However, when we think about the development of modern guided systems or smart munitions, attention is usually focused almost exclusively on advanced microelectronics or state-of-the-art structural components. But for strategic planners, the real bottleneck does not lie in the final assembly of aircraft or missiles, but in the so-called “Layer Zero”: the highly specialized chemical raw materials, energetic compounds, and advanced active energy storage materials on which everything else depends.
A critical example of this chemical dependence is found in thermal batteries (or molten salt reserve batteries). These energy storage devices are, literally, the life insurance for precision navigation and guidance systems. Unlike conventional commercial batteries, thermal batteries must be capable of remaining completely inert and hermetic in storage for 20 or 30 years without any maintenance and, after firing, activate in a matter of milliseconds under extreme acceleration conditions (exceeding 30,000 g) and severe vibrations.
For decades, the Western defense industrial base has depended on fragmented global supply chains for the procurement and processing of the chemical raw materials that make these batteries possible—such as high-purity metal sulfides and inorganic binders. In the current geopolitical context, this dependence on third countries for the refinement of critical materials represents an unacceptable strategic vulnerability.
The regulatory response has not been long in coming. Far-reaching legal frameworks such as the European Union’s Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) require that, by 2030, at least 40% of the processing of strategic materials be carried out within the Union’s borders, limiting dependence on a single foreign supplier to less than 65%. “Friend-shoring”—supply through local partners and reliable allies within the transatlantic alliance—is no longer just a good commercial practice, but a legal and national supply security requirement.
It is in this new industrial ecosystem where RIMSA consolidates itself as a fundamental strategic ally. Recently included in the reference catalog of Catalonia’s battery value chain prepared by ACCIÓ—a strategic sector in full expansion that reached a turnover of 1.044 billion euros in 2023—at RIMSA we provide a unique dual technological capability to respond to the demanding quality and reliability requirements of the aerospace and defense sector:
At RIMSA, we understand that innovation in the 21st century must not only seek excellence in the technical performance of the material in a laboratory but, above all, facilitate and simplify the industrial manufacturing processes of our clients in large-scale plants.
By developing advanced composites that are pre-synthesized and microscopically combined into a single homogeneous granule, we allow thermal battery manufacturers to eliminate complex operational steps of separate dosing, cryogenic milling, and powder mixing. This not only drastically reduces the risk of physical segregation of the material during pneumatic transport and handling but also enables much faster and more homogeneous automatic dosing in mass pelletizing presses, directly accelerating the throughput rates of allied defenses.
Furthermore, in line with current demanding transparency standards, all our manufacturing processes and materials are integrated under rigorous dual-use export control regulations (EU Reg. 2021/821) and are prepared to comply with the requirements of the EU Battery Digital Passport, guaranteeing complete physical, chemical, and digital traceability from the mineral’s origin to the final customer.
Europe’s strategic autonomy is not only measured in the number of finished defense systems in hangars; it is built, step by step and invisibly, on the resilience and scientific excellence of the materials chemistry that drives them from within. And at RIMSA, we are ready to lead that path.
