The WVU community is invited to attend the West Virginia Water Research Institute's ribbon-cutting ceremony on July 18 from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the NRCCE High Bay, G13.
The ceremony will commission the pilot scale plant to test cutting-edge technology to extract rare earth elements from coal waste and acid mine drainage from the Appalachian basin. The project’s goal is to test the technical and economic feasibility of scaling-up the technology to commercialize the separation and extraction process. If successful, this would provide a domestic source of rare-earth elements that currently doesn’t exist in the United States.
Brief remarks on the research objectives, potential results and impending commercialization impact will be delivered by director of the WVU Energy Institute Brian Anderson, WVU President Gordon Gee, U.S. Department of Energy’s Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy Steven Winberg, and Paul J. McRoberts, regional industry mining, metals and cement manager at Rockwell Automation, Inc. Representatives from the National Energy Technology Laboratory will also attend.
Register on the Eventbrite page to attend.