Economically Recovering Rare Earth Materials

This Phase II SBIR project seeks to develop and commercialize methods for recycling rare earth materials from strategic waste streams. Rare earth materials are critical for a broad range of technologies. Important industrial sectors such as defense, manufacturing, energy, transportation, and electronics all utilize rare earths in abundance. There are currently a limited number of economically viable sources of rare earths materials, making the recycling of rare earths an invaluable practice to industry. However, presently only a small percentage of all rare earth materials are recycled. Xylon Technical Ceramics has developed and patented a unique, environmentally-friendly recycling technology that has the potential to be universally applicable to rare earth wastes. The proposed project would develop the commercial utility of the process to recover rare earths from thermal barrier coating (TBC) wastes. TBCs are critical to the aviation and energy sectors, and their production generates substantial amounts of waste. Xylon has successfully demonstrated the feasibility of the process for recycling TBC wastes during Phase I work. Positive results from this project will comprise a scalable, commercial manufacturing process to recycle rare earths from TBC waste in a manner that facilitates an environmentally safe and economically viable way to conserve critical resources.