Turning Trash into Treasure Generates Great Press.
UPDATED, December 1, 2025
SRNL & Silica-X® Team Wins R&D 100 Award for Advanced Engineered Cellular Magmatics Project
Scottsdale, AZ – The R&D 100 Awards have served as the most prestigious innovation awards program for the past 60 years, honoring great R&D pioneers and their revolutionary ideas in science and technology.
The awards ceremony took place on November 20, 2025, at the Marriott at McDowell Mountains in Scottsdale, Arizona. The annual R&D 100 Awards gala is an important evening when members of development teams are acknowledged and honored for their impressive achievements.
The winning team members include SRNL's Cory Trivelpiece and William Ramsey, and Silica-X's Gert Nielsen, Robert Hust, and Philip Galland.
Earning an R&D 100 Award showcases the national significance of SRNL’s EM-funded research team and their contribution to innovation in environmental stewardship.
The award recognition in the mechanical / materials category highlights the innovative AECMs project, which involves reusing materials, such as recycled glass or other feedstocks, in creative ways to develop products with applications in waste remediation, construction and more.
Trivelpiece’s team recently developed AECMs that react like a cementitious material with low-activity radioactive waste streams. If implemented, this would enable a containerized waste form that requires no mixing equipment and minimal onsite operations.
“I’m incredibly proud of our SRNL team for earning this R&D 100 Award in partnership with Silica-X. This recognition highlights the power of innovation, collaboration and turning bold ideas into real-world impacts.”
~ SRNL Director, Johney Green
Silica-X, Inc. Co-founder and CEO Philip Galland, Savannah River National Laboratory researcher Cory Trivelpiece, and Gene Ramsey displaying their team’s R&D 100 Award for advanced engineered cellular magmatics.
The team presents the winning technology, AECMs, to Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Lab Director Johney Green at the opening of SRNL's Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative.
Cory Trivelpiece: “It’s an honor for me and this team to get recognition from the awards committee. To be selected for the award along with other national labs and some of the largest R&D companies in the world is truly humbling and amazing.”
“Being named an R&D 100 Winner with SRNL is a testament to what’s possible when national labs and industry collaborate to innovate — taking breakthrough science to market. Our partnership model not only accelerates solutions for urgent challenges like EM’s cleanup mission at sites like Hanford but also proves that collaboration is the winning formula for rapid impact at an industrial scale.”
~ Silica-X CEO, Philip Galland
Full Video – Reference timestamp 27:25
" So I met Philip Galland, who is the CEO [of Silica-X] and this is a dream come true. Public and private [industry] working together to convert household trash into concrete. Taking trash and turning it into something you can use... that's amazing! "
~ Congressman Joe Wilson
Thursday, Aug 7/2025
Silica-X Recognized at Ribbon Cutting of SRNL's Advanced Manufacturing Collabrative
We were honored to participate alongside U.S. DOE Secretary Chris Wright, SRNL Director Johney Green, Senator Lindsey Graham, Congressman Joe Wilson, and our partners at the Savannah River National Laboratory for the grand opening of the Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative (AMC) at USC–Aiken.
Silica-X is proud to serve as an anchor tenant in this world-class facility, driving our shared hyper-tech-to-market mission forward in support of SRNL.
Together, we’re transforming unconventional industrial byproducts—including consumer and industrial waste—into innovative, high-value materials that strengthen America’s manufacturing leadership, fuel economic growth, and advance a sustainable, prosperous future.
Learn more about it here ->Silica-X is proud to serve as an anchor tenant in this world-class facility, driving our shared hyper-tech-to-market mission forward in support of SRNL.
Together, we’re transforming unconventional industrial byproducts—including consumer and industrial waste—into innovative, high-value materials that strengthen America’s manufacturing leadership, fuel economic growth, and advance a sustainable, prosperous future.
Sunday, June 1/2025
Expanding Research on Geo-Engineered Materials at Savannah River
Savannah River’s National Lab's latest video features the groundbreaking work that Silica-X and the lab have undertaken. We’re particularly excited about our materials for the sequestration of nuclear waste, hydrocarbon remediation, and the filtration/sequestration of forever chemicals. We're proud to be on the forefront of this emerging field, with some of the nation’s top scientific minds.Learn more about it here ->Silica-X and SRNL Advancing ECM technology
In "Cory Trivelpiece: Behind the Science", a short film from Savannah River National Laboratory, Dr. Cory Trivelpiece goes into detail on the value of ECMs (and GEMs) and his passion for the science. Dr. Trivelpiece, as well as the founders of Silica-X are named inventors of the shared technology he references.
Thursday, May 1/2025
We have been working closely with Dr. Trivelpiece and his team at SRNL since 2019.
Wednesday, Nov 13/2024
Representing U.S. Innovation at Rebuild Ukraine Event
Silica-X will participate in the international Rebuild Ukraine Economic Trade Mission. It is one of 25 US companies selected to participate.
Read moreTuesday, Feb 16/2021
Fortune worked with Bill Gates and his colleagues at Breakthrough Energy and Gates Ventures to put together this extensive package of stories on the signal crisis of our age. That crisis is not the COVID-19 pandemic—it’s climate change. Click the image above to read the rest of the stories.
Fortune
"This ancient Roman material could unlock the secret to building greener and longer-lasting buildings."
~ BY BERNHARD WARNER
Thursday, Aug 8/2024
Silica-X: Blue Barrier ™
Novel marine concrete utilizing waste, developed by Silica-X and scientists at Alfred University’s Inamori School of Engineering as part of the Blue Barrier™ project, was unveiled at a press conference and reception at the New York Aquarium in Brooklyn. Created in partnership with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), in support of Executive order 22 and New York's Buy Clean Concrete mandate, the material is expected to have far-reaching environmental benefits.
Mark Zupan, Alfred University president, speaks during the press conference and reception held at the New York Aquarium in Brooklyn on research conducted at Alfred University to create an environmentally-friendly novel concrete using waste.
Silica-X has successfully reclaimed an array of industrial and post-consumer residues and ashes to create an array of cementitious materials, concretes, and geopolymers. This includes Advanced Reactive Concrete derived from Roman Concrete.
Wired
"The Secret to Making Concrete That Lasts 1,000 Years Scientists have uncovered the Roman recipe for self-repairing cement – which could massively reduce the carbon footprint of the material today."
~ BY JIM MORRISON
Popular Science
"Inside the project to bring ‘self-healing’ Roman concrete to American shorelines – Lessons from 2,000-year-old Roman material could help us build structures better suited for a waterlogged future."
~ BY BEN GUARINO
Silica-X has successfully reproduced synthetic analogs for Roman tephra from waste – enabling scientists to reproduce ancient Roman concrete.
Scanning electron microscope image of zeolite crystals on the cell wall of functionalized, engineered cellular magmatic GEMs.
Savannah River National Laboratory
"These cellular magmatics are a nascent green material, with the potential to help significantly reduce or find valuable uses for municipal wastes. The cellular magmatics project was born from decades of materials science expertise funded by EM in support of nuclear waste immobilization."
~ Testimony by Dr. Vahid Majidi, speaking before
The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
Our AI Beginnings
Our roots — and the decades that followed — were forged in the service of protecting Americans from threats at home and abroad. Long before today’s AI boom, our founders launched Spectre AI in 2001, partnering with defense contractors, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Justice.
Just two days after 9/11, Senators Judd Gregg (NH) and Ernest Hollings (SC) addressed Congress, urging the U.S. government to adopt Spectre AI to fight crime and terrorism. The government responded quickly, cementing Spectre AI as one of the earliest AI systems trusted within U.S. Intelligence and defense operations.
These technologies, developed six years before Siri, ultimately became part of Verint Systems – which Thoma Bravo acquired for $2B. At the time, AI systems represented half of Verint’s annual recurring revenue.
Sgt. STAR: The DOD's public-facing FPE persona, predated SIRI. The virtual assistant answered millions of questions and served millions of web pages – the system was used as a natural language knowledge interface for recruitment and general information.
We believe humanity can overcome any challenge. At the intersection of innovation and impact, we combine creativity with technological pragmatism to tackle today’s environmental, ecological, and economic challenges—delivering solutions that matter today and for generations to come.