Critical Mineral Recovery Technologies from Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Date: Thursday, May 21, 2026
Time: 2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT
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Join us for a National Lab Discovery Series webinar featuring a portfolio of technologies from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) focused on critical mineral recovery and separation.
These innovations create new opportunities for U.S. industry to secure reliable, domestic sources of materials essential to electronics, defense, and advanced manufacturing. By enabling the recovery of valuable materials from waste streams and underutilized resources, they open additional pathways to strengthen supply chains, improve efficiency, and reduce environmental impact.
About the Technologies
This session will highlight a range of approaches to critical mineral recovery and separation across different stages of processing:
- Recovery of Rare Earths, Uranium, Gypsum, and Phosphoric Acid from Phosphate Mining Process and Waste Streams
Enables extraction of rare earth elements, uranium, and high-purity gypsum while increasing usable phosphoric acid output. This approach converts existing process waste into multiple saleable products and improves overall material efficiency. - A Novel Method for High Purity Rare Earth Elements Separation from Mining Tailing Feedstocks
A scalable, efficient method that uses selective dissolution and membrane-based separation to produce high-purity rare earth elements from complex feedstocks. - Selective Leaching of Rare Earth Elements by Polyaminocarboxylate Chelators
Uses polyaminocarboxylate chelators to selectively extract high-value rare earth elements from mining waste and other feedstocks, improving separation efficiency at the earliest stage of processing.
From Lab to Market
ORNL has licensed technologies in the critical minerals space to private-sector partners. For example, a portfolio of lithium recovery technologies has been licensed to Element3, a Texas-based company focused on extracting lithium from oilfield wastewater.
Element3 recently opened a facility in the Permian Basin to produce lithium from oilfield wastewater, reflecting broader momentum in applying these types of approaches to real-world systems.
What You’ll Learn:
- How new recovery and separation technologies can unlock critical minerals from waste streams and tailings
- How different approaches to recovery and separation can improve yield, reduce waste, and increase material value
- How these approaches support domestic production of rare earth elements and other strategic materials
- How companies can evaluate and explore licensing opportunities
- Live Q&A with the ORNL research and technology transfer teams
Who Should Join:
- R&D directors and technical leaders in mining, materials, and chemical processing
- Companies focused on critical minerals, rare earths, and resource recovery
- Advanced manufacturing and technology developers reliant on secure material supply
- Business development and strategy teams exploring new resource streams
- Technology scouts and IP professionals interested in licensing opportunities
ORNL is actively seeking partners to explore licensing and/or partnerships opportunities for these technologies.
Featured Speaker: Parans Paranthaman
Dr. Parans Paranthaman is a Corporate Fellow in the Chemical Sciences Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Paranthaman is also a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, and fellows of Materials Research Society, AAAS, American Physical Society, American Ceramic Society, ASM International and the Institute of Physics, London, UK. He earned his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Solid-State Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow with 2019 Chemistry Nobel prize winner Professor John Goodenough at the University of Texas, Austin and a Research Associate with Professor Allen Hermann at University of Colorado, Boulder. He joined the Chemistry Department at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in May 1993. He has authored or co-authored more than 480 journal publications with > 27,587 citations and an “h-index” of 83 and a total of >100 inventions including 65 issued U.S. Patents related to his research. He has licensed his technologies to over ten industries for commercialization. His present research focuses on the Recovery of Platinum Group Metals from Minerals, Recovery of Graphite, Rare Earths, Gallium and Germanium from Minerals and Mine Tailings, Additive Manufacturing of Rare Earth Bonded Permanent Magnets, Lithium Separation From Geothermal Brine, Produced Water and Mine Tailings, and Development of Electrode Materials for Energy Storage Applications.
Parans Paranthaman Links: