Technology & Commercial Opportunities
Extracting Critical Minerals from Lignite Coals: Benefits to North Dakota and Region
Multiple benefits are expected due to the work conducted to extract critical minerals and rare earth elements from lignite. In general, projects of this nature can create hundreds of new jobs; provide new economic opportunities in the supply chain, support, and logistics; and bring in millions of dollars in added capital and revenue to the area.
If successfully commercialized, specific benefits that are expected from this project include:
- Providing a major source of several critical minerals to U.S. manufacturing, thus stabilizing the supply chain.
- Creating opportunities for new industries (e.g., rare earth magnet or semiconductor manufacturing) to locate in North Dakota, creating new jobs and economic development for the state and region.
- Diversifying the use of North Dakota’s natural resources, stabilizing existing lignite energy industry jobs and the industry’s tremendous economic impact.
- Developing training programs through curricula at UND and other higher education institutions across the state to ready the mining and mineral processing workforce.
- Supporting increased economic diversity and growth and creating access to increased tax revenue for social services and community groups.
The UND technology uses low-quality (high-ash) lignite collected from the margins of the coal seams, which today is not sent to power plants for combustion. After the REEs are extracted, what remains is a higher-quality, unique lignite, which helps the power plant operate more efficiently and which meaningfully increases the mine’s resource recovery—more tons of useable coal per acre of land surface mined. In addition to being used as a high-quality fuel, this upgraded lignite also has significant potential as a unique carbon ore feedstock, used to manufacture nonfuel carbon products, such as synthetic graphite for lithium-ion batteries, a rapidly growing market. UND and project partners are actively involved in numerous efforts to develop carbon products technologies, which could be commercialized concurrently to and integrated with REE/CM recovery, further enhancing benefits to North Dakota and the region.
Development Timeline
In 2016, UND was among the first teams to be awarded funds from Department of Energy to investigate the technical and economic viability of recovering REEs from coal and coal by-products. Over the past eight years, the UND team has partnered with the Department of Energy, North Dakota Industrial Commission, and the lignite energy industry to demonstrate and scale up a patented and patent-pending technology (Figure 3). The team is now poised to pursue commercialization opportunities in North Dakota and beyond.
2016-17
Lab-scale Feasibility
- Characterized lignites and associated materials and developed REE extraction technology at gram-scale
- Revealed that the unique properties of lignite make it a valuable resource for REEs
2017-20
Bench-scale Demonstration
- Scaled-up to 10s of kilograms-scale and demonstrated ability to economically generate high purity REE products
- Continued resource evaluation at existing mines and other locations in North Dakota
2020-24
Pilot-scale Demonstration
- Scaled-up to 500 kg/hr pilot to demonstrate technology at commercially-relevant scale in a continuous process.
- Validate economic viability
Opportunity in Our Own Backyard
Critical minerals and rare earth elements are vital components of our consumer goods, national defense, and emerging green-energy technologies, but the United States is heavily dependent on imports for an adequate supply. Researchers at UND are looking for ways to tap lignite coal and coal by-products as a major domestic source for these materials. Building on a decade of prior resource characterization and technology development, the UND team is poised to commercialize a first-of-its-kind project in North Dakota that could pave the way for exciting economic development in the state and surrounding region.
Commercialization Timeline
The College of Engineering & Mines at UND, in collaboration with a comprehensive team of technical, business, and host-site partners and with funding support from Department of Energy and North Dakota Industrial Commission, is building on prior technology development to complete a Front-End Engineering and Design (FEED) study and business plan to recover and refine REEs and other CMs from North Dakota lignites. The end goal of this design and business planning phase is to have an investment-quality project and a committed commercial team that is ready to advance to the construction and operation in a future commercialization phase.
The design and businesses planning phase is focused on engineering design and business planning for three commercial-scale facilities, two in North Dakota and one in Nebraska. Two REE and critical mineral extraction and concentration facilities are being studied in North Dakota—one near the Center Mine (BNI Coal, LTD.) and Milton R. Young Station (Minnkota Power Cooperative) and the other near the Falkirk Mine (Falkirk Mining Co.) and the Coal Creek Station (Rainbow Energy Center). The Nebraska site (Rare Earth Salts Separation & Refining LLC), near the city of Beatrice, is being designed to separate and refine the REEs and CMs. This phase aims to prove the business case and de-risk elements of the commercial opportunity to ready the team and technologies for the construction and operation phase.
North Dakota facilities would process low-quality lignite from the margins of the coal seams from existing mining operations, such as at Center Mine and Falkirk Mine. The processing creates multiple CM products and significantly upgrades the lignite into either a high-quality fuel or a unique feedstock for carbon products manufacturing. The co-located power plants are interested in using this upgraded lignite as a blending fuel to ease ash fouling challenges and improve plant efficiency. Critical minerals products would be further processed on site or sold to refiners. Standing up the full critical minerals supply chain – mining, extraction/concentrating, refining, and product manufacturing, in North Dakota is a longer-term target.
In addition to the near-term focus on the existing mines, UND is also exploring commercialization opportunities for new unexplored resources or new types of unconventional feedstocks. The team is actively researching these opportunities, which could offer exciting longer-term potential.
UND is also researching technologies and working with commercial partners on carbon products manufacturing, including synthetic graphite for lithium-ion batteries and carbon-based building materials. Carbon products have significant potential as value-added opportunities to enhance the economics of REE/CM recovery. UND holds significant intellectual property in this area as well.