USA Rare Earth produces magnet REE oxides

USA Rare Earth produces magnet REE oxides – Metal Tech News

USA Rare Earth produces magnet REE oxides

USA Rare Earth has produced neodymium-praseodymium and dysprosium oxides at its hydrometallurgical demonstration facility in Wheat Ridge, Colorado.

Breakthrough takes company another step closer to a vertically integrated, circular rare earth supply chain.

USA Rare Earth Inc. says it has produced commercial-grade neodymium-praseodymium and dysprosium oxides from scrap generated at its rare earth magnet plant in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

The oxides were separated at the company’s hydrometallurgical demonstration facility in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, marking an early demonstration of the recycling loop USA Rare Earth plans to incorporate into its expanding mine-to-magnet network.

“This achievement marks a critical step toward delivering a global, integrated solution to de-risk supply chains for defense, semiconductors, and physical AI infrastructure,” the company stated in a July 14 announcement.

USA Rare Earth is assembling a network that includes mineral projects in Texas and Brazil, magnet manufacturing in Oklahoma, a planned magnet-and-alloy complex in South Carolina, rare earth metal and alloy production in the United Kingdom, and separation capacity in Colorado.

While each of these segments is important, the hydrometallurgical demonstration plant at Wheat Ridge is the linchpin of the overall value chain envisioned by the company.

The technology being developed there addresses one of the most complex stages of the rare earth supply chain: separating individual elements from mixed feedstocks. This is especially challenging for heavy rare earths such as dysprosium, whose separated oxide supply is overwhelmingly concentrated in China.

Wheat Ridge also provides a potential bridge between downstream metal and magnet production and multiplerap

For more on Wheat Ridge, see “USA Rare Earth demos REE separation tech.”

The latest breakthrough at Wheat Ridge is the production of both light and heavy rare earths from swarf

Swarf is the dust, shavings, and other scrap produced when neodymium-iron-boron, or NdFeB, magnets are machined and finished.

This material typically contains neodymium-praseodymium, a combination of two light rare earths fundamental to high-strength NdFeB magnets. Heavy rare earths such as dysprosium and terbium may also be added to improve heat resistance and durability in magnets used in aerospace, defense, electric vehicles, robotics, and industrial motors.

Recovering commercial-grade neodymium-praseodymium and dysprosium oxides from Stillwater swarf adds a recycling loop to USA Rare Earth’s envisioned supply chain, as well as a potential additional

“Turning that scrap back into high-purity light and heavy rare earth oxide broadens the company’s feedstock options and strengthens the circularity of its value chain, with swarf projected to support up to 30% of future magnetic rare earth oxide feedstock needs,” USA Rare Earth said.

For more on the Stillwater, see “USA Rare Earth magnet production begins.”

The company plans to ship the rare earth oxides produced at Wheat Ridge to Less Common Metals, a subsidiary in the UK, for qualification and for conversion into rare earth metals and alloys.

Those products would then serve as feedstock for USA Rare Earth’s U.S. magnet operations.

The ability to transform the swarf collected at Stillwater into light and rare earth feedstock for the magnet plant closes the production loop and clears a pathway for integrating USA Rare Earth’s other operations.

The company says campaigns are underway to process material from its Round Top rare earths project in Texas and the Pela Ema rare earth operation it is purchasing in Brazil.

For more on Serra Verde, see “USA Rare Earth goes global with $2.8B deal.”

“These campaigns are expected to produce additional varieties of rare earth and critical mineral oxides in the coming weeks, further advancing USA Rare Earth toward proven capability across every stage of the rare earth value chain: mining, separation and processing, metal and alloy making, and permanent magnet manufacturing,” the company said.

Successful conversion of the recycled oxides produced at Wheat Ridge and similar results from the ongoing campaigns could help secure the linchpin of USA Rare Earth’s expanding mines-to-magnets network.

Shane Lasley, Metal Tech News

With more than 18 years of covering mining, Shane is renowned for his insights and in-depth analysis of mining, mineral exploration, and technology metals.

• Email: [email protected]
• Phone: 907-726-1095
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/shane-lasley-ab073b12/

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