Critical Materials Innovation Hub Research Highlights

Mines graduate research in biogeochemistry

Olivia Salmon earned master of science degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Mines, December 2020. Thesis: “Impacts of Rare Earth Elements on Biological Wastewater Treatment Processes”

Continuous bioreactors inoculated with sludge from Denver’s Metro Wastewater Reclamation District.

Chinese policies toward rare earths, 1975-2018

Review of original Chinese documents, along with contemporaneous assessments of global rare earth markets and overall Chinese industrial policies

Optimizing the economic performance of CMI technologies

Paper “Applying Design of Experiments to Evaluate Market Opportunity for Bioleaching Rare-Earth Elements from Waste Materials” for CIRP Life Cycle Engineering Conference

Electrochemical leaching of cobalt and lithium from nickel-rich battery sources

To recycle batteries, CMI created a way that consumes electricity instead of chemicals to transform crushed batteries to a concentrated mixture well suited to separation into materials for new batteries. This method is flexible, and efficient. It can be used with different types of batteries, and pulls out more than 97 percent of the lithium, cobalt, copper, manganese, iron and nickel.

Discovery of the large coercivity CeCo5 – CeZn5 system

CMI researchers discover the large coercivity CeCo5 – CeZn5 system

Development of a new rare earth-free permanent magnet based on Sb-doped Fe3Sn

CMI research on development of a new rare earth-free permanent magnet based on Sb-doped Fe3Sn

Optimizing acid-free dissolution process for e-wastes

CMI research at Ames Laboratory created an acid-free dissolution process for e-wastes, which is being optimized

Image of some parts of shredded hard disk drives after acid-free dissolution reaction

Separation and recovery of dysprosium using membrane solvent extraction process (MSX)

CMI research on separation and recovery of dysprosium using membrane solvent extraction process (MSX)

Diagram of membrane solvent extraction separation and recovery process

Predicting mechanical performance of Sm-Co magnets

CMI research predicts mechanical performance of Sm-Co magnets

Electromagnet core design enable printed anisotropic magnets

CMI research at Ames Laboratory and ORNL on electromagnet core design enable printed anisotropic magnets

Model of magnetic flux distribution within core and nozzle