Kentucky’s coalfields may have more to give in the future than coal.
The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded a grant of nearly $1 million to University of Kentucky professor and Department of Mining Engineering chair Rick Honaker to develop a mobile facility that can recover rare earth elements from coal.
Rare earth elements, also called REEs, are chemical elements with unique properties used for technological components in fields ranging from electronics and communications to health care and national defense.
"Previous research conducted by UK scientists and others have found that the critical materials needed for renewable energy technologies, such as cell phones and other electronics, are found in coal and coal byproducts at concentrations that may be economical to recover," Honaker said in a release on the grant award.
The demand, cost and availability of REEs has increased significantly in recent years, spurring interest in finding economically feasible methods for REE recovery. The U.S. has an estimated 10.9 million tons of rare earth resources in coal deposits in nine states, including Kentucky, according to the U.S. Geological Survey Coal Quality Database.
Honaker’s team, which includes collaborators from Virginia Tech and West Virginia University, will work to build a test a mobile pilot facility that can efficiently recover the rare earth elements in coal and coal byproducts in an environmentally friendly way.
If successful recovery techniques are developed, the coal industry has the potential to produce up to 40,000 tons of REEs annually, or twice the amount consumed in the United States.
"If advanced separation technologies become available, the resource base will increase substantially," Honaker said.
Honaker’s project was one of 10 awarded by the DOE and the only one that focused on physical concentration methods as a means to recover REE directly from coal sources, as opposed to recovery from coal combustion byproducts.
Total funding for the mobile facility design is $1,320,009 in Phase I, with The DOE funding $999,797 while $320,212 will come from other project partners. The team will also work with industrial participants, including Arch Coal, Blackhawk Mining, Bowie Refining, Eriez Manufacturing and Minerals Refining Company.
If Phase I is successful, Phase II, which will cost $6 million, will involve construction and testing of the mobile facility.