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Pennsylvania mining industry leaders, government representatives and faculty will speak at the inaugural Mining PA Conference, to be held Aug. 14-16 at the Penn Stater Hotel and Conference Center in State College. 

Nineteen interdisciplinary research teams received funding through the Institutes of Energy and the Environment’s Seed Grant Program for 2023. This includes more than 75 researchers who are affiliated with 10 colleges and research units across seven Penn State campuses. 

FeiFei Shi, assistant professor in the John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering, received a $400,000 research and development award from the Nuclear Energy University Program in the U.S Department of Energy to develop foundational research on the corrosive damage caused by molten salt in nuclear salt reactors.

U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) visited Penn State University’s Center for Critical Minerals to showcase the $2.1 million of federal funding for the fiscal 2023 year. During his visit, he was joined by Sarma V. Pisupati, Director of the Penn State Center for Critical Minerals, Jesse Gill, Penn State Master’s Degree Student in Energy and Mineral Engineering, and Lora Weiss, Senior Vice President for Research at Penn State.

U.S. Sen. Robert Casey was given a tour on April 6 of Penn State's Coal Utilization Laboratory, led by Sarma V. Pisupati, director of the Center for Critical Minerals. The Coal Utilization Lab is part of the University's Earth and Mineral Sciences Energy Institute and is focused on solving challenges related to fossil fuels and the exploration of new energy technologies. // Photo credit: Patrick Mansell

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D) stopped by the Penn State Center for Critical Minerals on Thursday to highlight the federal funds they received to further develop a "novel" technique to recover rare earth elements from acid mine drainage.

Elisa Alonso, a physical scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), will give the 2023 G. Albert Shoemaker Lecture in Mineral Engineering at Penn State. Her talk, “Rare Earth Elements are not the only critical mineral commodities,” will be held at 3 p.m. on Friday, April 14, in the Hub-Robeson Center’s Freeman Auditorium and online via Zoom. A reception will follow the lecture at 4 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Elham Rahimi, a graduate student in the John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering, received the SME Ph.D. Fellowship grant from the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME).

Waste heat has been a challenge that scientists and engineers have been pondering for decades. What can be done with this lost energy and can it be harnessed in a useful way? As combustion and technology improved, the percentage of waste heat has decreased, but it is estimated that up to 50% of all industrial energy is lost through waste heat. If that heat could captured or used in a meaningful way, society would move closer to a circular economy. While Derek Hall and his team explored how different battery chemistries might change a battery’s power and energy output, they discovered new opportunities for turning waste heat into stored electrical energy.

 Penn State’s Center for Critical Minerals will receive $2.1 million in federal funding to design, build and test a modular pilot-scale research and development unit intended to recover vital rare earth elements and other critical minerals from Pennsylvania streams and other environmental sources.