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6 FEEDBACK In July, researchers at West Vir- ginia University (WVU) announced a new facility to capture rare earth ele- ments from an unusual source—acid mine drainage (AMD) from coal min- ing. Through a collaborative R&D pro- gram with the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), WVU is opening the Rare Earth Extraction Fa- cility to bolster domestic supplies of rare earths, reduce the environmen- tal impact of coalmining operations, cut production costs, and increase ef- ficiency for processing market-ready rare earths. STEEL PIPE ESSENTIAL TO PROGRESS Congrats on a terrific book! [“The History of Metals in America” by Charles R. Simcoe] I am enjoying it like no other metals reference I’ve ever read. Hats off to Simcoe, what a great writer he was. The historical accounts help me make better sense of the technical aspects of the busi- ness. And it’s interesting how certain RESEARCH TRACKS We welcome all comments and feedback. Send letters to frances.richards@asminternational.org. The facility is the researchers’ phase two project, worth $3.38 million, funded by NETL with matching con- tributions from WVU’s private sector partners. It follows on an earlier phase one project to study AMD as feedstock for rare earth extraction. The goal of the pilot facility is to test the technical and economic feasibility of scaling-up the technology to commercialize the sepa- ration and extraction process. Conventional rare earth recovery methods require a difficult and messy extraction process that generates large volumes of contaminated waste. Chi- na has been able to provide a low cost supply of rare earths using these meth- ods and therefore dominates the glob- al market. The conventional mining and extraction processes require mining ore from mineral deposits in rock, which is crushed into a powder, dissolved in powerful chemical solutions, and fil- tered. The process is repeated multiple times to retrieve rare earth oxides. Ad- ditional processing and refining sepa- rates the oxides from their tight bonds and further groups them into light rare earths and heavy rare earths. CAPTURING RARE EARTHS FROM ACID MINE DRAINAGE Paul Ziemkiewicz, director of the West Virginia Water Research Institute and principal investigator on the proj- ect, is an expert in AMD. He found that AMD, a byproduct of coal mining, nat- urally concentrates rare earths. Active coal mines, and in many cases state agencies, are required to treat the waste, which in turn yields solids that are enriched in rare earth elements. “Acid mine drainage from aban- doned mines is the biggest industrial pol- lution source in Appalachian streams, and it turns out that these huge vol- umes of waste are essentially prepro- cessed and serve as good rare earth feedstock,” says Ziemkiewicz. “Coal contains all of the rare earth elements, but it has a substantial amount of the heavy rare earths that are particularly valuable.” Studies show that the Appa- lachian basin could produce 800 tons of rare earth elements per year, approxi- mately the amount the defense indus- try would need. For more information, visit wvu.edu and read the in-depth rare earths article in this issue on page 26. themes repeat themselves. For exam- ple, when Bessemer steels first hit the scene, they were considered inferior to traditional wrought iron. We see similar situations today. In 1990, I actually visited Oil City, Pa., where Carnegie had one of his first companies. There were plaques in the lobbies of hotels and other buildings that had a little information on local his- tory. One of the things they described was the deforestation of the region. What I didn’t get was that Carnegie had a mill in the area, and they used char- coal to make iron. The plaques were fo- cused on Rockefeller’s first oil compa- ny. By the time I was there, the second or third-growth woods and for- ests were tall and thick. Simcoe’s book has thus far notmentioned the oil business as a big steel custom- er. Maybe it will in the pages I have yet to read. Of course, Rockefeller never would have gotten anywhere without steel pipe. Platforms could be wood, but not drill tools and pipe. Ted Reinhart From left, rare earths researchers Paul Ziemkiewicz, Chris Vass, and Xingbo Liu. Courtesy of Greg Ellis. A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | O C T O B E R 2 0 1 8