“The proof of concept and process technical feasibility have already been established, and this is a perfect time to scale up some of the operations,” said Dr. Pisupati. “We have developed novel extraction technologies that have shown such promise to build a small demonstration facility to integrate all the components and show potential investors that this can work to attract private venture capital funding.
“By doing it at a laboratory scale, it's not going to convince people. So we need a demonstration facility that people can walk in and actually see and say, yes, I can see streams coming out,” he added.
Dr. Pisupati said because the United States does not have primary sources of rare minerals we’ve had to import them or the products made from them.
“China is responsible for more than 80% of the rare imports actually in 2019. According to the International Energy Agency, China also produces about 63% of the world's output of rare earth elements and 45% of molybdenum.
“More than 70% of the cobalt is mined in Democratic Republic of Congo and processed in China with China having majority ownership in these minds. Australia produces 55% of all lithium and China as its major importer because they use it in the products which we import.”
“The main challenges actually faced by the United States is not the knowledge actually, but there is no commercial rare earth separation plant in the United States.”
“Since the United States primary oil reserves are only 1% of the world's, we need to explore secondary resources, including industry byproducts, such as coal mining waste, drainage from abandoned coal mines, refuse piles, fly ash from coal burning power plants.”
“Pennsylvania is rich in these resources. Locked inside these wastes are significant quantities of rare earth elements and other critical minerals.”
Abandoned Mine Drainage
“Abandoned mine drainage is one of the largest sources of stream impairment in Pennsylvania. Billions of gallons of AMD basically flow [into] 5,500 miles of streams in the Commonwealth, according to Pennsylvania DEP.
“So how can we solve this environmental problem and at the same time overcome the import reliance for these critical minerals?
“Pennsylvania is rich in secondary sources, that is byproducts of another operation.
“Because this is a secondary product, we must treat the drainage before releasing it to the environment to meet the environmental regulations for discharging the water.
“By modifying the existing treatment processes, we can address multiple problems, getting the material we need for national security and remediating long standing environmental problems at the same time.
“If we do it right, we can create jobs and an economic boost for the communities coal has left behind.
“Penn State is a leader in the remediation of these sites and extraction of valuable minerals from these sources.
“This is a multidisciplinary problem that involves mining mineral processing material science and engineering and metallurgy, chemistry, chemical engineering, and also mineral economics.
“Finally, it has to be economical for us to produce these things. Our team has worked diligently and developed a patent pending three stage process.
“In this process, by gradually changing acidity and adding less harmful and less expensive chemicals than those currently used, we can recover 90% of the cobalt in manganese at a higher grade than commercial or grades today.
“We have also recovered over 85% of the rare earth element oxide at basically a grade or purity. When I say grade, it is purity of over 88%.
“The preliminary estimate is that we have 60 metric tons of cobalt and 5,500 metric tons of manganese being discharged with acid mine drainage into Commonwealth waters every year.
“When we are treating water, we only treat just to meet the standards. That level of treatment is not going to take everything out, so we are leaving it into the water.
“The developed process also works with lithium rich mercer clay to pull out over 90% of lithium from the feedstock.”
Coal Refuse
“In another study, we found again from estimated coal refuse in Pennsylvania contains about 52,000 metric tons of cobalt.
“Over half a million metric tons of manganese are contained in these accumulations. So Pennsylvania has significant, secondary critical mineral resources.
Graphite
“Penn State has developed a power and minerals industrial stakeholders group, which consists of 40 industries from the entire supply chain of these critical minerals.
“Another critical mineral for energy storage for batteries is graphite. It's carbon.
“For heaven's sake, we are sitting in carbon country, carbon in a basically state here. It's called rich state carbon source.
“Ironically, we import 100% natural graphite.
“St. Mary's, Pennsylvania is a carbon manufacturing hub in the United States. With the availability of domestic carbon sources from coal, there is an opportunity to develop synthetic graphite producing capabilities in Pennsylvania based on Pennsylvania resources.
“Penn State is working with Pantera Energy, holder of West Virginia University patented technology to install a pilot scale plant to produce synthetic pitch made from domestic coal.
“And this pitch is produced and being graphitized here at Penn State and its properties, we have evaluated them.
“This graphite produced from syn pitch, from domestic coal is proving to be much superior than the graphite that we can buy from a commercial pitch.”
Jumpstart The Industry
“Currently, technology can jumpstart this development of this industry and research and development work is beginning to identify greener processes for the extraction and separation of these elements from waste materials.
“The need is urgent and you will witness this afternoon, through visits of our labs, that Penn State is ready and able to help from the characterization of resources for the technology development to help the industry to commercialize the processes.”
Click Here for a copy of Dr. Pisupati’s testimony.
Two other witnesses presented testimony at the hearing: Anthony Marchese, Texas Mineral Resources Corp., and Alan Larson, Larson Enterprises.
Click Here for a video of the hearing.
Additional Background
Rare earth minerals are critical to the refining of petroleum products and the manufacture of all sorts of electronic components for clean energy, batteries, aerospace, automotive and defense industries.
The House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee held a hearing January 10 of this year on the “benefits and challenges related to extracting and utilizing rare earth minerals found within Pennsylvania” that provided a factual background on this issue. (See resource links below.)
Surprisingly, 75 percent of rare earth minerals are used as oil refining catalysts and to make catalytic converters for vehicles, according to DCNR’s Bureau of Geologic Survey.
Only about 6 percent are used in alloys for batteries, fuel cells, LED and LCD, flat panel displays and screens and steelmaking, but the clean energy-related segment is growing.
On April 6, the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee reported out Senate Resolution 229 (Dush-R-Jefferson, Yudichak-I-Luzerne, Flynn-D-Lackawanna) calling for a study of the potential for critical and rare earth minerals in Pennsylvania.
The resolution sat on the Senate Calendar since then and was Tabled June 13 due to lack of action.
Penn State University has been doing important research into rare earth minerals in abandoned mine drainage, coal and other sources and established a Center for Critical Minerals in 2019 to help guide this research.
The U.S. Department of Energy and its National Energy Technology Laboratory in Pittsburgh have similar efforts underway and have been awarding grants to support these initiatives at Penn State and around the country.
Groups like the Eastern PA Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation have been attempting to highlight the economic potential and environmental benefits of rare earth minerals for some time, in particular to support mine drainage treatment efforts. Read more here.
Resource Links:
-- House Environmental Resources & Energy Committee hearing on rare earth minerals January 10, 2022 - Video of Hearing + Transcript of Hearing
-- Testimony from House Hearing:
-- Dr. Gale Blackmer, Director, DCNR Bureau of Geological Survey - Presentation
-- Dr. Sarma Pisupati, Director, Penn State’s Center for Critical Minerals
-- Dr. Pete Rozelle, Advisor, Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences
-- Anthony Marchese, Texas Mineral Resources, partnership with Penn State - Presentation
NewsClips:
-- The Center Square - Anthony Hennen: Reclaiming Rare Earth Elements Could Clean Up PA Acid Mine Drainage
-- Courier Times Guest Essay: Rare Earth Metal Push Will Hurt Environment, Indigenous People - Bucks Environmental Action
Related Article This Week:
-- U.S. DOE Invites Comments On Implementing A Rare Earth & Critical Materials Research, Development, Demonstration & Commercialization Program [PaEN]
Related Articles:
-- Senate Committee Reports Out Rare Earth Minerals Resolution; Bill Redirecting Coal Mining Penalties [2022]
-- New Sensor Can Detect Valuable Rare Earth Elements In Mine Drainage, Other Non-Traditional Sources [2021]
-- New Acid Mine Drainage Treatment Turns Waste Into Valuable Rare Earth Minerals [2020]
-- DOE Grant To Penn State Continues Research Into Rare-Earth Elements Extraction From Coal [2017]
-- Kleinman Center For Energy Policy: Rare Earth Elements - A Rare Opportunity For Pennsylvania - By John Quigley, Fmr DEP/DCNR Secretary [2017]
-- Study Will Determine Amount Of Rare Earth Elements In Coal Mining Waste [2016]
-- Penn State: Extracting Rare Earth Elements From Coal Could Soon Be Economical In U.S. [2016]
[Posted: August 9, 2022] PA Environment Digest
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