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

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.