Collaboration Opportunity: Efficient Adsorptive Recovery of HREEs and Critical Minerals from Coal Derivatives

Opportunity: NETL is actively seeking collaboration to advance and commercialize an innovative adsorptive method for the highly efficient recovery of Heavy Rare Earth Elements (HREEs) and other Critical Minerals (CMs) from coal and its derivatives. This groundbreaking approach integrates physical enrichment for feedstock pre-concentration, significantly enhancing overall process efficacy. Background: Traditional HREE/CM extraction from coal derivatives is often costly, energy-intensive, and chemical-laden. Existing multi-step chemical extraction operations rely on vast amounts of expensive solvents and chemicals, resulting in low recovery and impure products due to inherently low REE concentrations. The heterogeneity of coal byproducts also demands complex pre-treatment, preventing a unive