The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded Element USA and Colorado School of Mines $67 million in funding to design, construct, commission and operate a rare earth element (REE) facility. The facility will be capable of separating REEs from mine tailings or other waste streams as well as refining the resulting oxides into rare earth metals. It will be located in Gramercy, Louisiana.
The facility will be operated by Element USA and will be capable of supplying between 150 and 1,000 metric tons per annum (tpa) of REEs. The target rare earth elements include dysprosium, terbium, yttrium, gadolinium, neodymium, praseodymium, samarium and lanthanum.
The company is also currently developing a demonstration plant in Gramercy for the extraction of gallium and scandium, with $29.9 million in funding from the U.S. Department of War.
Ellis Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer of Element USA, said, “This project represents a significant step toward establishing a new domestic source of critical minerals and rare earth elements essential to advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, energy systems and national security.”
“Beyond gallium and scandium, this program advances the recovery of a uniquely valuable mixed rare earth oxide basket with strong heavy rare earth and yttrium content.”
He further stated that by “combining Colorado School of Mines’ world-class expertise with Element USA’s commercial development platform, we are advancing a practical pathway to recover strategic materials from bauxite residue at commercial scale while strengthening America’s critical mineral supply chains and transforming an underutilized industrial waste stream into a nationally strategic resource.”
What ElementUSA Is Working On
ElementUSA was founded in 2021. It specializes in waste-to-market solutions and innovative midstream processing infrastructure to recover minerals from both primary and secondary sources.
The company’s integrated hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical process is engineered to co-produce pig iron and recover critical metals and rare earth elements. These include scandium, gallium, germanium, yttrium, neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, terbium, gadolinium, titanium, vanadium, niobium and tantalum.
ElementUSA holds exclusive rights to the bauxite residue (alumina tailings impoundments) at the Atalco alumina refinery in Gramercy, Louisiana. These alumina tailings contain more than 30 million tons of red mud residual materials from the alumina refining process. The residual materials have a high polymetallic composition and contain high concentrations (more than 95%) of iron, rare earths and critical minerals.
The polymetallic composition enables co-production capability. This can potentially provide competitive advantages when compared to single-commodity mining projects due to lower production costs, diversified revenue streams and improved resilience to volatile pricing environments. According to the company, scaling this single resource can potentially produce 45–385% of U.S. annual demand for critical minerals.
ElementUSA has plans to build a full-scale commercial facility targeting approximately 1 million tpa feed capacity. The estimated capital expenditure for this facility is approximately $1.1 billion.
ElementUSA And Colorado School Of Mines Collaboration
ElementUSA’s Critical Resource Accelerator (CRA) is the company’s integrated lab-to-pilot hub for process validation, product qualification and scale-up. CRA is located in Cedar Park, Texas. It collaborates closely with Colorado School of Mines on technical validation, mineral characterization, development and scale-up studies.
Source:
Interesting Engineering