A Chicago-based company has been awarded an initial $23.67 million acquisition contract under the U.S. Department of War’s Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies (APFIT).

With this Numat Technologies will accelerate the deployment of next-generation chemical and biological protection suits for U.S. Special Operations Forces.

The award is being executed in partnership with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and is intended to speed the transition of the company’s technology from development into operational use.

Numat will deliver field-ready protective suits at scale

The APFIT program was established to bridge the gap between promising defense technologies and field deployment by providing procurement funding for mature innovations that are ready for operational use. Since its launch, the program has supported the rapid acquisition of advanced capabilities for the U.S. military, with total awards now exceeding $2 billion, according to a press release.

“Over the past 10 years, Numat built the MOF industrial base for this moment, where we can activate an entire supply chain, from material design through high-volume system manufacturing, to protect the Warfighter,” said Ben Hernandez, CEO of Numat Technologies.

“This contract award reflects our long-term investment in American innovation. Numat will deliver finished, field-ready protective suits at scale, made completely in the United States.”

Numat’s protection suits incorporate metal-organic frameworks

Numat’s protection suits incorporate metal-organic frameworks (MOFs)—highly porous engineered materials designed to capture and neutralize hazardous chemical and biological agents. Unlike conventional protective garments that primarily act as barriers, the company’s MOF-enabled suits are engineered to self-detoxify by neutralizing harmful substances upon contact, while also improving breathability and wearer mobility.

Under the APFIT contract, Numat will supply the MOF-enabled chemical and biological (CB) suits directly to U.S. Special Operations Forces, whose personnel often operate in environments where exposure to chemical and biological threats is a significant concern. According to the company, the suits are designed to offer enhanced protection without compromising comfort or operational effectiveness.

The contract also represents a milestone for the domestic manufacturing of metal-organic frameworks, a technology that has gained increasing attention for applications ranging from defense and industrial filtration to energy storage and environmental protection. Numat said it has spent more than a decade building a U.S.-based supply chain capable of designing, producing and integrating MOFs into mission-critical systems.

Company Chief Executive Officer Ben Hernandez said the award reflects years of investment in establishing a domestic industrial base for MOF technology and positions the company to deliver field-ready protective equipment manufactured entirely in the United States.

The latest award builds on Numat’s long-standing collaboration with several U.S. defense organizations, including the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of War for Industrial Base Policy, the Capability Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense, U.S. Special Operations Command, the U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy. These partnerships have helped advance MOF technology from laboratory research to scalable manufacturing, according to the company.

Beyond military applications, Numat said its MOF platform has potential uses across industrial, semiconductor and energy sectors, where advanced materials are increasingly being deployed for gas storage, chemical separation and hazardous material filtration.

The APFIT award underscores the U.S. government’s broader efforts to accelerate the procurement of innovative defense technologies while strengthening the domestic industrial base and reducing the time required to transition emerging capabilities into operational service.

Austin-based SuperCritical Materials Corp. has secured a license from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to commercialize a patented uranium and critical materials extraction technology developed by DOE laboratories.

The development is a significant step toward expanding future nuclear fuel supply through unconventional uranium resources.

Licensed technology is designed to extract uranium from seawater

Developed with support from the DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy and led by researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), the licensed technology is designed to extract uranium from seawater using advanced adsorbent materials. SuperCritical said the agreement grants the company rights to manufacture and deploy the technology at industrial scale in the United States, with plans to expand into allied nations in the future.

The announcement comes as the United States accelerates investment in advanced nuclear energy to meet rising electricity demand driven by artificial intelligence, data centers, advanced manufacturing and other energy-intensive industries. Industry experts have increasingly highlighted that while reactor development is advancing, expanding the upstream nuclear fuel supply chain—including uranium production, enrichment and fuel fabrication—remains a critical challenge.

According to the company, the world’s oceans contain an estimated 4.5 billion metric tons of dissolved uranium, representing a resource far larger than known terrestrial reserves. While extracting uranium from seawater has long been considered technically feasible, commercial deployment has remained limited due to economic and engineering challenges.

SuperCritical intends to commercialize DOE-developed process

SuperCritical said it intends to commercialize the DOE-developed process using advances in adsorption chemistry and materials science. In addition to uranium, the company believes the technology could also enable the recovery of other strategically important critical materials from seawater.

The company describes its long-term strategy as building infrastructure to support what it calls the “Intelligence Economy,” a period of economic growth expected to be driven by artificial intelligence, robotics, advanced computing, defense technologies and digital infrastructure. It argues that reliable nuclear energy and secure fuel supplies will be essential to sustaining this growth.

“Our objective is straightforward,” said Alexander Canon Bryan, founder and chief executive officer of SuperCritical Materials. “If the Intelligence Economy requires abundant, reliable nuclear energy, then it will also require abundant, reliable nuclear fuel.”

SuperCritical noted that its technical team includes former researchers from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, including Dr. Gary Gill, a co-founder of the company and a scientist who has spent more than two decades researching uranium extraction from seawater.

The company said commercial deployment of the technology could contribute to strengthening domestic nuclear fuel supply chains while supporting broader U.S. efforts to improve energy security, expand critical materials production and reduce dependence on imported strategic resources.

The licensing agreement also aligns with ongoing federal initiatives aimed at strengthening America’s nuclear industrial base and increasing domestic production of critical minerals and materials.

Although seawater uranium extraction has been demonstrated in research settings, analysts note that large-scale commercialization will depend on achieving competitive production costs and successfully scaling the technology for industrial use. Industry observers view the DOE licensing agreement as an important milestone toward evaluating the commercial viability of the process.