Critical Minerals and Materials

Program Goals

• Validate the technical and economic feasibility of domestic small pilot-scale facilities to produce high-purity critical minerals and materials from carbon ore and coal-based resources.

• Produce 1–3 tonnes/day of high-purity mixed rare earth oxides/salts in domestic engineering prototype facilities using coal-based and alternate resources as feedstock materials.

Prospecting

The Critical Minerals and Materials (CMM) Program portfolio consists of a diverse set of domestic feedstock materials that includes carbon ore, coal refuse, clay/shale over/under-burden, aqueous effluents as acid mine drainage (AMD), associated solids and precipitates resulting from AMD treatment, and power generation ash. Chemical analyses of these materials are publicly accessible in NETL’s CMM Energy Data eXchange (EDX) database.

Processing

Conventional and advanced extraction, separation, recovery, and purification process research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) is the underlying basis of NETL’s CMM Program.

Production

Achievements have resulted in the design, construction, and operation of three first-of-a-kind, small pilot-scale facilities producing small quantities (e.g., approximately 100 g/day) of greater than 90% (greater than 900,000 parts per million [ppm]) high-purity mixed rare earth oxides/salts from coal-based resources using conventional physical beneficiation and hydrometallurgical (chemical separation) processes.

NETL implements this effort as part of DOE’s Resource Sustainability Program.