Brazilian Critical Minerals Ltd (ASX: BCM), a mineral exploration company focused on ionic adsorbed clay rare earth element deposits in Brazil, has announced the successful completion of initial bench-scale testing to enrich pregnant liquor solution (PLS) and extract major rare earth elements as high purity separated oxides. The testing was conducted through the Rare Earth Technologies Inc (RETi) plant in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The company reported a 200-fold upgrade in rare earth concentration from 930 ppm to 186,000 ppm (18.6%) TREO-Ce, utilising RETi’s proprietary processing equipment. This enrichment was achieved with 100% recovery, concentrating all rare earth elements into a small acid volume. The system also cleanly separated all major rare earth oxides into individual products over a 24-minute cycle time, achieving a minimum 99.9% purity for each oxide.
Brazilian Critical Minerals highlighted the commercially proven nature of the separation system, noting its current use in Europe. The Managing Director, Andrew Reid, commented on the RETi technology’s capability to deliver cleanly separated rare earth oxides with minimal impurity carryover in a single processing route. He further stated that the process adds to the already high ESG credentials of the Ema ISR project, with plans for further test work to determine potential scale, commercial applicability and independent validation in 2026.
Steve Levin, President & COO of RETi, added that the BCM PLS solution is an excellent candidate for RETI’s midstream rare earth processing solutions. This demonstrates the ability to deliver highly purified light and heavy rare earth elements. The company looks forward to expanding scale with BCM with the goal of sending light and heavy rare earths to the marketplace. A video discussion of the announcement with Managing Director Andrew Reid is available on the company website.
