REE Program Overview - Program Mission, Objectives, and Goals

The mission of DOE-NETL’s Feasibility of Recovering Rare Earth Elements program is development of an economically competitive and sustainable domestic supply of rare earth elements (REEs) and critical materials (CMs) to assist in maintaining our Nation’s economic growth and National Security.

The objectives of the DOE-NETL Feasibility of Recovering Rare Earth Elements program are to

• Recover REEs from coal and coal by-product streams, such as run-of-mine coal, coal refuse, clay/sandstone over/under-burden materials, power generation ash, and aqueous effluents as acid mine drainage (AMD).
• Advance existing and/or develop new, second-generation or transformational extraction and separation technologies to improve process system economics, and reduce the environmental impact of the coal-based REE value chain.

Three overarching goals of the DOE-NETL Feasibility of Recovering Rare Earth Elements program are

• Develop technologies that can be economically deployed, enabling domestic supply of REEs
• Reduce the environmental impact of coal and REE production through advances in REE production from coal and coal-based resources
• Deliver advanced technologies that can be developed and manufactured within the U.S.

The ultimate goal of the DOE-NETL’s Feasibility of Recovering Rare Earth Elementsprogram is to validate the technical and economic feasibility of small, domestic, pilot-scale, prototype facilities to generate, in an environmentally benign manner, high purity 90-99 wt% (900,000-990,000 ppm), salable, rare earth element oxides (REOs) from 300 ppm coal-based resources.