Meet Highland Materials, the company behind 'Project Rocks'

SURGOINSVILLE — Project Rocks, the $900 million manufacturing project that recently closed on a property deal in Hawkins County's Phipps Bend Industrial Park, is the polysilicon producer Highland Materials."There's a supply chain that's actually got five major steps in it, and we're the first step," CEO Richard Rast said. "So, we sell to people who make ingot, which is used for both solar panels and also semiconductors [for computers]. We like to mention both of those because they're both viable markets."The Phipps Bend site will house the company's first manufacturing facility. Currently headquartered in Johnson City, Highland Materials was founded three years ago. However, the technology it uses to manufacture polysilicon dates back almost 20 years. Rast said Highland acquired the intellectual property of another company and recruited its developers."There were some pretty big technology advantages to their approach," Rast said. "It's cheaper, it's greener and it takes less time to build a factory."Rast said that most polysilicon manufacturers follow a process developed in the 1950s, where silicon is heated until it turns into a gas. Then, it is condensed until it turns into an ultrapure polysilicon crystal."As you might imagine," Rast said, "taking a rock and turning it into a gas takes a lot of heat. It also produces a lot of hydrogen gas, which is explosive, and so there's some safety concerns."Instead, Highland Materials melts aluminum and silicon together into a liquid, and then uses the aluminum to remove impurities from the silicon. He said that uses about 30% as much energy as the gasification process.Further, Rast said there is essentially no waste in this process. The company will sell the aluminum byproduct to automotive manufacturers, and others, to use in casting. Washing the silicon also produces polyaluminum chloride, which is used to treat water and wastewater.Rast said Highland's site search spanned other parts of Tennessee and eight additional states. The company chose Phipps Bend for its electricity and rail access, as well as the local culture of supporting manufacturing industries."People here are really receptive to ideas like this," Rast said. "The economic development people, the utilities, the government and the people in the community — it's been a pleasure to work with people here."Rast also noted the company's excitement for the area's workforce development programs, like Northeast State Community College's Regional Center for Advanced Manufacturing in Kingsport.Highland Materials' website states that the facility will provide more than 400 jobs. Rast said these positions will range from manufacturing jobs, which Highland will train workers for, as well as laboratory technicians with science backgrounds and office jobs for the company's new headquarters.Rast said he expects the facility to be in active construction by the fourth quarter of 2026 and to begin operations in the latter half of 2027.The Hawkins County Industrial Development Board and NETWORKS are both working on Project Rocks. The former declined to comment until the project is officially announced by the state of Tennessee, as chairman Patrick Lund said is the board's policy. The latter could not be reached for comment by time of publication.