Rainbow Rare Earths Secures Rare Earth Opportunity in South Africa

Rainbow Rare Earths has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with a diversified chemical group based in South Africa to investigate opportunities to extract rare earth elements from the nitro phosphate process stream at its phosphoric acid production plant located near Johannesburg.

Under the terms of the MOU, Rainbow will conduct a rare earth extraction pilot study with the chemical group, which will include initial grade test work on the process stream material. This will be followed by a technology program utilizing the knowledge and intellectual property acquired through Rainbow's work to date on the Phalaborwa Rare Earth Project in South Africa, including the licensed K-Technologies, Inc. separation technology.

The feedstock for the phosphoric acid production plant comes from the same ore originally mined at Foskor that produced the two gypsum piles at Phalaborwa. Rainbow has completed initial sampling of the process stream and preliminary results indicate a total grade of 0.81% rare earth oxides with a weighting of approximately 27% for the high-value neodymium and praseodymium (NdPr), as well as terbium and dysprosium.

The direct costs associated with the pilot studies conducted by Rainbow using its exclusive intellectual property and technology will be provided by the chemicals group. If the results are successful, the parties intend to negotiate the terms of a potential joint venture agreement to extract value from the rare earths present in the phosphoric acid process stream.

George Bennett, CEO of Rainbow Rare Earths, said, "This project allows us to work with a global chemicals company and demonstrates the importance and broader application of our intellectual property and technology in another project in South Africa. This is an exciting opportunity for Rainbow to unlock additional value from the nitro phosphate process stream through the efficient production of separated rare earths that are currently untapped in the phosphoric acid production process."

"As with our Phalaborwa project, rare earths are contained in an acidic solution in 'cracked form', which will allow us to apply rare earth separation technology, thereby facilitating a simple process with significantly fewer extraction and separation steps compared to conventional rare earth mining projects."

Rainbow’s strategy is to become a globally significant and responsible producer of rare-earth metals, with a particular focus on NdPr – the fundamental building blocks for the permanent magnets driving the global green technology revolution. "Access to rare earth machines in South Africa shows us great potential to facilitate near-term access to critical permanent magnet rare earth resources, which are needed to decarbonize energy systems in an environmentally responsible manner," said Bennett.

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