The U.S. Department of Energy revealed on Tuesday that it has chosen two projects in Louisiana and Oklahoma to receive $134 million in funding for extracting rare earth elements from waste materials.
Approximately $67 million of this funding is designated for a facility in Louisiana, led by the Colorado School of Mines and ElementUSA, which will focus on extracting and refining rare earth elements from bauxite residue.
This facility is anticipated to conduct commercial-scale process testing and produce between 150 and 1,000 tons of rare earth elements annually from tailings.
The Department of Energy also selected a project by Phoenix Tailings, in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to build a demonstration plant in Oklahoma. This plant will convert industrial waste into high-purity rare earth metals, establishing a new domestic supply chain route.
In May of this year, the Department of Energy selected rare earth magnet producer USA Rare Earth for a pilot project, providing up to $19.3 million in funding for a rare earth processing pilot aimed at bolstering the domestic supply chain.
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