The U.S. is investing $29.5 million in nine states in high-tech mining projects to extract, develop and repurpose domestic sources of critical minerals.

To fast-track federal research and development projects from the drawing board into private industry, the U.S. Department of Energy has awarded grants to 17 projects under development at its national laboratories.

DOE has 10 Office of Science laboratories and three other laboratories under the National Nuclear Security Administration where some of the brightest minds in the world conduct government missions through research as well as science and technology innovations.

Audrey Robertson, assistant Secretary of Energy, announced the grants Sept. 30 while predicting the projects will better position the nation’s mining and supply chain for critical minerals.

“Today’s investment is about unleashing the full innovative power of our national laboratories,” Robertson said.

The projects will be funded under DOE’s Mine of the Future Initiative. It solicited critical mineral grant proposals from all national labs in the following topics of interest: mining innovation, in-situ extraction/recovery and beneficiation of critical minerals.

States to receive the national lab grants are:

  • California—Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley), SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (Menlo Park) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore)
  • Colorado—National Laboratory of the Rockies (Golden)
  • Idaho—Idaho National Laboratory (Idaho Falls)
  • Illinois—Argonne National Laboratory (Lemont)
  • Iowa—Ames National Laboratory (Ames)
  • New Mexico—Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos) and Sandia National Laboratories (Albuquerque)
  • South Carolina—Savannah River National Laboratory (Jackson)
  • Tennessee—Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Oak Ridge)
  • Washington—Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (Richland).

For instance, Ames Lab was awarded $1.5 million to pursue its MICRO-vision project (short for Magnetoacoustic-Induced Condition of Rare-earth Ores Guided by Computer Vision).

Researchers are working on a system using sound and magnetic energy to “gently” break up ore. Afterwards pieces with minerals are sorted in real-time for processing while the remaining materials are returned for additional refining.

Tom Lograsso, Ames Lab division director of critical materials as well as its Critical Materials Innovation Hub, released a statement after the grants were awarded. He noted the lab has “unique strengths in critical materials research, mineral processing, chemical separations, and rare earth technologies. Those capabilities, along with strong partnerships across industry, universities, and the national labs, allow us to take on some of the toughest challenges facing the domestic critical minerals supply chain.”

Harvesting Minerals from Waste

Argonne received two grants. One is to rapidly recover cobalt, copper and nickel from low-grade mine tailing waste.

The other project will go towards mining via advanced rotating‑bed technology and digital modeling to extract rare earth elements from low‑grade materials. The REEs will be removed from coal ash and mine tailings “to produce high‑quality concentrates while cutting costs, chemicals, and waste in half compared with today’s methods,” according to DOE. The federal funds will help develop and test the system.

At Sandia Labs, an award was made on a project called “Zero Waste Bio and Electrochemical Processing of Mine Tailings for Critical Minerals and Structural Materials.” Researchers will use advanced “bio‑based and electrochemical techniques to pull critical minerals from mine tailings while turning leftover materials into useful construction feedstocks and safely treating the remaining waste to support future mining.”

DOE Investments to Develop Domestic Critical Minerals

This new round of federal grants is the latest in similar DOE investments to develop techniques to source domestic critical mineral supplies to deter reliance on imports.

On Sept. 9, DOE granted a total of $73 million to four projects to foster innovative mining technology testing grounds in such states as Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Virginia, Texas and West Virginia.

According to DOE, “Minerals and mining stakeholders require field sites to test innovative technologies under real-world conditions. These projects will not only develop mining proving grounds but also support R&D projects that accelerate the progression of technologies from laboratories to testing and demonstration in a field-scale setting, an essential step to de-risk commercial adoption.”