Indian deep-tech company, Hylenr Technologies said its experimental nuclear fusion system has produced signatures of 32 elements, including rare earths and uranium, a finding that could point toward a new way to manufacture strategic materials without relying on mining.
Hyderabad-based Hylenr Technologies disclosed the results after more than two years of material analysis tied to its research on lattice confinement fusion, a form of low-energy nuclear reaction.
The company presented its findings earlier this month at the 27th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science in Niagara Falls, Canada, under the title, ‘Nuclear Signatures in a Hydrogen-Loaded Ni-Pd Lattice Confinement System.’
Nucleosynthesis, the process of creating new atomic nuclei from protons and neutrons, typically requires the extreme temperatures and densities found inside stars, supernovae, or the early universe.
On Earth, recreating those conditions has generally demanded large-scale infrastructure such as nuclear reactors or particle accelerators.
Hylenr’s approach is fundamentally different. The company engineered a system that loads hydrogen into metal lattices, creating highly confined environments within solid materials. According to the company, interactions between hydrogen, lattice defects, vacancies, and the surrounding electronic environment can enable nuclear processes inside the material itself.
“For thousands of years, access to an element has been determined by whether nature concentrated it somewhere in the Earth’s crust.
“We are working toward a very different future — one in which we can engineer the material environment required to create selected elements,” Hylenr co-founder and board member, Siddhartha Durairajan said.
The company reported that post-operation samples showed signatures corresponding to light and heavy elements, as well as noble gases including helium, neon, and argon.
More notably, the analysis detected signatures associated with yttrium, a rare-earth element, and uranium, an actinide. Results were compared against pre-operation baseline measurements of the same catalyst material, which served as a control.
Each reported elemental signature was corroborated by more than one independent analytical method, the company said.
Techniques used by Hylenr Technologies to validate elemental signatures in post-operation samples.
Rare-earth elements are essential to a wide range of strategic technologies, including permanent magnets, electric vehicles, robotics, wind turbines, electronics, aerospace systems, defense platforms, and advanced manufacturing.
Yet global supply chains for these materials remain heavily concentrated, largely in China, creating strategic vulnerabilities for countries seeking to scale clean energy and defense production.
“Yet their global supply chain remains highly concentrated, creating strategic dependence for countries seeking to scale clean energy, defense manufacturing and next-generation electronics,” another co-founder and board member, Ram Ramaseshan added.
