The Rare Earth Elements: EURARE sustainable European REE exploitation technologies
Within the EURARE project, REE mineral deposits from 4 different European regions were beneficiated with novel sustainable technologies at GTK's EURARE beneficiation pilot plants. The concentrates produced, along with the red mud by-product from primary alumina production, were used in two processing pilot plants set up in RWTH (Aachen) and NTUA (Athens) respectively.
The novel technologies studied, developed and tested in the EURARE project included:
- physical ore beneficiation technologies
- innovative REE extraction and separation utilising ionic liquids (ILs)
- REE metal production
- novel sustainable aqueous routes for REE extraction
- novel approaches to molten salt electrolysis for REE metal/alloy production
- electro-recovery of REE metal/alloys from ionic liquid solutions