Colorado School of Mines has entered an exclusive worldwide licensing agreement with Australian-headquartered mining company Bayan Mining and Minerals Limited and its U.S. subsidiary for a suite of four patented rare earth element processing technologies.
The licensed technologies, developed by researchers in the Kroll Institute for Extractive Metallurgy (KIEM) at Mines, target higher rare earth element recovery and lower processing costs from bastnaesite-dominant ores, a valuable source of light rare earth elements (LREE) like cerium, lanthanum, neodymium and praseodymium, as well as less studied minerals like ancylite.
The LREEs in bastnaesite – the same mineral that underpins California’s Mountain Pass Mine, the largest rare-earth element mine in the U.S. – are key to several technologies because of their catalytic and magnetic properties, including electric motors, wind turbines, personal electronics, medical and defense systems.
The Kroll Institute is one of the world’s foremost institutions in mineral processing and extractive metallurgy, created in 1974 through an endowment from Dr. William J. Kroll, creator of the technologies that built the world’s titanium and zirconium industries. The KIEM research team is led by Dr. Corby G. Anderson PE, Harrison Western Professor in Mining Engineering at Mines.
Bayan is seeking to secure a strategic position at the forefront of rare earth processing innovation within the U.S., and this exclusive license agreement provides full rights to deploy, enhance and sub-license the Mines-developed technologies worldwide. The licensed technologies, which were in part developed and tested using materials from Mountain Pass, are specifically valuable to Bayan because Mountain Pass is geographically close to Bayan’s Desert Star Project, and the ores share similar structural and geological characteristics.
“This agreement exemplifies how university research is intended to move beyond the laboratory toward commercial implementation to address critical global challenges,” said Dr. Walter Copan, Vice President for Research & Technology Transfer at Colorado School of Mines. “By translating decades of fundamental research into deployable technologies, we are enabling more efficient and sustainable recovery of critical materials that are essential to energy and advanced industries. Partnerships like this ensure that innovations developed at Mines together with federal lab collaborators have real-world impact, delivering tangible value to society.”
The four U.S. granted and pending patents and associated applications cover:
- Leaching: A novel single-stage leach system that optimizes the rare earth extraction from bastnaesite
- Separation: Novel flotation systems and physical beneficiation devices to effectively separate the target rare earth elements from bastnaesite, with initial gravity REE recoveries exceeding 90 percent
- Ion-exchange: New methods, techniques and processes for enhancing the purity of mixed rare earth solutions and of the recovered rare earths using ion-exchange
- Ancylite recovery: New methods and systems for recovery of ancylite, a lesser-known rare earth mineral comprising strontium carbonate, from rare earth ore
The Kroll Institute team included Ben Kronholm, Dr. Hao Cui, Grant Colligan, Dr. Phil Keller, Dylan Everly, Nathaneal Williams, Alex Norgren and Professor Brock O’Kelley. They were supported in part by Dr. Vyacheslav Bryantsev and Dr. Santa Jansone-Popova of the U. S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The Kroll Institute has long been a leader in addressing the mid-stream aspects of processing and refining critical minerals and metals.
“Mid-stream means transforming raw mineral resources into high-purity, market-ready materials through advanced separation, beneficiation and metallurgical processing and refining,” Anderson said. “Mid-stream processing is the critical bridge between mining and manufacturing, where value is created and innovations in efficiency, cost reduction and environmental performance determine whether critical minerals can reliably support modern technologies and national priorities.”
Development of the patented technologies was partially funded by the DOE Critical Materials Institute (now the DOE Critical Materials Innovation Hub), as part of U.S. government initiatives to strengthen domestic critical mineral supply chain resilience and domestic “mine-to-magnet” capability.
“This licence not only gives us a proprietary toolkit designed specifically for bastnaesite-dominant systems like Desert Star, it also positions us to meaningfully participate in the rapidly expanding U.S. critical minerals and downstream supply chain initiatives," said Bayan Executive Director Fadi Diab. “By integrating these technologies into our development strategy, we have the opportunity to unlock higher recoveries, reduce processing complexity and accelerate the path toward producing high-quality REE concentrates in the United States.”
About Colorado School of Mines
Colorado School of Mines is a public R1 research university focused on applied science and engineering, producing the talent, knowledge and innovations to serve industry and benefit society – all to create a more prosperous future. Learn more at mines.edu.
About Bayan Mining and Minerals
Bayan Mining and Minerals Ltd operates in the mining industry, focusing on critical minerals, particularly rare earth elements (REE). The company is strategically positioned in the U.S., with projects near significant mining sites like the Mountain Pass REE Mine, emphasizing its commitment to strengthening domestic critical minerals supply chains.
About Mines
Colorado School of Mines is a public R1 research university focused on applied science and engineering, producing the talent, knowledge and innovations to serve industry and benefit society – all to create a more prosperous future.
