From Geology to Leverage: Britain’s Rare Earth Reckoning

[DOC]

UK rare earth processing gains momentum as £12M Belfast magnet-recycling facility addresses midstream bottleneck, not geology constraints. (read full article...)

 

[Deven]

UK rare earth processing gains momentum as £12M Belfast magnet-recycling facility addresses midstream bottleneck, not geology constraints. (read full article...)

Daniel,
Do you think either or both of these midstream processing technologies will contribute in Europe and the US?

RapidSX from Ucore Rare Metals (UURAF) https://ucore.com/
Flash Joule Heating from Metallium Limited (MTMCF) https://metalliuminc.com/

Claimed advantages:

• capable of relatively rapid deployment
• modularity and scalability
• reduced physical footprints
• flexible and feedstock-agnostic
• far more efficient and produce faster throughput
• accelerated separations and higher yields
• lower energy and water consumption
• fewer inputs and inventories
• reduced acids and reagent usage and waste byproducts
• more environmentally compatible
• constituted of non-restricted equipment and processes
• lower CapEx and OpEx requirements
• attractive and durable economics

Cheers

 

[Les Confer]

Deven and Daniel,
Maybe you know this already, but these two companies entered into a 12-month binding agreement on 9/13/25. You can read about this on their websites. See metalliuminc.com under their Announcements (dated 9/15/2025) and UCORE.com. Both are showing the same flowchart with a variety of REE bearing virgin rock and recycled materials being subjected to FJHeating and then its Mixed RE Chlorides feeding into the RapidSX.

Metallium got their FJH technology from PhD James Tour at Rice University. I had not realized that the REE Chlorides were staying mixed together after FJHeating until I saw this Announcement from the two companies. In Metallium's write-up of the announcement, they say that: 1. their core focus remains their Texas 1-ton/day e-waste facility, and 2. they will continue a parallel initiative with Rice U. for a direct REE separation route using FJ Heating.

Daniel - Since they will be 6-months into their working together in another month, (and they are both public companies) could you see if they might be willing to be interviewed by your team at RE Exchanges and let our community know how things are going?

Regards, Les

 

[Deven]

Hi Les,

Thanks for your response.

If I recall, the MREC to Ucore’s RapidSX does not represent the limits of Metalium’s Flash Joule Heating (FJH) capability, but just the input preferred by Ucore. Ucore will ‘bolt on’ FJH in front of the RapidSX flow in order to make it more capable of processing non-conventional feedstocks. FJH in general though is very versatile and targetable, capable itself of separating out individual metal chlorides efficiently. It’s quite remarkable how they are able to use very precise temperatures and chlorination environments to specifically target either desired or undesired individual minerals and precipitate them out.

Metallium’s immediate term emphasis is on their Gator Point Houston plant because that is the quickest path to revenue generation, which they expect in H1 2026. However, they already have 5+ sites shortlisted with existing infrastructure and permits, essentially ‘ready to go’ (in Louisiana, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia). They have intimated in several calls that they are pre-positioning for what they anticipate to be the high likelihood of getting encouragement and additional non-dilutive (government and partnership) funding. Beyond this “Urban Mining” they also have a second business unit for Mineral Processing, for which a second (initially demo) Line is being added to the Houston facility and is expected to be commissioning/running in Q2/Q3 this year.

Ucore has mentioned partnership initiatives with Wyloo Gascoyne Pty Ltd, Hastings Technology Metals Ltd, Critical Metals Corp, Cyclic Materials, Meteoric Resources NL, ABx Group, Thyssenkrupp, Defense Metals Corp, and Vacuumschmelze GmbH (“VAC Group”) among others.

Metallium has mentioned partnership initiatives with Vedanta Limited, Glencore, ElementUSA, New Frontier Minerals Limited, Indium Corporation, Meteoric Resources, Dynamic Lifecycle Innovations, and Plastic Recycling Inc. among others.

Both companies are participating in US DoW and DoE grant programs and pursuing additional ones.

In my view these guys bring some quite compelling solutions to the midstream processing problem, and they appear positioned to begin getting more attention soon.

I agree it would be nice to hear more about them from REEx.

Cheers.

 

[Les Confer]

Hi Les,

Thanks for your response.

If I recall, the MREC to Ucore’s RapidSX does not represent the limits of Metalium’s Flash Joule Heating (FJH) capability, but just the input preferred by Ucore. Ucore will ‘bolt on’ FJH in front of the RapidSX flow in order to make it more capable of processing non-conventional feedstocks. FJH in general though is very versatile and targetable, capable itself of separating out individual metal chlorides efficiently. It’s quite remarkable how they are able to use very precise temperatures and chlorination environments to specifically target either desired or undesired individual minerals and precipitate them out.

Metallium’s immediate term emphasis is on their Gator Point Houston plant because that is the quickest path to revenue generation, which they expect in H1 2026. However, they already have 5+ sites shortlisted with existing infrastructure and permits, essentially ‘ready to go’ (in Louisiana, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia). They have intimated in several calls that they are pre-positioning for what they anticipate to be the high likelihood of getting encouragement and additional non-dilutive (government and partnership) funding. Beyond this “Urban Mining” they also have a second business unit for Mineral Processing, for which a second (initially demo) Line is being added to the Houston facility and is expected to be commissioning/running in Q2/Q3 this year.

Ucore has mentioned partnership initiatives with Wyloo Gascoyne Pty Ltd, Hastings Technology Metals Ltd, Critical Metals Corp, Cyclic Materials, Meteoric Resources NL, ABx Group, Thyssenkrupp, Defense Metals Corp, and Vacuumschmelze GmbH (“VAC Group”) among others.

Metallium has mentioned partnership initiatives with Vedanta Limited, Glencore, ElementUSA, New Frontier Minerals Limited, Indium Corporation, Meteoric Resources, Dynamic Lifecycle Innovations, and Plastic Recycling Inc. among others.

Both companies are participating in US DoW and DoE grant programs and pursuing additional ones.

In my view these guys bring some quite compelling solutions to the midstream processing problem, and they appear positioned to begin getting more attention soon.

I agree it would be nice to hear more about them from REEx.

Cheers.

Deven,
Thanks for all the information. It is obvious you are well researched and knowledgeable on these two companies. Does that come from deep dive into their websites or how?

Was excited about FJ Heating and Metallium when I learned about it in mid-2025. But then became less so when I read about the partnership deal with UCORE/RapidSX. It caused me to assume the FJ Heating reactor was only capable of producing a MRE Chloride output and they would still need down-line separation/purification. Apparently that was a bad assumption. Even if they are able to separate, the purity statement of just >90% is concerning as I understand it needs to be 99+% for downstream applications. After reading your reply, I tried to find the research paper(s) from Rice U. but was stopped cold when found it was an article I would need to pay for. Maybe will look up the patent which is always my second choice. Agree with you that this could be "quite compelling solution to the midstream processing problem".

As a recently retired chemical process engineer, I find the midstream separation/purification aspect of REE's the most interesting. I do hope that RE recyclers and RE miners will look beyond Solvent Extraction to a few competing technologies as they decide on their substantial CAPEX versus OPEX for their process plants. The alternate technology I have devoted myself to understanding better is Ion Exchange in general and Ligand-Assisted IX (or Chromatography) in particular. The PhD Chem-E who did this work at Purdue U. was Yi Ding and he is currently Chief Technical Officer at ReElement Technologies Corporation. They are currently doing a build of their own commercial plant plus are in the business of offering their columns and engineering to companies who wish to process mixed concentrates of REE.

Again, thanks so much for sharing your thoughtful reply!

Les

Les