MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — A new initiative and startup that aims to play a role in increasing the supply of critical rare earth minerals to support infrastructure in the United States has been officially launched at West Virginia University.
WVU Vice Provost Mark Gavin announced on WAJR’s Talk of the Town on Friday that the university has established the Rare Earth Elements Initiative as part of an effort to expand on research focused on extracting rare earths and critical minerals from unconventional sources such as acid mine drainage, electronic waste, and industrial byproducts.
This coincides with the launch of the startup Mission Critical Materials that aims to commercialize and expand on extraction technology established by WVU with the help of over ten years of research.
“It’s to assist our core mission of looking at water quality and really to kind of jump on and expand and accelerate our capacity at the university that contributes to the rare earth element space,” said Gavin. “So, we’ve set up a new initiative recently that really concentrates on that specific purpose.”
According to Gavin, the initiative consists of around 15 researchers that will apply Acid Mine Drainage Rare Earth Element (AMDREE) technology that has been established at the A34 AMDREE Processing Facility in Mount Storm.
Using technology that allows for water polluted by AMD to be filtered to extract rare earth elements such as yttrium, terbium, and dysprosium, the process will now expand to extracting elements via enriched concentrates from hard rock that are used in smartphones and missile defense systems.
“Not just looking at where we were originally with acid mine drainage as a critical source,” said Gavin. “We’ve got a good dozen, 15 researchers at the university working in this space that are also looking at different things other than AMD or acid mine drainage that can also produce rare earth elements.”
The AMDREE technology is the result of research that was originally conducted through the West Virginia Water Research Institute starting back in 2016. Once it was found that the process could be applied towards work in the Mountain State, WVU collaborated with the State Department of Environmental Protection to establish the Mount Storm facility in 2023.
Collaborations that have allowed WVU officials to feel confident that the process can strongly contribute to the commercial space.
“Certainly, Dr. Zemkiewicz and the Water Research Institute that he has led at WVU were instrumental and leading figures in generating those rare earth elements out of the acid mine drainage we saw,” said Gavin.
According to Gavin, WVU researchers have already begun to use the same AMDREE process to produce rare earth-enriched concentrates from hard rock in other parts of the country.
This includes the extraction of minerals from the Horseshoe Bend site in Montana, which have shown to be able to be used from one mountain range to another without new mining or new environmental disturbance.
With elements used for wind turbines and electric vehicles extracted as part of the process, Gavin feels the opportunity is there for the WVU AMDREE process to be profitable.
“We’re inventorying, and that is sitting there ready on the ground for us to begin extracting, and we’ve already been able to do so,” said Gavin. “So, this has moved well beyond a lab experiment, this is commercially viable now, and that’s what we’re seeking to really do right now at the university.”