Biden-Harris Administration Invests Over $17 Million To Build Domestic Supply Chain for Critical Minerals and Materials
Summary
The projects, funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, will help meet the growing demand for critical minerals and materials in the United States, while reducing our reliance on foreign supply chains. Rare earths and other critical minerals and materials are key to our nations defense and to U.S. manufacturing of clean energy technologiessuch as solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, and hydrogen fuel cells to advance President Bidens historic climate agenda.Imagine that: turning the byproducts from coal into a domestic source for the critical minerals needed for clean energy technologies. DOE seeks to tap these secondary and unconventional resources to help build a domestic supply chain critical to the U.S. economy, clean energy, and national security.Advanced Processing of Rare Earth Elements and Critical Minerals for Industrial and Manufacturing ApplicationsFour projects were selected for negotiation to conduct advanced laboratory and bench-scale testing to improve the economic viability of rare earth element and critical minerals and materials separation and refining technologies, which also have the potential to help remediate legacy mining and energy wastes, even as they enable the recovery of urgently needed domestic minerals and the rebuilding of secure U.S. supply chains. The projects will use secondary and unconventional coal-based resources to produce rare earths and critical minerals and materials for use in clean energy, national defense, and/or commercial commodity products and equipment: University of Kentucky Research Foundation (Lexington, Kentucky) plans to conduct pilot-scale testing to obtain aqueous solutions rich in mixed rare earth elements and critical minerals and materials. Microbeam Technologies Incorporated (Grand Forks, North Dakota) will use a bench-scale system to demonstrate the ability to extract and produce high purity gallium and germanium from a lignite-derived, mixed rare earth element concentrate obtained from selected gallium and germanium-rich lignite carbon ore.Processing acid mine drainage fluids not only recovers valuable rare earths and critical minerals, but also returns environmentally impacted areas to healthy thriving ecosystems for humans, vegetation, and aquatic life, while processing of lignite or bituminous coal waste by-products generates value-added critical materials from our naturally occurring domestic resources.DOEs National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), under the purview of DOEs Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM), will manage the selected projects.