Iondrive (ASX:ION) has appointed Kingston Process Metallurgy to process end-of-life permanent magnets, aiming to produce 1.4 tonnes of mixed rare earth oxide (MREO) in Q4 2026.
The campaign aims to process approximately 5 tonnes of feedstock using Iondrive’s proprietary IONSolv technology at Kingston’s third-party facility.
Based on feedstock assays indicating an MREO content of around 30% and targeted recovery of roughly 95%, the program is designed to support downstream qualification and refining programs in North America.
CEO Grant Caffery says the campaign addresses America’s rare earth processing gap using existing regional waste streams.
“The US needs new sources of neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium now, not only when the next generation of mines and processing facilities comes online,” Caffery says.
“Large quantities of these materials are already present in end-of-life permanent magnets across North America.
“IONSolv provides a pathway to recover them and return them to the US supply chain.”
Caffery adds that the campaign intends to provide ‘sufficient’ material to support multiple customer qualification programs and generate operating data to inform engineering definition for Iondrive’s proposed first 2,000-tonne-per-annum US commercial module.
The program follows validation work demonstrating single-pass leach efficiencies of 96.5% neodymium, 96.5% praseodymium, and 93.5% dysprosium.
Iondrive is advancing IONSolv, an innovative metal extraction platform for selective recovery of critical minerals across multiple feedstocks.
Write to Paula Fabe at Mining.com.au
Images: Mining.com.au
