Texas Mineral Resources Corp. (TMRC), an exploration company targetting the heavy rare earths and a variety of other high-value elements and industrial minerals, has announced that a consortium assembled by Texas Mineral Resources successfully demonstrated the ability to produce multiple high-purity and separated rare earth minerals from Pennsylvania coal mining waste material. Minerals were purified to a 99.0% level, made available for Meeting participant inspection, and included scandium (Sc), dysprosium (Dy), neodymium (Nd), cerium (Ce) and lanthanum (La).
Phase One results were reported at the Department of Energy’s 2019 Annual Project Review Meeting for Crosscutting Research, Rare Earth Elements, Gasification Systems and Transformative Power Generation, held on 9 April 2019 in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania). A copy of the consortium Department of Energy (DoE) presentation may be found here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hikvgpswnamf54l/DOE%20presentation%204-9-19%20final%20with%20no%20movie.pptx?dl=0
The Texas Mineral Resources consortium objective is to ultimately install a self-contained, modular and portable continuous ion exchange/continuous ion chromatography (CIX/CIC) pilot plant at a selected Pennsylvania site, and to determine the economic viability of profitably producing rare earth minerals as well as saleable industrial mineral byproducts recovered from coal waste material from Pennsylvania anthracite coal.
“We are pleased to share the accomplishments of our consortium with both the Department of Energy and our shareholders,” said Anthony Marchese, TMRC Chairman.
“Our consortium has applied for a DoE Phase Two US$20 million grant whose purpose would be to demonstrate the ability to scale up our production of material with the creation of a pilot plant. We strongly believe in the potential to profitably produce rare earth minerals as well as saleable industrial mineral byproducts from Pennsylvania anthracite coal waste. Creating value from waste is an environmental goal shared by all citizens, especially when considering the strategic nature of the minerals proposed to be produced. We are fully committed to work with local companies, capital sources and public officials in order to create potentially meaningful economic opportunity for an industry and region that for too long has been in a period of decline. DoE Secretary Rick Perry, who visited the consortium’s Pennsylvania project site in September 2017, has committed to aiding the coal industry and at TMRC we are doing our part in an effort which potentially creates a win-win for shareholders, the region and the United States.”
TMRC’s second successful US government grant
This is the second US Government award relating to the production of rare earth minerals in which Texas Mineral Resources has recently participated. In September 2015, the US Department of Defense, through the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), awarded the company a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) research contract. In July 2016, TMRC announced it had successfully completed a demonstration-of-concept project to separate and refine specific high-purity rare earth elements for the United States Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Strategic Materials Division in conjunction with its joint venture partner K-Technologies, Inc. (K-Tech). In the bench-scale demonstration, Texas Mineral Resources Corp. and K-Tech successfully separated specified high-value rare earths to between 99.996 and 99.999% purity, using static column systems designed to provide the general design concepts for ultimate use of continuous ion exchange (CIX) and continuous ion chromatography (CIC) systems at larger scales.