Work

Development and Testing of an Integrated Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) Treatment and Rare Earth/Critical Mineral Plant

Year: 2023

Type: report

Abstract: The overall objective of this project was to design, construct, and test a pilot-scale continuous process for efficiently treating acid mine drainage (AMD) while producing rare earth element/critical mineral (REE/CM) concentrates. The process technology evaluated in this project included two distinct operations: 1. an upstream pre-concentration unit that treats raw AMD to environmentally compliant discharge standards while capturing an REE/CM preconcentrate, and 2. a downstream REE purification process that further enriches the pre-concentrate while producing mixed or partially separated rare earth oxides (REOs). The project team members successfully completed all of the proposed goals of the project and advanced the technology readiness levels (TRL) of the constituent operations to TRL 7 for the upstream concentration unit (full-scale system demonstration) and TRL 6 for the downstream purification process (pilot-scale demonstration).

DOI: 10.2172/2263341

Authors: Paul Ziemkiewicz, USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE), David Hoffman, Aaron Noble

Institution: West Virginia University

Language: English

Topic: Mine drainage and remediation techniques

Subfield: Environmental Chemistry

Field: Environmental Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDGs: Responsible consumption and production, Clean water and sanitation

Open Access status: gold

Funders: U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory

Awards: DE-FE0031834 WITH WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY RESEARCH CORPORATION TITLED ''DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING OF AN INTEGRATED ACID MINE DRAINAGE (AMD) TREATMENT AND RARE EARTH/CRITICAL MINERAL PLANT''., RECOVERY OF RARE EARTH ELEMENTS FROM COAL MINE DRAINAGE

OpenAlex ID: W4391622249

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Cited by: 3

Related to: 10