The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently awarded a grant to Florida Polytechnic University's Florida Industrial and Phosphate Research Institute (FIPR) to focus on outpacing China in the supply of rare earth elements.
Receiving $150,000 for phase one of a project, FIPR will work to develop a research plan, according to a press release by Florida Polytechnic University.
"The hope is by creating this source here, we can alleviate the country's dependency on China and provide a stable, cost-effective rare earth element supply chain," Dr. Jim Mennie, FIPR's business director said. "We are excited the federal government is supporting FIPR's rare earth element research and we look forward to proving our research with the hope of securing a more significant award in phase two."
Phase two of the project would be funded by a $4 million, three-year grant to put the plan into action, according to the release.
"If we are successful, we could satisfy the U.S. demand for many of the elements," Dr. Patrick Zhang, FIPR's research director of phosphate beneficiation and mining and the grant's principal investigator said. "We could maybe supply the entire world for yttrium."
The funds will be divvied up between FIPR and research partners at Florida International University and Pacific National Laboratory in Richland, Washington.
More grants were given to institutions that are developing methods of production for rare elements such as yttrium and neodymium. FIPR is the only research center using phosphate source material as there is easy access to it in Florida. The other research centers are using coal ash as the main source for the elements, according to the release.
The Mosaic Company produces thousands of tons of the project's source material each year and will provide it to FIPR for the research, according to the release.
