T. Villalón Jr.
Phoenix Tailings,
United States
Keywords: rare earth metals, metallization, operations, cell design, siphon design
Summary:
In the metallization process of rare earths, harvesting the finished rare earth metal product is a key step. Traditionally, this is accomplished by ladling the metal out. However, as new cells come online in ecosystems where labor is expensive, new tools are required to collect the metal while maintaining the quality of the product. In order to accomplish this, a liquid metal siphon has been made to collect large amounts of metal while limiting cell downtime and labor. To operate the siphon successfully, three key breakthroughs were made. The first breakthrough was determining the optimal materials of construction to collect the metal. This ended being a combination of metals designed to interface together to prevent impurities from diffusing into the collected metal. The second breakthrough was preventing the corrosion of the siphon during operation. This is accomplished by a design that allows the siphon to integrate into a closed cell while operating. The third breakthrough was determining the controls scheme to allow a consistent harvest of material. This was accomplished with lab testing that allowed us to calibrate the time of metal collection. All of these features combine together to create a siphon that can successfully extract rare earth metals.