Advanced Sorbent Structure Recovery of REEs, Precious Metals and Other Valuable Metals from Geothermal Waters and Its Associated Technoeconomics

This 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 demonstrated high performance for collection of trace REEs, precious and valuable metals beyond commercially available sorbents. This report details the organic and inorganic sorbent uptake, performance, and collection efficiency results for La, Eu, Ho, Ag, Cu and Zn, as well as the characterization of these select sorbent materials.

The report also contains estimated costs from an in-depth techno-economic 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.

Data and Resources

Field Value
DOI 10.15121/1360763
accessLevel public
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identifier https://data.openei.org/submissions/7099
issued 2017-05-25T06:00:00Z
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license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
modified 2018-06-13T17:59:00Z
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programCode {019:006}
projectLead Holly Thomas
projectNumber FY15 AOP 2516
projectTitle Recovery of Rare Earths, Precious Metals and Other Critical Materials from Geothermal Waters with Advanced Sorbent Structures
publisher Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
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Groups
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • National Provider
  • North America
Tags
  • AmeriGEO
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • CKAN
  • GEO
  • GEOSS
  • National
  • North America
  • United States
  • composite-thin-film
  • copper
  • europium
  • geothermal
  • green-mining
  • holmium
  • inorganic-sorbent-removal-efficiency
  • lanthanum
  • mineral-recovery
  • nano
  • organic-sorbent-removal-efficiency
  • precious-metals
  • rare-earth-elements
  • rees
  • silver
  • sorbents
  • technoeconomics
  • zinc
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maintainer Pamela Kinsey
maintainer_email pamela.kinsey@pnnl.gov
metadata_created 2025-09-23T16:26:04.122308
metadata_modified 2025-09-23T16:26:04.122316
notes This 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 demonstrated high performance for collection of trace REEs, precious and valuable metals beyond commercially available sorbents. This report details the organic and inorganic sorbent uptake, performance, and collection efficiency results for La, Eu, Ho, Ag, Cu and Zn, as well as the characterization of these select sorbent materials. The report also contains estimated costs from an in-depth techno-economic 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.
num_resources 3
num_tags 26
title Advanced Sorbent Structure Recovery of REEs, Precious Metals and Other Valuable Metals from Geothermal Waters and Its Associated Technoeconomics