The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation announced $134 million for two projects that will strengthen domestic supply chains for rare earth elements (REEs).
These projects will demonstrate the commercial viability of
recovering and refining REEs from unconventional feedstocks, including mine
tailings, electronic waste, and other waste materials.
“To achieve energy independence, the United States needs to
find value in overlooked resources,” said Assistant Secretary of Energy
(EERE) Audrey Robertson. “By expanding our capabilities to recover and process
rare earth elements from waste products, these projects will reduce America’s
dependence on foreign sources and improve the resilience of our supply chains.”
REEs such as praseodymium, neodymium, terbium, and
dysprosium are vital components in advanced manufacturing, defense systems, and
high-performance magnets used in power generation and electric motors.
The following projects have been selected for award
negotiations:
Colorado School of Mines: This project will design,
construct, commission, and operate an REE Demonstration Facility near the
Gramercy alumina refinery in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana. The
facility will process "red mud,” a critical mineral-rich bauxite waste
product. By separating rare earth oxides and refining them into rare earth
metals, the facility will demonstrate the commercial feasibility of an
integrated domestic REE extraction, separation, and refining process. The
Colorado School of Mines will partner with ElementUSA, Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory, Principal Mineral, and Rare Earth Technologies Inc., on
this project.
Phoenix Tailings: This project will design, construct,
commission, and operate a demonstration-scale facility to produce high-purity
rare earth metals from domestic industrial waste-derived feedstocks.
Demonstrating this process will establish a new commercial pathway for domestic
production of heavy rare earth metals. Phoenix Tailings will partner with the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Minnesota on this
project.
DOE’s Manufacturing Deployment Office manages this funding opportunity through its Rare Earth Elements Demonstration Facility Program, which is designed to demonstrate full-scale integrated rare earth extraction and separation facilities in the US. -OGN/TradeArabia News Service
