February 4, 2016 – Ensuring a reliable supply of rare earth elements, including four key lanthanides and yttrium, is a major goal of the Critical Materials Institute (https://cmi.ameslab.gov) as these elements are essential to many clean-energy technologies. These include energy-efficient lighting, electric vehicles, photovoltaic panels and wind power. Collaborating with partners of the Ames Laboratory-led CMI, Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers are using a variety of approaches, including computing, to speed processes and to identify technology gaps in the supply chain for critical materials. One of the efforts involves using froth flotation – the separation of hydrophobic mineral particles from hydrophilic ones – to concentrate rare earth minerals from various ores. Another is focused on finding better methods to recover lithium from geothermal brine. “By taking an indirect tack to diversify the supply of critical rare earth elements, we are also developing new uses for the abundant rare earth elements lanthanum and cerium,” said Bruce Moyer, a group leader in the lab’s Chemical Sciences Division. “This will improve the economics of recovering and purifying the less abundant critical rare earth elements.”
ORNL researchers are developing an idealized collector molecule that has a shape complementary to the surface atomic structure of xenotime, a rare earth yttrium-rich phosphate mineral.
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