of critical and precious metals from complex ores, industrial wastes, and high value scrap.

Unlike conventional smelting or leaching, FJH applies ultrafast electrical energy to unlock or volatilise metals, delivering rapid recovery without acids, tailings, or long thermal cycles. Through its U.S. subsidiary, Flash Metals USA, Metallium is building a distributed network of modular FJH plants across major industrial hubs across the United States. These facilities will extract Gallium, Indium, rare earths elements (REE), Lithium, Gold, Copper, Tin, and other strategic materials.

Flash Joule Heating (FJH) process

FJH is a breakthrough metal extraction process that combines ultrafast
electrical heating with proprietary chemistry to unlock metals from a wide
variety of feedstocks. By applying a short, intense burst of electrical energy,
the process instantly heats crushed ore, waste, or industrial residues inside
a proprietary reactor.

A small dose of reactive chemistry then converts target metals into vapour phase chlorides, which are rapidly condensed into high-purity, saleable products. Designed for modular deployment, FJH units can be rapidly installed across distributed sites with minimal permitting or infrastructure requirements.

The process can use PCBs, server boards, telecom equipment, semiconductor manufacturing waste and Ga/Ge scrap, REE ionic clays and heavy-REE ores, Monazite concentrates and red-mud derivatives, industrial catalysts and specialty-metal residues as feed stock.

Strategic importance

Gallium and Germanium are designated by the United States government as critical materials essential for defence systems, semiconductors and advanced communications technologies. These materials are utilized for applications in radar systems, satellite electronics, missile guidance systems, advanced semiconductors, and 5G and optical fibers.

Germanium supply is structurally constrained, with greater than 70% net import reliance in the United States and domestic consumption of approximately 30,000 kg per year. Recent supply disruptions have further highlighted this vulnerability, with U.S. imports of germanium metal declining by approximately 67% in 2025.

China’s tightening export controls on Gallium and Germanium have materially reshaped global pricing dynamics, particularly across Western markets where supply remains constrained. Since the introduction of export licensing requirements in 2023, there are growing strategic concerns around supply security, as non-China refining capacity remains limited.

By extracting these materials from existing waste, the technology has the potential to diversify supply sources, improve overall feedstock economics, reduce reliance on concentrated primary production, and strengthen U.S. defence and semiconductor supply chains.