BATTLE CREEK, Mich. –
Germanium: Atomic Number 32, symbol “Ge” on the Periodic Table. A metalloid long prized for its semiconductive capabilities. Transparent to infrared radiation, making it ideal for infrared optics and night vision devices.
Unfortunately for the producers of military optics, germanium is a rarity in Earth’s crust, occurring primarily as trace amounts in other minerals. It is typically mined as a byproduct of coal ash or zinc.
But perhaps there’s another source.
In late May, the Defense Logistics Agency Disposition Services team at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia put the finishing touches on a collaborative agency effort to identify and transfer about 120 excess germanium-bearing thermal cameras and sights to DLA Strategic Materials for eventual material recapture and addition to the National Defense Stockpile, which provides “feedstock” to the armed services and industrial base.
“We are going to become a mine for some of that strategic material by pulling it out of scrap and excess,” said DLA Disposition Services Director Mike Cannon.
Rare earths became a hot news topic late last year when China established export control restrictions on several valuable elements U.S. firms rely on for cutting-edge technologies. With obscure names like yttrium and dysprosium, these materials may be mysterious to the layman but remain vital to the production of complex components found in drones, submarines, radar systems, and missiles.
Defense Department planners saw the Chinese tactic coming. The 2024 National Defense Industrial Strategy set a goal for the nation to develop a complete rare earth supply chain capable of meeting all U.S. defense needs by 2027. In fact, hundreds of millions of dollars have already been allotted for domestic mining and processing efforts. While those capabilities are developed, pressing questions remain about how industry will source its current defense modernization priorities.
In March, Cannon took part in a DLA Director Lt. Gen Mark Simerly-led visit to the DLA Strategic Materials depot in Indiana, in part to evaluate how the agency’s major sub-command responsible for reverse logistics might support DLA’s Strategic Material Recovery and Reuse Program.
DLA Strategic Materials can fund, award, and administer SMRRP contracts for recovery and processing of National Defense Stockpile watchlist materials. DLA Disposition Services handles DOD’s worldwide contracts for everything from the demilitarization of nuclear submarines to bulk scrap removal. It also manages DLA’s Precious Metals Recovery Program. Each year, equipment originally valued at billions of dollars makes its way onto DLA excess property books. Many items turned over by units possess some amount of valuable material on the agency’s critical materials watchlist.
“It was enlightening to discover all the various ways that the DLA Disposition Services mission and business model shares symmetries with DLA Strategic Materials and its rare materials recovery and reuse efforts,” Cannon said of the strategic materials depot visit. “As the Defense Department’s reverse logistics experts, we want to ensure we’re contributing all that we can toward ensuring National Defense Stockpile remains a robust supply source for domestic industry.”
DLA Disposition Services Process Engineer Don Helle started tackling the problem late last year, working with his DLA Headquarters Research and Development colleagues and DLA Strategic Materials to build momentum toward the development of a “circular economy” mindset that identifies critical elements during manufacturing and plans for their eventual recapture and recycling once used items are turned in to DLA.
“Reclamation can begin at the ‘end’ of lifecycle logistics, converting the old ‘cradle-to-grave’ business model to an improved ‘cradle-to-cradle’ business model and the beginning of self-sustainment,” Helle said. “We believe reclamation/circular economy is not only a pillar of supply chain stability, but also a cornerstone of tax dollar stewardship.”
Helle said that in April, DLA Strategic Materials Stockpile Engagement Liaison Curt Stough and Physical Scientist Nancy Albertson began coordinating with DLA Disposition Services on items currently on the agency’s excess property inventory rolls that hold potentially recoverable materials, like an aircraft helmet display unit originally valued at $100,509 at the site in Pennsylvania, a thermal elbow assembly in Okinawa originally worth $80,000, and a lab instrument analyzer in Ohio originally valued at $297,000.
Because the DLA Strategic Materials team has an already-existing contract to harvest germanium from excess federal property, the agency’s Robins Air Force Base property disposal site was targeted first for the optics it held in its excess inventory. Once Material Handler and Identifier David Garbo and General Supply Specialist Lisa Inghram combed the site’s stores for items matching DLA Strategic Materials’ requests and upgraded item condition codes from scrap to usable, Strategic Materials’ Rob Winkler and David Landry arrived to confirm and arrange for transfer to the Strategic Material Reclamation office for disassembly and recovery. The end result will produce germanium ingots suitable as feedstock for infrared optics and solar wafers.
“You’re going to see more and more efforts like that,” Cannon said. “Where we take an item, and when it’s not needed for [reutilization], we’ll make a value judgement – can that become a mine for something inside it? Is there juice we can squeeze out of that item that’s going to help us make something else?”
Cannon said there’s more work to be done for the organization to fully adopt a “mine-to-foxhole,” circular economy-driven process, but the effort will be critical to DLA Disposition Services’ future role in combatting the weaponization of element embargoes.