Yusuf Khan of The Wall Street Journal reports on a critical mineral discovery in South Africa.
- Rainbow Rare Earths has stumbled upon a treasure trove of rare earth minerals at two gypsum waste piles in South Africa.
- These waste piles are estimated to contain more than $1 billion worth of rare earth minerals.
- Importantly, accessing these metals will not require any digging which significantly reduces extraction costs and accelerates project timeline.
- Thus far Rainbow has produced low value rare earths (rare-earth carbonate) but has plans to process them to create magnets.
“However, Rainbow is now working with K-Tech, a Lakeland, Fla.-based chemical technology firm, on a novel approach to processing the rare earths further into more valuable rare-earth oxides. It is testing out a faster, more environmentally friendly way, known as continuous-ion chromatography, which has been used in photography. Bennett hopes to start producing rare-earth oxides with K-Tech on a trial basis by the end of March.”
Read the full article here.
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