The 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.
The 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.
The 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.
Selected projects fall under three Areas of Interest.
Area of Interest 1—Advanced, Novel Technology Development for Initial REE Extraction, Concentrating to ≥2 Weight Percent
Area of Interest 2—Optimization of Current State-of-the-Art Separation Technologies for Initial REE Extraction, Concentrating to ≥2‒10 Weight Percent
Area of Interest 3—Technology Advancements for High Purity REE Extractions, Concentrating to 90.0–99.99 Weight Percent
The nine projects:
Concentrating Rare Earth Elements in Acid Mine Drainage using Coal Combustion By-Products— The Ohio State University (Columbus, Ohio)
Low-Cost Rare Earth Element (REE) Recovery from Acid Mine Drainage Sludge— Research Triangle Institute (Research Triangle Park, North Carolina)
Low-Temperature Plasma Treatment for Enhanced Recovery of Highly Valued Critical REEs from Coal— University of Kentucky Research Foundation (Lexington, Kentucky)
Economic Extraction and Recovery of REEs and Production of Clean Value-Added Products from Low-Rank Coal Fly Ash— The University of North Dakota (Grand Forks, North Dakota)
Development of a Cost-Effective Extraction Process for the Recovery of Heavy and Critical Rare Earth Elements from the Clays and Shales Associated with Coal— Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Blacksburg, Virginia)
Economic Extraction, Recovery, and Upgrading of Rare Earth Elements from Coal-Based Resources— The University of Utah (Salt Lake City, Utah)
Coupled Hydrothermal Extraction and Ligand-Associated Organosilica Media Recovery of REEs from Coal Fly Ash— Wayne State University (Detroit, Michigan)
Recovery of High Purity Rare Earth Elements (REEs) from Coal Ash via a Novel Electrowinning Process— Battelle Memorial Institute (Columbus, Ohio)
At-source Recovery of Rare Earth Elements from Coal Mine Drainage— West Virginia University Research Corporation (Morgantown, West Virginia)
