Advanced Sorbent Structure Recovery of Rare Earths, Precious Metals and Other Critical Materials from Geothermal Waters and Its Associated Technoeconomics

Description

The work evaluates, develops and demonstrates flexible, scalable mineral extraction technology for geothermal brines based upon solid phase sorbent materials with a specific focus upon rare earth elements (REEs). The selected organic and inorganic sorbent materials (silica and MOF) demonstrated high performance for collection of trace REEs, precious and valuable metals beyond commercially available sorbents. This report details the silica and MOF sorbent uptake, percent removal, and distribution coefficient results for Nd, Eu, Dy, Y and Ce, as well as the characterization of these select sorbent materials. The report also contains estimated costs from an in-depth technoeconomic analysis of a scaled up separation process. The estimated financial payback period for installing this equipment varies between 3.3 to 5.7 years depending on the brine flow rate of the geothermal resource.

Resources

Name Format Description Link
33 Final Technical Report providing background information, a project summary, detailed results for recovery at room temperature and at elevated temperature, evaluation of sorbent structures applicable to geothermal fluids, demonstration of sorbent particles suitable for fluidized beds and moving slurry beds, and demonstration of sorbent thin films for mineral extraction. https://gdr.openei.org/files/850/FY16%20Final%20Technical%20Report_GTO-GDR.pdf

Tags

  • rees
  • precious-metals
  • nano
  • rare-earth-elements
  • mineral-recovery
  • sorbents
  • inorganic-sorbent-removal-efficiency
  • ree
  • organic-sorbent-removal-efficiency
  • composite-thin-film
  • green-mining
  • geothermal

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