MORGANTOWN – The West Virginia University Board of Governors has put its support behind the creation of a for-profit limited liability company (LLC) with a goal of bringing WVU-developed rare earth element technologies to market.
As part of the consent agenda approved during the Dec. 19 meeting of the West Virginia University Board of Governors, the board provided its endorsement for the formation of Mission Critical Materials, LLC.
According to the body’s agenda packet, the opportunity holds potential long-term financial and reputational benefits for the university based on its “growing portfolio of research and intellectual property related to rare earth elements and critical minerals – areas of increasing national strategic and economic importance.”
The U.S. Department of Energy defines critical materials as “any substance used in technology that is subject to supply risks, and for which there are no easy substitute.” They are essential components of advanced technologies in various industries, including transportation, power generation, and electronics.
Rare earth elements and critical materials, such as cobalt, nickel, and lithium can be found in acid mine drainage. Since 2016, a team from the Water Research Institute at West Virginia University have pioneered a technology that recovers the valuable metals while removing contaminants from harmful mine drainage, resulting in clean water.
This past November, those efforts received an additional three-year, $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy based the research’s potential to support the economy, national security and the environment.
“While the process is not yet fully commercial, in eight years, we have advanced from lab-bench testing to WVDEP’s full-scale, 800-gallon per minute facility near Mt. Storm. That plant continuously treats [acid mine drainage] while producing 1% REE (rare earth element) pre-concentrate,” WVWRI Director Paul Ziemkiewicz said following the grant announcement. “This new, three-year project will take us the next step toward commercialization by designing and building a process train that will refine our pre-concentrate into a mixed rare earth oxide with an REE grade exceeding 90%. We will then design and operate a process for separating the mixed rare earth oxides into individually separated products ready for the market. At that point, we will have a technology package that can be commercially developed.”
Speaking generally in regard to the university’s research in the field of rare earth elements and critical materials, the BOG meeting document notes, “Recent alignment of federal funding priorities, industry interest, and commercialization pathways presents a timely opportunity to advance this work beyond the research environment and toward potential market application.”
Operating through a for-profit, West Virginia University Research Corporation affiliate will allow the university to engage with partners, investors and federal agencies “in a structure well suited to commercialization activities while maintaining institutional oversight.”
The WVURC was created as a nonprofit corporation in 1985 to support research at WVU.
