Mary Case at Idaho National Laboratory leads the CMI project "Low-temperature chemical-mediated reduction of rare earth elements"
This project investigates a low-temperature method of producing metallic rare earths. This process utilizes strong reducing agents to convert rare earth ions to metallic rare earths. This will take place in low-melting point ionic liquids as a solvent. This will result in a metallization process that will operate at 100°C - 300°C, which is lower than the current industry practice of operating at >1000°C. This technology will potentially result in a domestically produced rare earth metal.