Ihor Hlova at Ames National Laboratory leads the CMI project "Deployable rare earth metallization (DREM) methods"
Creating deployable rare earth metallization (DREM) methods is one of the critical needs for reintroducing onshore manufacturing of rare-earth metals from Mountain Pass bastnäsite and other domestic resources. The goal of this project is to address that need by standing up advanced methods for conversion of certain intermediates produced during rare-earth element separation operations and other common rare-earth salts into rare-earth metals that can be deployed in the United States in five years. We achieve this goal by focusing on reduction of rare-earth salts using gaseous hydrogen.