DOE launches initiative to harvest rare earth elements from coal ash

The Department of Energy Fossil Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) is launching an initiative to harvest rare earth elements (REEs) from coal ash.

Rare earth elements have significant value as they are used in high-technology products such as catalysts, cell phones, hard drives, hybrid engines, lasers, magnets, medical devices, televisions, among others.

The United States has been importing REEs from other countries, so the development of a domestic supply from coal ash would spur economic growth.

Coal-fired power plants are major producers of coal ash, which is created when coal is burned. Many REEs are contained within this coal ash. To extract these valuable REEs, NETL is leading a pilot program in conjunction with Physical Sciences, Inc. (PSI), the University of Kentucky Center for Applied Energy Research (UK/CAER) and Winner Water Services.

PSI produced a mixed rare earth product using a micro-pilot chemical processing system. PSI’s partner UK/CAER processed its first batch of ash to serve as feed for PSI’s micro-pilot-scale chemical digestion and extraction process.

“The fine ash fraction was fed to PSI’s micro-pilot system for chemical processing,” NETL’s Charles Miller explained. “Data and knowledge gained from PSI’s micro-pilot system testing will be used by Winner Water Services to design and build a pilot-scale chemical processing system in Sharon, Pa. with capacity to handle a half ton of fine ash per day.”

The pilot-scale chemical processing will start in 2019 and be complete by March 31, 2020.