US based company, Southern Research is using $1 million in federal funding to develop and test a method to extract valuable rare earth elements (REEs) from coal fly ash, the minuscule waste particles captured by anti-pollution devices in coal-fired power plants.

The research is focusing on the development of a plasma-based process to recover these strategically important elements from post-combustion ash originating from bituminous coal mined in the Eastern U.S. The scientists will carry out testing to evaluate two concepts for recovering REEs from coal fly ash utilizing a plasma-arc technology. The first concept involves a smelting process and the second includes element volatilization and sequential condensation.

the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in December 2015 awarded the Birmingham-based organization $1 million in Phase 1 funding for the project. Nearly $300,000 in funding from other public and private sources complements the NETL support.  Read more...