Retech has recently been awarded multiple contracts with premier US National Laboratories supporting various critical materials projects of US national interests.

Retech has long-established relationships with many national labs (R&D Centers) and even currently provides aftermarket support for many of their furnaces, some of which have been operational for decades. Their ongoing collaboration with Retech is because has consistently supported national labs with scalable platforms for R&D, pilot-and full-scale production of the critical materials that make up the technology of the future.

What distinguishes pilot projects from other research is that although pure research serves to validate the metallurgy of a proposed new technology, pilot projects serve to validate the industrialization of such processes. This is why Retech equipment is designed with scalability in mind, so that once a pilot process has been demonstrated, the scaleup of the process is streamlined on larger Retech equipment.

Beyond the scalability of any one piece of equipment, though, Retech also supports national labs and industry partners alike through platform integration, in which operations, maintenance, energy usage, and personnel can all be consolidated in support of multiple pieces of equipment, offering greater cost savings, quality assurance, and standardization for an entire process.

Retech President & Managing Director Earl Good says, “Retech’s experience in supporting critical materials development allows us to anticipate needs and develop our own equipment ahead of the demand for it.”

At present, Retech is already seeing demand uptick and is planning staffing and production around expectations of growth in key sectors such as:

• Aerospace, a perennial technology driver that depends on reactive, refractory, and superalloys that make up, as just one example, the high strength-to-weight ratio, high temperature jet engine components,
• Energy technology, both generation and storage, will support the growth of the electric auto industry, smart power grids, and decarbonization,
• Semiconductors, which rely on ultra-pure melting of silicone and other metalloids to make the chips used in AI, smartphones and other computing technology,
• And medical devices and implants, which depend on the biocompatibility of metals like titanium and tantalum, a need underscored by the baby-boom generation reaching their golden years.

With Retech’s proven expertise and forward-thinking approach, they are well-positioned to meet the evolving demands of critical materials development and drive innovation across multiple high-impact sectors.