May 4 2021
Texas Mineral Resources Corp. (TMRC), an exploration company targeting the heavy rare earths and a variety of other high-value critical elements and industrial minerals, is pleased to announce that the Department of Energy’s (DoE) National Energy Technical Laboratory (“NETL”) has selected a consortium led by the Pennsylvania State University, which includes Texas Mineral Resources, for an award targeting critical mineral recoveries from waste streams.
The grant, “Carbon Ore, Rare Earths and Critical Minerals (CORE-CM) Initiative for U.S. Basins,” will assess and catalog Northern Appalachian Basin rare earth elements and critical minerals resources and waste streams, develop strategies to recover minerals from these streams, and assess the infrastructure, industries and businesses in the Northern Appalachian Basin to determine supply chain gaps.
“We are honored to be selected as a consortium member by the Pennsylvania State University to assist in studying the potential of the Northern Appalachian region to supply critical minerals,” commented Anthony Marchese, TMRC chairman. “We believe the technological strength and experience of the consortium will go a long way toward a positive result from this project. Creating value from waste is an environmental goal shared by all citizens, especially when considering the strategic nature of the minerals potentially located in the northern Appalachian region. The consortium is fully committed to work with local companies, capital sources and public officials in order to create potentially meaningful economic opportunity for an industry and region which for too long has been in a period of decline.”
This is the fifth U.S. Government award relating to the production of rare earth and critical minerals in which Texas Mineral Resources has participated. In 2016, TMRC successfully completed a demonstration-of-concept project funded by the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Strategic Materials Division to separate and refine specific high-purity rare earth elements, using a continuous ion exchange (CIX) and continuous ion chromatography (CIC) processing method. In 2019, a consortium including Texas Mineral Resources successfully completed a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy grant to produce multiple separated rare earth minerals from Pennsylvania coal mining waste material. The CIX/CIC method used in both U.S. Government grants is the method being used to process rare earths and additional U.S. Government-listed Critical Minerals from the Round Top (TX) project, being developed by TMRC’s funding and development partner, USA Rare Earth, LLC. The new DoE award marks the third grant from the National Energy Technical Laboratory in which TMRC will participate, including a NETL grant to continue work targeting production of mixed rare earth oxides from coal waste awarded last month.