£3.5mln boost to UK rare-earth minerals supply chain

A project to extract minerals from volcano plumes, and another to extract them from mining waste, are among nine innovation partnerships that have been awarded £3.mln of funding from Innovate UK.

The projects are:

• Ascension Earth Resources - a partnership between Marriott Well Engineering and Management Services and the University of Oxford to assess the potential for rare-earth elements from volcanic tuffs on Ascension Island.
• Mormair - a project led by the Materials Processing Institute to prove the viability of recovering rare-earth elements from coal-fly-ash.
• Nanomox - a pilot led by Mkango Rare Earths UK to explore a potentially sustainable approach to iron extraction from end-of-life magnets.
• Geolithical - a project led by the University of Exeter investigating the potential for a circular supply chain for high-strength strontium ferrite (ceramic) magnets.
• Ionic Technologies-  a recycling and separation project with Ionic Technologies to develop high-quality rare-earth alloys, using 100% recycled and fully traceable rare-earth elements, for use in high-specification rare-earth permanent magnets.
• Materials Nexus - a project led by Materials Nexus, in partnership with University of Sheffield, that aims to use AI and quantum simulations to develop improved magnet materials that rely less on rare-earth elements.
• HyProMag - a partnership between Less Common Metals, Adey Innovation and the University of Birmingham, commercialising a process developed by the university to liberate magnets from end-of-life components.
• Less Common Metals - a separate project from Ionic Technologies to develop high-quality magnets using 100% recycled and fully traceable rare- earth elements.
• Altilium Metals - a project from the University of Exeter extracting rare-earth elements from waste materials from mining operations.