American Rare Earths, Wyoming U team up on byproduct research at Halleck Creek

[Ben Graham]

American Rare Earths (ASX: ARR | OTCQX: ARRNF) through its fully owned subsidiary Wyoming Rare in partnership with the University of Wyoming School of Energy Resources said on Thursday it has been selected for a Seed Translational Acceleration of Research (STAR) Project award.  

The funding, provided through UW’s National Science Foundation Accelerating Research Translation (ART) award, will advance the assessment of potential byproducts associated with rare earth elements at the Halleck Creek project in Wyoming.  

Last year, ARR reached a metallurgical milestone at the project when it upgraded ore from the tenure from 0.34% total rare earth oxides (TREO) to 3.72% TREO. 

The figure represented a 10:1 increase in rare earth concentrate, and metallurgical tests showed that 93.5% of non-rare earth material can be removed early, leaving only 6.5% of ore needing further refining.  

The STAR Project awards are a core component of the NSF-funded ART project at UW, which aims to emphasize applied research innovations across the university that have high potential for commercialization. 

“The intent is to fund projects on a milestone-driven basis with usable outcomes for the industry partner at the end of the project,” UW’s Vice President for research and economic development Parag Chitnis said in a news release.  

“These projects will serve as a basis for training graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, while simultaneously advancing tangible research that directly impacts development projects in Wyoming.” 

Led by Tyler Brown, minerals program manager in SER’s Center for Economic Geology Research, the project team will work directly with Wyoming Rare to examine the tailings and byproducts resulting from rare earth elements extraction at Halleck Creek — and explore potential applications for those materials to determine potential technical viability for end-use applications, processing requirements and implications to overall project economics.