- Ucore Rare Metals (UCU) provided an update on its rare earth element (REE) separation technology and its commercial strategic metals complex technology deployment process
- The work is taking place at the companies’ laboratory partner’s Kingston Process Metallurgy Inc. (KPM) facility in Kingston, Ontario, with its wholly-owned subsidiary, Innovation Metals Corp.
- The final engineered layout of the demo plant takes up nearly all of the 464 square metre Commercialization and Demonstration Facility (CDF) at KPM
- Ucore Rare Metals Inc. (UCU) is up 2.86 per cent, trading at $0.72 per share as of 10:20 am ET
Ucore (UCU) updated its rare earth element (REE) separation technology and its commercial strategic metals complex technology deployment process.
The work is taking place at the companies’ laboratory partner’s Kingston Process Metallurgy Inc. (KPM) facility in Kingston, Ontario, with its wholly-owned subsidiary, Innovation Metals Corp.
The final engineered layout of the demo plant takes up nearly all of the 464 square metre Commercialization and Demonstration Facility (CDF) at KPM.
The concept of building a plant within an existing building is the go-forward transition template for the engineering process that the team will replicate to create the first full-scale Strategic Metals Complex (SMC) once the brownfield site selection is finalized. This initial SMC is scheduled to produce 2,000 tonnes of total rare earth oxides by the end of 2024 and 5,000 tonnes by 2026.
Ucore’s VP and COO, Mike Schrider, P.E., stated that the CDF Team, along with the rest of the world, is facing extraordinary supply chain challenges regarding equipment and component availability. In the face of this challenge, the team has managed to procure the initial feedstocks and virtually all the required major equipment and components. He added that the demo plant remains on track for a late 2022 commencement of the commissioning process.
“This process will demonstrate the unprecedented North American separation of tonnes of both heavy and light rare earth elements. It will then continue with end-user qualification trials throughout 2023 for Western entities seeking diversified and sustainable metallic supply chains as Ucore transitions to full-scale commercial mode with the construction of our first SMC.”
The RapidSX separation technology platform combines the chemistry of conventional solvent extraction with a new column-based platform, which can reduce the time to completion and plant footprint.
Ucore’s REE separation demo plant is designed to:
- Process tens of tonnes of mixed rare earth concentrate on a per annum basis from a wide variety of heavy and light REE feedstocks
- Process all RapidSX splits required to produce individual praseodymium, neodymium, terbium, and dysprosium
- Have a parallel 51-stage conventional solvent extraction mixer/settler circuit to match the RapidSX process’ configuration
Ucore Rare Metals (UCU) is focused on rare and critical metals resources, extraction, beneficiation, and separation technologies.
Ucore Rare Metals Inc. (UCU) is up 2.86 per cent, trading at $0.72 per share as of 10:20 am ET.