BEATRICE, Neb.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Rare Earth Salts Separations & Refining LLC, a leading U.S.-based rare earth separation company, today announced the production and sales to domestic and international offtake partners of high-purity Terbium (Tb) and Yttrium (Y) from domestic recycled feedstock. This is the first fully domestic U.S. supply chain for heavy rare earth oxides, reflecting a company philosophy of “waste to value” creation.
Rare Earth Salts is also producing cerium (Ce), europium (Eu) and lanthanum (La) from the recycled feedstock.
Terbium, a scarce heavy element, plays a critical role in national security, energy independence and the environmental future. Terbium is essential in manufacturing rare earth permanent magnets, which are necessary for high-performance military applications, automotive drivetrains, compact motors, wind turbines and more.
“We are proud to provide vital solutions to ensure a resilient domestic supply chain of strategic components essential to the United States and its allies' security and economic prosperity”, said Aaron Dowd, CEO at Rare Earth Salts.
Currently, there is no other terbium produced commercially outside of Asia, resulting in a direct need for a resilient domestic supply chain of this heavy rare earth element.
“The need for securing both domestically sourced rare earth elements and domestic rare earth element processing infrastructure is critical,” said Dr. Joseph Brewer, Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Rare Earth Salts. “In an industry that has not seen viable refining innovation in more than three-quarters of a century, we are proud of our proprietary, cost-effective and environmentally friendly way for the separation of rare earth elements.”
Rare Earth Salts is the only commercially scaled NON-Solvent Extraction (SX) heavy rare earth element separation company in the world.
Rare Earth Salts’ patented processes’ capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operating expense (OPEX) are highly cost-competitive versus traditional rare earth separation and refining. Rare Earth Salts’ processing time from concentrate to first finished products is days with very limited separation steps versus hundreds with solvent extraction.
Rare Earth Salts has developed industry-changing commercial processes to produce three of the “BIG 4” most critical rare earth oxides: neodymium, praseodymium and terbium. In addition to its terbium and yttrium production, Rare Earth Salts recently produced hundreds of kilograms of high-purity NdPr from light rare earth concentrate feedstock. Rare Earth Salts also previously produced many metric tons of high-purity lanthanum.
Rare Earth Salts has worked closely with the U.S. government, including the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy, to provide separation solutions.
About Rare Earth Salts
Rare Earth Salts was founded by Dr. Joseph Brewer to address the global need for a cost-effective, sustainable and environmentally friendly rare earth element separation process. Rare Earth Salts has developed patented technologies for the separation and refining of rare earth elements to high purity from various feedstocks worldwide, including both ore-based and recycled material. Rare Earth Salts' 50,000-square-foot headquarters, commercial demonstration plant, laboratory, and research & development facility are in Nebraska, the heartland of America. Rare Earth Salts Separations & Refining LLC is a privately held limited liability company.
