New Rare Earth Processing Facility in Saskatchewan to secure North American supply chain

By Rebecca Gotto, SRC Communications

SRC’s Rare Earth Processing Facility will follow the most stringent operating standards.

A key element of the facility is a commercial processing plant, which will include concentration and separation stages and treat monazite sands at approximately 60 per cent concentration.

In the coming decade, the need for rare earth elements (REEs) will increase many-fold due to their importance in high-growth technology areas such as wind turbines and electric cars.

Canadian rock formations hold 12 per cent of the world’s rare earth elements measured resources, but currently, no

REEs are being processed in Canada due to both a Chinese monopoly as supplier and end user, as well as the lack of a fully developed supply chain in North

America.

The Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) is looking to change that by securing an early and important piece of the supply chain for industry – a Rare Earth Processing Facility. The $35 million facility was announced in the summer of 2020 by the Government of Saskatchewan. The facility will be located in Saskatoon, Sask. and completion is slated for the fall of 2022.

A key element of the facility is a commercial processing plant, which will include concentration and separation stages and treat monazite sands at approximately 60 per cent concentration. Monazite is a source of mainly socalled “light” REEs (especially cerium, lanthanum, praseodymium, neodymium) which are some of the critical elements for the permanent magnets used in clean technologies. SRC will work with the mining industry to secure this feed stock from across Saskatchewan, Canada, and internationally. An intermediate concentrate of mixed rare earth carbonates will be produced from the concentration plant and further processed in a separation plant to produce separated rare earth oxides, as the market requires. These will be sold by SRC and further refined and processed to provide the inputs that original equipment manufacturers require. The treatment capacity of the plant will be 3,000 tonnes per year, producing an initial product: mixed rare earth carbonate. Part of the mixed rare earth carbonate will be fed to the separation plant to produce approximately 500 tonnes of separated, individual rare earth oxides, excluding cerium. SRC’s Rare Earth Processing Facility will follow the most stringent operating standards. To minimize the risk for the environment, the plant will be designed to have zero liquid discharge, which means that there will be no solution waste streams that are released into the environment. All solid waste will be handled and disposed of properly following regulations and procedures, as SRC and mining companies in Saskatchewan currently do. SRC currently offers a large variety of REE services through existing service lines and facilities. These include:

development and commercialization • Uranium tailings processing and treatment; recovery of thorium and uranium

• Validation and demonstration of rare earth processing technologies in bench, pilot, and semi-commercial scale

• Rare earth production from bastnaesite, apatite, and uranium processing waste Once the facility is operational, SRC will be able to offer a number of other services to industry including potential toll separation of individual rare earth elements and potential toll processing of monazite.

Looking ahead, SRC plans to use this facility as a starting point for the creation of an REE technology hub, which will likely include developing downstream and upstream aspects of the REE supply chain. Future development also includes new applications for lanthanum and cerium. In order to do this, SRC is currently developing capabilities for downstream rare earth product development and the production of magnets and alloys. The future certainly looks bright for the rare earth elements industry in North America and this facility and the proposed REE technology hub will play a key part in securing a supply chain right within Canada. For more information, visit www.src.sk.ca/ree. 8

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• Geochemical assays: lithium metaborate fusion or hydrofluoric acid total digestion with an ICP-OES or ICP-MS finish • Mineralogical analysis -

QEMSCAN(R) and XRD • Third-party analytical standard and data

verification

• Development of analytical

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testwork and piloting • Slurry transport modelling, design and testing • Energy assessments, including renewables • Technology and process testing (primary and secondary resources): bench, pilot, field; sorter characterization • Technoeconomic evaluation of REE technologies: mineralogy, process, equipment • Product manufacture and tolling services to produce either marketing samples or production

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