Colorado School of Mines licenses REE technologies worldwide

Colorado School of Mines has granted an exclusive worldwide license to Bayan Mining and Minerals Ltd and its U.S. subsidiary for four patented rare-earth processing technologies developed at the Kroll Institute for Extractive Metallurgy.
These methods are optimized for bastnaesite-dominant ores to raise light-rare-earth (LREE) recovery and cut processing costs for elements such as neodymium, praseodymium, lanthanum and cerium, and to recover lesser-studied minerals like ancylite.
Licensed technologies include:
- A single-stage leach system that improves extraction from bastnaesite
- Flotation and physical beneficiation systems delivering initial gravity REE recoveries above 90%
- Ion-exchange processes to enhance purity of mixed rare-earth solutions and recovered metals
- Dedicated ancylite recovery methods for strontium-carbonate bearing minerals
Mountain Pass materials were used in development and the technologies suit Bayan's nearby Desert Star project, offering operational synergies for U.S. mine-to-magnet supply chains. Development received partial funding from DOE Critical Materials programs and technical support from Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Mines leadership framed the deal as moving laboratory research into scalable mid-stream processing — the metallurgical bridge between mining and manufacturing — while Bayan said the license positions the company to unlock higher recoveries and accelerate domestic REE concentrate production.