Federal funds for Geomega REE recycling

With another C$3 million in funding, but this time from the Government of Canada's Critical Minerals Research, Development and Demonstration program, Geomega Resources Inc. is well-financed to continue construction of its magnet recycling demonstration plant to help power the ongoing energy transition.

Over a month since it received a C$3 million grant from Canada's Technoclimat Program, Geomega says funding is welcome considering the additional costs arising from the various expenses necessary to expand its plant to the demonstration scale.

You can read about the Technoclimat grant at More funding for Geomega recycling tech in the February 1, 2023 edition of Metal Tech News.

In development for the past several years, Canada-based Geomega has continued to improve its proprietary process to recover rare earths from energy-driving magnets. Focused on building clean technologies for the mining, refining, and recycling of rare earths, the company has made strong headway in demonstrating the viability of its technology at its pilot plant in Quebec.

Called Innord's Separation of Rare Earths or simply ISR, Geomega states that its pilot plant already demonstrates the recovery of more than 90% of the contained rare earths at a purity of 99.5% rare earth oxides while also recovering around 90% of the reagents used in the separation and recovery process.

With such a low-cost and environmentally friendly way to tap into the estimated C$1.5 billion global market to recycle magnet production waste and end-of-life magnets, Canada's government sees immense potential to carve out its place as a top global magnet material provider.

"Canadian innovators are leading the way towards a cleaner future," said Canada's Minister of Natural Resources, Jonathan Wilkinson. "Today's investment of $3 million in Geomega Resources will help to advance the development of a dynamic and competitive critical minerals sector through the development and demonstration of innovative processing technologies."

Adding on to the potential to recover more than just rare earths, such as bauxite residue from aluminum manufacturing as well as boron and hydrogen recovery, ISR is proving to be a well-rounded solution to reclaiming critical and necessary materials for clean energy technologies.

"We are very grateful to the federal government for their support," said Geomega President and CEO Kiril Mugerman. "Government's support in moving the Canadian innovations towards commercialization is a major advantage in what is becoming a very competitive field. The need to develop sustainable technologies to recover critical minerals from secondary sources is very real, especially taking into consideration the 2050 net-zero targets. We are proud to be developing this first-of-a-kind facility to recycle permanent magnets here in Canada. This contribution provides us with the needed funding and support to deliver on our major milestones throughout this year as we move forward with the demonstration plant development."