Bipartisan Infrastructure Law - BIL - Development of a Strategic Materials Production System for Rare Earth Metals, Graphite and Other Critical Mater - CAER Graphite SOW

The primary objective of the project is to develop and test process technologies and circuits for the production of rare earth metals, graphite and other critical elements from a bituminous coal source that is known for its elevated concentrations of critical elements. Individual rare earth oxide (REO) products of Dy, Nd, Y, Pr, and Gd at a minimum purity of 90% will be targeted along with the production of their corresponding metal products at a minimum purity of 99.5%. In addition, the project will evaluate and demonstrate the ability to produce oxide products of critical minerals (CM) including Co, Ni, Mn, and Li at a minimum purity of 90%. The carbon material in the feedstock will be upgraded by reducing the ash content to a maximum of 5% and subsequently processed to generate high purity (> 99.95 wt.%) graphite suitable for Li ion battery anodes. New processes will be installed and tested in a pilot plant to reduce the cost of REO mix and CM production by 20%. The new technologies include ion exchange columns for Fe and Al removal prior to recovering and concentrating the rare earth elements and CMs using an innovative process called microbubble-assisted solvent extraction. Another novel technology referred to as solvent-assisted chromatography will be developed at tested at bench-scale for producing individual REEs of high purity. Once purified, the individual REOs will by converted to metal by plasma distillation at bench-scale. The data obtained from the pilot plant and bench-scale test program will be used to perform a technoeconomic study on each circuit and overall system based on scaling to a commercial system capable of generating 1 – 3 tonnes daily of high purity REOs as feedstock to the purification circuit. Project success will advance the technology readiness level of the entire system from 2 to 4.