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Recovering Rare Earth Elements from Coal and its Byproducts Adapted from Information from the U.S. Department of Energy The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced four projects selected to move on to a second phase of research to explore the recovery of rare earth elements (REE) from coal and coal by-products. The agency plans to invest $17.4 million to develop and test different recovery systems. REEs are chemical elements found in the earth’s crust. These elements are essential for the components of electronics, computer and commu- nication systems, transportation, health care, and national defense. Recently, demand for these ele- ments has increased significantly. It is for this rea- son, the search for developing economically feasible approaches for domestic REE recovery have become a priority. The four projects selected will further the goals of the agency’s REE program by focusing on the development of cost-effective and environmentally benign approaches for its recov- ery. The selected projects fall under two specific areas of interest. The first of which is bench-scale technology to economically separate, extract, and concentrate mixed REEs from coal and its by- products, including aqueous effluents, followed by pilot-scale technology. The following two bench-scale projects were selected under area of interest 1: ; The University of North Dakota Institute for Energy Studies will use North Dakota subbituminous lignite coal and coal- related material as feedstock to test their REE recovery system. In addition to producing REEs, the team plans to recover other material from the lignite feedstock to produce one or more value-added products. ; West virginia University Research Corporation will use acid mine drainage solids as a feedstock for recovery of REEs and other useful materials. The solids are from Northern Appalachian and Central Appalachian bituminous coal seams in West virginia. Two pilot scale-projects were selected under area of interest 2: ; Physical Sciences, Inc. will use coal fly ash physically processed near Trapp, Kentucky, as its source. Fly ash is a by-product of burning bituminous coal in a power plant boiler. The select portion will be shipped to a Pennsylvania location for subsequent processing to create the final REE product. Researchers also plan to evaluate recovery of other useful materials from fly ash. ; The Uni vers i ty of Kentucky Research Foundation will use two sources of coal preparation (coal washing) by-product for recovery of REEs. The team will also recover dry, fine coal from the material. The first location for installation and test- ing of the pilot plant will be at a coal preparation plant in Perry County, Kentucky, which processes bitumi- nous coal while the second location will be at a coal preparation plant which processes Illinois Basin bitu- minous coal near Nebo, Kentucky. MIN 51 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® MAY 2018