Funding Opportunity Announcement 2404, Advanced Processing of Rare Earth Elements and Critical Minerals for Industrial and Manufacturing Applications

Descriptions of selected projects and their associated areas of interest (AOIs) follow:

AOI 1: Advanced Process Development for Production of Rare Earth Metals (REM) and Co-Production of Critical Minerals (CM) from Coal-Based and Alternate Resources

Technology Development and Integration for Volume Production of High Purity Rare Earth Metals from Phosphate Processing — Florida Polytechnic University (Lakeland, Florida) and partners Florida International University and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory plan to develop an integrated technical research plan based on advanced processes for recovery, separation and purification of mixed rare earth oxides to enable mass production of REMs from phosphoric acid sludge feedstock. Industrial partners include The Mosaic Company as a supplier of the source material and USA Rare Earth as the REE products end user.

DOE Funding: $150,000; Non-DOE Funding: $37,508; Total Value: $187,508

Multi-Sourced Collaboration for the Production and Refining of Rare and Critical Metals — University of Kentucky (Lexington, Kentucky) and academic, industrial and national laboratory partners aim to deliver a recommended pathway and research plan to apply advanced technologies for the production of individually separated, high purity metal oxides/salts and reduction to metal processes with the potential of minimizing environmental impact and reducing capital cost and operating costs by more than 20 percent over conventional processes, while delivering a minimum of five REMs having a purity greater than 99.5 percent and five CM with a purity greater than 90 percent.

DOE Funding: $150,000; Non-DOE Funding: $61,409; Total Value: $211,409

Tunable Electrochemical Pathway for High Purity REM and CM — University of North Dakota EERC (Grand Forks, North Dakota) and academic and industrial partners plan to develop a technical research plan for defining and assessing the techno-economic viability of a tunable electrochemical pathway for producing individually separated high-purity REMs and CMs as industrially relevant CM compounds, from lignite coals and combustion by-products originating from the Williston Basin.

DOE Funding: $150,000; Non-DOE Funding: $37,500; Total Value: $187,500

Extraction, Separation, and Production of High Purity Rare Earth Elements and Critical Minerals from Coal-Based and Related Resources — University of Utah (Salt Lake City, Utah) and industrial partners aim to develop concepts needed to reuse and remediate coal waste tailings for REE/CM production to rebuild American manufacturing capacity, increase economic growth, and reduce the overall environmental footprint. Researchers and industrial partners will identify targeted REE and CM market(s), annual production quantities, demand and intermediate/end-use products, as well as identify a targeted set of critical materials used in these markets/applications and as the basis for development of proposed advanced purification, separation and reduction to metals processes.

DOE Funding: $150,000; Non-DOE Funding: $37,500; Total Value: $187,500

Extraction, Separation, and Production of High Purity Rare Earth Elements and Critical Minerals from Coal-Based and Related Resources — West Virginia University Research Corporation (Morgantown, West Virginia) and academic and industrial partners plan to leverage ongoing work of extracting REE/CM concentrates from acid mine drainage. This project will explore the processing of those concentrates into individually separated, high purity metals suitable for domestic manufacturers.

DOE Funding: $149,997; Non-DOE Funding: $37,500; Total Value: $187,497

AOI 2: Production of Critical Minerals (CM) (Excluding Rare Earth Elements or REE) from Coal-Based and Alternate Resources

Production of Germanium and Gallium Concentrates for Industrial Processes — Microbeam Technologies Incorporated (Grand Forks, North Dakota) and industrial and academic partners aim to develop a conceptual design for a process to extract, separate, recover and purify germanium (Ge) and gallium (Ga) from mixed REE concentrates. The process will be integrated into the University of North Dakota’s rare earth extraction process and designed to co-produce Ge and Ga concentrates.

DOE Funding: $149,943; Non-DOE Funding: $40,000; Total Value: $189,943