\n\tThe Department of Energy, Washington, has announced nine projects that will receive approximately $4 million in cost-shared federal funding to improve the technical, environmental, and economic performance of new and existing technologies that extract, separate, and recover rare earth elements from domestic U.S. coal and coal byproducts.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe development of an economically competitive supply of REEs will help to maintain the nation’s economic growth and national security. Vast domestic coal resources in the United States contain quantities of REEs that offer the potential to reduce dependence on others for these critical materials, and create new industries in regions where coal plays an important economic role.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe new projects will be managed by the National Energy Technology Laboratory and are supported through the funding opportunity announcement, Development of Transformational Separation and Extraction Processes for Production of Rare Earth Element (REE) Materials from Domestic U.S. Coal and Coal By-Products.<\/p>\n
\n\tSelected projects fall under three Areas of Interest.<\/p>\n
\n\tArea of Interest 1\u2014<\/em><\/strong>Advanced, Novel Technology Development for Initial REE Extraction, Concentrating to ?2 Weight Percent<\/em><\/p>\n \n\tArea of Interest 2\u2014<\/em><\/strong>Optimization of Current State-of-the-Art Separation Technologies for Initial REE Extraction, Concentrating to ?2?10 Weight Percent<\/em><\/p>\n \n\tArea of Interest 3\u2014<\/em><\/strong>Technology Advancements for High Purity REE Extractions, Concentrating to 90.0\u201399.99 Weight Percent<\/em><\/p>\n \n\tThe nine projects:<\/span><\/p>\n \n\tConcentrating Rare Earth Elements in Acid Mine Drainage using Coal Combustion By-Products<\/strong>\u2014 The Ohio State University (Columbus, Ohio)<\/span><\/p>\n \n\tLow-Cost Rare Earth Element (REE) Recovery from Acid Mine Drainage Sludge<\/strong>\u2014 Research Triangle Institute (Research Triangle Park, North Carolina)<\/p>\n