Sibelco North America signed a letter of intent with the U.S. Department of Commerce for up to $56 million of CHIPS Act funding to develop high-purity quartz processing technology. Any final award would carry a minority, non-controlling and non-voting federal equity stake; the proposal still requires due diligence, further negotiations and government approval.
The work described in the letter targets purification and finishing rather than simply expanding mining capacity. It spans next-generation leaching and hot chlorination, product engineering, and a pilot and demonstration facility for testing and scaling new processes.
Sibelco mines quartz at Spruce Pine, North Carolina, and processes its IOTA products through mineral and chemical plants. The material is made into fused-quartz crucibles and other hardware used to grow and process semiconductor wafers, as well as crucibles for solar-cell production.
Axios reported in October 2024 that Spruce Pine was one of the few places capable of supplying this grade of quartz, with Sibelco and The Quartz Corp both exporting from the area. Both temporarily halted production after Hurricane Helene; Sibelco’s 2025 results summary later said its high-purity-quartz business was continuing to recover from the storm.
Sibelco separately outlined an estimated $700 million, two-stage Spruce Pine capacity program in 2023: a $200 million phase intended to double installed capacity and a roughly $500 million second expansion. The October 2026 announcement did not connect the proposed award to those plans, and Axios reported that Sibelco did not say whether the funding would add jobs in Spruce Pine.