Technology Developers
Advancing Technologies through Assessments
EMRTAI supports technology developers by planning and conducting assessments using mining waste materials from legacy Superfund and abandoned mine land sites. With 100+ legacy mining and mineral processing sites within Superfund, sites and feedstocks can be identified for testing and subsequently advancing technologies to commercial scale. EMRTAI’s technology assessment framework is designed to generate integral data for technology advancement and decision-making.
Critical Mineral Recovery from Mining-influenced Water
Stalagmite Co.
Stalagmite is developing a critical mineral recovery technology to pull manganese, cobalt, nickel, and other transition metals selectively from waters and waste from the mining and oil & gas industries. The company's team is comprised of mining and oil & gas professionals based in Colorado. They're backed by the National Lab of the Rockies and Chevron Technology Ventures.
With the EMRTAI, a technology assessment is underway to recover cobalt, manganese, nickel, and REEs from acid mine drainage.
REETerra
REETerra is a Pennsylvania-based company developing technologies that can extract rare earth elements from acid rock drainage and acid rock drainage treatment semisolids/solids. Their technology uses an ion-exchange chromatography method utilizing biological ligands, known as Lanmodulin (LanM). They have made great strides in advancing the capabilities of this method and have successfully recovered more rare earth elements with their process advancements.
With the EMRTAI, a technology assessment is underway to recover REEs from mining-influenced water.
Characterization of Critical Minerals in Solid Mining and Mineral Processing Waste
Hitachi
Hitachi High-Tech America provides a comprehensive suite of advanced analytical instruments -from XRF to optical emission spectroscopy (OES) to electron microscopy - designed for high precision and dependable performance in quality control, and industrial environments. Hitachi’s X-MET Series of handheld XRF is designed with hardware and software features that simplify analysis of earth metals, transition metals, rare earth elements (REE), and non-minerals between Mg (12) and U (92). The HHXRF is designed to be easy to operate in both the field and the lab allowing geochemists to optimize performance for site-specific materials.
With the EMRTAI, Hitachi will demonstrate instrument capabilities for measuring or quantifying concentrations of CM in solid mine waste from hard rock mining sites using the X-MET series of handheld XRF.
SPECTRO
SPECTRO is one of the world’s leading suppliers of analytical instruments, specializing in optical emission and X ray fluorescence spectrometry for the elemental analysis of materials across industry, research, and academia. Their technology, SPECTROSCOUT portable ED-XRF, enables rapid elemental analysis of solids, powders, and liquids across a wide element range from sodium to uranium (Na–U), with little to no sample preparation required. It’s most useful in mining, geological, and environmental applications, where determining elemental compositions is challenging and field conditions vary widely. The technology provides real-time results on-site that help to evaluate progress and make informed decisions.
With the EMRTAI, they are characterizing solid mine waste from hard rock mining sites for concentrations of CM.
Evident Scientific
Evident Scientific designs and manufactures a diverse range of industrial inspection technologies, including portable X-ray fluorescence analyzers (pXRF), which delivers element composition analysis for geological materials, mineral exploration, environmental assessments, and more. The Vanta™ XRF analyzer is capable of measuring most elements on the periodic table—from magnesium (Mg) to uranium (U)—in concentrations from single-digit ppm concentrations up to 100% for most elements. The Vanta series is portable and durable in extreme environments, and it can be used to test water, soils, rocks, ore, tailings, slag, or other mineral processing waste.
With the EMRTAI, they are characterizing waste rock and tailings from Superfund mine sites.
Recovery of Critical Minerals from Solid Mining and Mineral Processing Waste
Draslovka
Draslovka is a chemical technologies, products and services company creating value and improving sustainability in several industries, including mining, agriculture and manufacturing. Along with being the world’s largest producers of sodium cyanide, a chemical vital for gold mining, Draslovka’s proprietary technology, Glycine Leaching Technology, leaches metals in a more sustainable and economic manner, which is a major contribution to the gold mining industry.
Advanced Environmental Technologies
Advanced Environmental Technologies, LLC (AET) focuses on developing and implementing innovative remediation technologies. AET’s portfolio includes E-Redox® bioelectrochemical remediation systems, Ginate® soil-enhancing and growth medium building platform, and BioCook modified hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) technology. In the critical minerals space, AET is developing a phytomining platform that uses Ginate-based products to enhance the mobilization and plant uptake of nickel and other critical metals from serpentine and mine-impacted materials.
With the EMRTAI, AET technology assessment focuses on recovering critical metals from mine waste and superfund sites. The assessment evaluates an integrated process to produce a metal-containing stream as an “alternative ore” for further purification and production.
Infinite Elements
Infinite Elements is an El Paso, Texas-based critical minerals company developing innovative processing technologies to recover valuable metals from mining and metallurgical waste. The company’s approach is designed to improve the processability of complex mineral wastes, with a focus on reducing energy-intensive processing requirements and enhancing the recovery of metals from materials that may be difficult or uneconomic to process using conventional methods.
Through the Environmental Monitoring and Remediation Technology Assessment Initiative (EMRTAI), Infinite Elements is assessing the performance of its technology on metallurgical waste materials. The assessment is evaluating opportunities to improve material processing and identify potentially valuable product and co-product streams.