The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
Metal Tech News - December 22, 2023
Ucore has completed commission of its plant to demonstrate RapidSX, a 21st-century upgrade to the mixer-settler solvent extraction technology that has been the standard for separating rare earths in China for the past five decades.
Rare Element's Bear Lodge project in Wyoming offers a high-grade source of rare earth elements critical to a wide range of high-tech, clean energy transition and defense applications. Clockwise from top center: praseodymium, cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, samarium, and gadolinium.
In a move to hold onto its dominant position as the world's supplier of rare earths, China is now banning the exports of technologies for the processing and separation of this tightly bonded group of 15 elements needed for green energy, high-tech devices, and countless industrial and household goods.
While China maintains a strong position in the mining of rare earths, accounting for about 70% of these tech elements extracted globally each year, the country's real control of the sector comes from its 85% control over the processing and separation of this suite of technology metals.
There are currently no commercial-scale rare earths separation plants in North America and only two such facilities outside of China – one in Malaysia and the other in Estonia.
MP Materials Corp., however, is ramping up to commercial rare earths separation capacity at its Mountain Pass Mine in California. During the third quarter, the REE separation plant at Mountain Pass produced 50 metric tons of the neodymium-praseodymium plus other light rare earths and MP is expanding its capacity to separate both light and heavy rare earths at America’s only currently producing rare earths mine.
“This is a tremendous milestone for the company and American supply chain independence writ large,” said MP Materials Chairman and CEO James Litinsky.
Despite the current dearth of non-Chinese rare earth element separation plants, the communist country's technology export ban may not have an enormous impact on the efforts to establish processing and separation plants in the West.
The reason for this is threefold: the solvent extraction technology used to separate rare earths in China was developed in the United States nearly 70 years ago and is not proprietary, though China has likely perfected aspects of this method over the ensuing decades; the traditional vat-based mixer-settler solvent extraction method used in China involves a long and arduous process that is considered too labor intensive and environmentally challenging to be viable in North America or the European Union; and companies in the West are already scaling up more modern rare earth processing technologies.
"Innovative and exciting technological alternatives to the environmentally destructive Chinese methods of processing and refining have been developed in the United States," said Drew Horn, CEO of GreenMet, a Washington-based firm that provides a conduit between private capital, government, and critical mineral innovation in the U.S.
In fact, on the same day that China announced its ban on the export of rare earth processing technologies, Ucore Rare Metals Inc. and Rare Element Resources Ltd. each announced major milestones on the advancement of two separate rare earth processing technologies.
Ucore has been working on establishing a North American rare earth supply chain that is independent of China for well over a decade.
This endeavor began with advancing toward development of the Bokan Mountain rare earth mine project in Southeast Alaska before pivoting to the development and commercialization of a more efficient and cleaner way to process and separate rare earths, a key to establishing a supply chain that is independent of China.
Ucore's quest for an economically and environmentally viable rare earth processing technology led to the acquisition of the rights to RapidSX, which is basically a 21st-century upgrade to the solvent extraction technology on which China built its dominance of the rare earth sector over the past five decades.
Independent testing has shown that the innovative column-based RapidSX platform can separate rare earths nearly 10 times faster within a footprint that is about one-third the size required for the mixer-settler SX units that China has traditionally used for rare earths separation.
On Dec. 21, Ucore announced that it has completed the commissioning of its commercial-scale RapidSX demonstration plant in Ontario, Canada.
Once scaled up to commercial readiness at the demonstration facility in Kingston, Ontario, Ucore plans to install the rare earths separation platform at the Louisiana Strategic Metals Complex (Louisiana SMC) it is developing at a former U.S. Air Force base in the heart of The Pelican State.
"Since early this year, the company has been testing, adjusting, and optimizing its 52-Stage demo plant to meet its RapidSX commercialization and demonstration deployment objectives in Louisiana," said Ucore Rare Metals CEO Mike Schrider.
In addition to installing RapidSX at its Louisiana SMC, Ucore intends to license the technology, which would lead to additional rare earths separation capacity outside of China.
"We believe that Ucore has one of the West's most compelling rare-earth-supply chain business models," said Ucore Rare Metals Chairman and CEO Pat Ryan.
The RapidSX technology is compelling enough to draw the attention of the U.S. Department of Defense, which is providing Ucore with funding to determine that its demonstration plant is capable of upgrading heavy and light rare earth feedstock sources to salable individual rare earth products.
The Canadian government is also backing RapidSX with C$4.28 million (US$3.1 million) in funding to demonstrate the capabilities of this modern rare earth separation platform.
Finalization of the RapidSX demo plant commissioning marks the start of the DOD demonstration program.
"The objectives of this program are to establish a direct techno-economic comparison between conventional solvent extraction and RapidSX for separating heavy and light rare earth elements and to establish RapidSX technology for commercial deployment in North America," said Schrider.
Ucore expects to surpass several RapidSX milestones early in 2024, including initial results from its demonstration programs for the Pentagon and Ottawa, as well as further details on its plans for commercial installation of the rare earth separation technology at its Louisiana facility.
As Ucore marches ahead with commercialization of RapidSX, the U.S. Department of Energy has authorized funding for the construction of a Rare Earth Resources processing and separation demonstration plant in Wyoming.
The processing plant is a key facet to the company's plans to develop a mine at Bear Lodge, a project in northeastern Wyoming that hosts 18 million metric tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 3.05% (1.2 billion lb) rare earth oxides.
Bear Lodge is not only large and high-grade, but it also happens to be enriched with neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and other rare earths that go into powerful magnets needed for electric vehicle motors, wind turbine generators, and countless other high-tech applications.
A roughly 900-metric-ton sample of high-grade rare earths material from Bear Lodge has been transported to Upton, Wyoming, to be fed through an innovative rare earths processing and separation technology pioneered by General Atomics, a division of General Dynamics.
"In anticipation of DOE budget approval, we have been working alongside our General Atomics-led project team and our contractor to prepare the site for construction," said Rare Earth Resources President and CEO Brent Berg. "Now renovations can begin in earnest."
To speed up the installation, crews have been building components of the rare earths processing demo plant that can be quickly installed at the Upton facility.
"Our progress on advancing our recovery technology through construction of the demonstration plant is very timely as today China announced its ban on the export of critical materials extraction and separation technology for rare earth metals and alloy materials as well as technology to prepare rare earth magnets," Berg said on Oct. 21. "This is another bold step by China to protect its dominance over the industry, and a call to action for countries like the U.S. to quickly develop domestic sources and advance innovative recovery technologies to support a secure rare earth supply chain."
Rare Element anticipates that the plant to demonstrate the inherent environmental and economic advantages of its innovative rare earth separation technology will begin operations early in the second half of 2024.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was updated on Dec. 23 to correct Metal Tech News’ oversight of the start of rare earths separation at MP Materials Mountain Pass Mine in California. -Shane Lasley
With more than 16 years of covering mining, Shane is renowned for his insights and and in-depth analysis of mining, mineral exploration and technology metals.
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