Critical minerals separation pilot plant partnership
Our greatest constraints in critical mineral development, it's not just technology, it's the people. Aclara representatives are here today at Virginia Tech for the inauguration of their demonstration facility for heavy rare earth separation. This partnership is so important for Virginia Tech because we are committed to experiential learning activities for our students. This is especially important in today's critical minerals workforce. They've had the bold vision to partner with Virginia Tech so that we can give students that hands-on experience in learning how these processes work which will then allow us to innovate for the critical mineral space. Aclara has two mines in South America, and what we're doing is we're producing a rare earth carbonate mixture. We're using a technique called solvent extraction where we are able to slowly separate these elements and then we're going to have these key critical minerals available for industry to make high-powered magnets that can sustain high temperatures. So that's what we're doing here at Virginia Tech. Students will be able to come and be able to experience technology in a real-world environment and learn a technology that they're not going to learn anywhere else. This is a technology that only exists in Asia right now. We want to bring it to the U.S. And Virginia Tech is playing a very important role in that. I believe that it was the perfect fit for a research project that has a very direct and concrete application in a future industrial plant here in the U.S.
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