From the rare earth supply challenge to processing solutions: Minerals Engineering and Critical Minerals ’26

A recent review in Minerals Engineering provides a timely assessment of one of the biggest challenges facing the critical minerals sector: how can countries develop secure rare earth elements (REE) supply chains in a world where production and processing remain heavily concentrated in China?

The review examines US domestic REE resources and projects, processing methods, emerging production capacity, non-traditional feedstocks and recycling. It also highlights the need for further R&D and, crucially, for the development of domestic expertise in REE separation and refining.

These are not simply US issues. They are at the heart of the global critical minerals challenge and they provide a timely introduction to the technical programme of Critical Minerals ’26, taking place in Cape Town in November.

As media partner to the conference, Minerals Engineering is particularly well placed to highlight the close relationship between the research published in its pages and the work that will be presented at the conference. The Minerals Engineering review makes an important point: identifying REE resources is only the beginning. The real challenge is developing economic and technically effective flowsheets to concentrate, extract, separate and refine the individual rare earth elements. Critical Minerals ’26 contains a whole session devoted to this challenge.

The programme begins with REE preconcentration and gangue rejection from monazite ore, followed by research into the beneficiation of yttrium and neodymium from an urban deposit. Later in the day, delegates will hear about reagent schemes for REE flotation and the optimisation of flotation from phosphogypsum.

These papers demonstrate the diversity of potential REE feedstocks. Traditional mined ores are being joined by industrial residues, urban deposits and waste materials, precisely the kind of non-traditional resources highlighted in the Minerals Engineering review.

And the programme goes further. Research from South Africa will examine REE extraction from coal fly ash and coal-derived ashes, while another paper investigates the influence of pH-redox conditions on recovering REEs and iron from discard-coal leach solutions.

The message is clear: future REE supply will not necessarily come from conventional mines alone. The review also highlights recycling as an important part of the emerging REE supply landscape. This is another area where the Critical Minerals ’26 programme provides a strong practical counterpart. On the second afternoon, delegates will hear about precipitation of REEs in materials recycling, recovery of REEs from spent computer hard disks using phosphoric acid and deep eutectic solvent leaching, and a life-cycle assessment of mixed REE oxide recovery from end-of-life NdFeB magnets.

These are particularly significant developments because NdFeB magnets contain some of the REEs that are strategically important to modern technologies. Recovering them from end-of-life products could provide a secondary source of supply while reducing dependence on primary mining. The conference therefore moves beyond the question of where can we find more REEs to the more fundamental question of how can we recover them efficiently from everything from ores to industrial wastes and discarded technologies?

Perhaps the most important connection with the Minerals Engineering review is the emphasis on processing expertise. The review points out that many countries have limited REE production capacity and relatively little expertise in REE processing. Developing alternative supply chains therefore requires more than investment in mines. It requires scientists, engineers, metallurgists and process developers capable of designing and operating the separation technologies needed to turn resources into saleable products.

The Critical Minerals ’26 programme reflects this need. Across its 39 presentations, researchers from universities, research organisations and industry will examine beneficiation, flotation, leaching, solvent extraction, ion exchange, precipitation, hydrometallurgy, recycling and process development across a wide range of critical minerals.

And REEs run like a thread through the programme. From monazite beneficiation and REE flotation from phosphogypsum, through coal-derived resources, acid mine drainage, recycling processes, hard-disk magnets and NdFeB magnet recycling, the papers demonstrate just how broad the search for future REE supply has become. The journal review sets out the strategic context: supply-chain concentration, the drive to establish alternative production, the development of domestic separation capacity and the need for R&D.

The conference programme shows that this research is already happening. It shows researchers tackling the difficult mineral processing questions that will determine whether new REE resources, conventional and unconventional, can actually contribute to secure supply.

And that is ultimately the purpose of Critical Minerals ’26: to look beyond the identification of critical mineral resources and focus on the processing and recycling technologies required to turn those resources into resilient supply chains. The conference explicitly covers processing from primary and secondary sources and recycling, including some of the most challenging materials associated with the circular economy. Critical Minerals ’26 offers an opportunity to see many of these emerging technologies first-hand and to meet the researchers and companies working to build the next generation of critical mineral supply chains.

The REE challenge identified in the pages of Minerals Engineering will be very much alive in Cape Town this November.

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