A solution to America’s dependence on foreign rare earth minerals may be coming from an unlikely place: polluted water leaking from abandoned coal mines.Researchers at West Virginia University (WVU) are working to transform acid mine drainage — a long-standing environmental problem in Appalachia — into a potential domestic source of critical minerals used in everything from smartphones and electric vehicles to advanced military systems.The United States currently relies heavily on foreign suppliers, including China, for many rare earth elements that are essential to modern technology and national security. Heavy rare earth minerals, in particular, are considered especially valuable because of their role in defense applications and advanced energy technologies.TRUMP GETS MAJOR WIN AGAINST CHINA IN AFRICAN RARE EARTH MINERALS RACEWVU researchers discovered those valuable materials were already present in the acidic water flowing from retired coal mines.”Originally, the entire focus of this effort was just simply cleaning up the watersheds,” said Steve Dunmead, CEO of Mission Critical Materials.Researchers were originally focused on treating acid mine drainage, using chemicals to remove contaminants and make the water cleaner. During that process, they discovered the water also contained rare earth elements.That discovery opened the door to a new possibility: cleaning up pollution while recovering valuable minerals at the same time.”There’s an opportunity to generate revenue out of this AMD treatment,” Dunmead said.WVU’s research found acid mine drainage can contain a much higher percentage of heavy rare earth elements compared with traditional sources.”It may end up with 2% heavies in the overall mix,” Dunmead said. “In this case, in the coal acid mine drainage, we have like 50% heavy rare earths.”The difference is significant because heavy rare earth elements are among the most valuable and difficult minerals to source.NEW ARCTIC DISCOVERY COULD DEAL MASSIVE BLOW TO CHINESE DOMINANCE OF RARE EARTH MINERALSThe research began nearly a decade ago when WVU scientists identified rare earth elements in acid mine drainage from retired coal mines. The university is now expanding that work through the WVU Rare Earth Elements Initiative, which brings together researchers studying ways to recover critical minerals from a variety of sources.In 2022, WVU partnered with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to open the A34 AMDREE Processing Facility in Mount Storm, the first integrated pilot-scale rare earth recovery facility of its kind in the country.Researchers say the technology could eventually help reduce America’s reliance on foreign sources by creating a new domestic supply chain.Rare earth elements are used in products Americans rely on every day, including cell phones, wind turbines, electric vehicles, fighter jets and missile defense systems.HOW RARE EARTH ELEMENTS FACTOR INTO THE CLEAN ENERGY TRANSITIONWVU is also working to commercialize the technology through a new for-profit company called Mission Critical Materials, created to help bring the research from the lab into the marketplace.The goal is to expand beyond coal mine pollution and explore other sources of critical minerals, including hard rock mines and other industrial waste streams.”And in the process, [we] also figured out it is not unique to coal mines but hard rock mines as well,” Dunmead said. “So copper mines, gold mines, also have acid mine drainage.”Researchers say one advantage of their approach is that it uses existing polluted sites rather than requiring new mines to be built.”The regulatory pathway for a traditional mine can take years,” Dunmead said. “This technology can go into an existing acid mine drainage site using an existing water permit.”WVU researchers believe the process could provide an environmentally friendly way to address two challenges at once: cleaning polluted water while producing materials needed for America’s future.The next step is building a larger-scale facility. Researchers hope that once complete, they can begin producing and selling heavy rare earth materials domestically.