DARPA invites abstract submissions for exploratory research concepts in the technical domain of rare earth element (REE) refinement.
Up to USD$300,000 over 12 months is available. Funding is provided for 1 FTE effort with up to USD$10,000 for materials, equipment and other non-personnel direct costs.
This solicitation is part of DARPA Exploration Announcement DARPA-EA-23-01.
Projects are sought which will develop novel approaches for REE purification from domestic sources that provide foundations for efficient, eco-friendly, and economic separation technologies that yield high-purity products and could be scaled up beyond the laboratory scale.
Key technical challenges include:
- Validation of one or more physical or chemical properties of REEs to separate multiple strategic REEs (3 or more purified elements) from a commercially-relevant complex mixture.
- Separation of multiple REEs (3 or more elements) in a complex source mixture into end products with individual REEs, either as reduced metals, salts, phosphates, oxides, or other commercially useful end products without other impurities, at milligram scale.
- Optimization of radioactive species removal while minimizing loss of REEs, if applicable.
- A feasibility analysis to consider how to scale the process beyond the laboratory (mg/day to metric ton/day) without significant loss in performance, efficiency, or environmental impact.
Responses due 7 November 2023.
Supporting documents
ARC Opportunity Announcement – SPREE: DARPA-EA-23-01-02 (1)
Exploration Announcement (EA) Master Solicitation for Advanced Research Concepts (ARC):DARPA-EA-23-01 (1)
