Ucore Rare Metals (TSXV UCU / WKN A2QJQ4) continues to work at a high pace to transfer its RapidSX™ rare earth separation technology to an industrial scale. The company reports significant progress in its U.S. Department of Defense-supported demonstration program and the planned facility in Alexandria, Louisiana, where heavy rare earths are to be processed primarily from 2026.
As part of an “Other Transaction Agreement” (OTA) with the U.S. Department of War, endowed with approximately US$22.4 million, Ucore Rare Metals has been operating a 52-stage RapidSX™ demonstration plant in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, since the end of 2023. The operating data and process optimizations obtained there form the basis for the “Louisiana Strategic Metals Complex” (SMC) currently under construction, a future separation and refinery center for rare earth oxide products.
Ucore Rare Metals Demonstrates Continuous RapidSX™ Operation in Canada
An intensive test program has been running at the “Commercialization and Demonstration Facility” (CDF) in Kingston for almost two years. According to its own information, Ucore Rare Metals has already completed around 5,700 operating hours there with tons of a heavy mixed oxide feed (MREO) from a “US-friendly” source – in an environment that simulates a 24/7 operation of a commercial plant.
The 52-stage RapidSX™ pilot plant processes this feed over several separation stages (“splits”) to produce different REE groups and products. These include La-Ce, Nd-Pr, Sm-Eu-Gd fractions and heavier groups such as Tb-Dy and a Ho-Y-Er-Tm-Yb-Lu mix. Crucially, each of these separation sequences is compared in parallel at the CDF with a conventional 52-stage liquid-liquid extraction plant (CSX) in order to directly evaluate yield and purity.
Ucore Rare Metals has set up its own ICP-MS laboratory with seven days of operation per week to ensure continuous process monitoring. More than 25,000 samples have been analyzed to date. According to the company, the evaluations to date show that RapidSX™ and the classic CSX process deliver chemically comparable results – with significantly more compact equipment and higher throughput from RapidSX™ at the same time.
Another focus of the work in Kingston is on operational flexibility: the RapidSX™ plant has been designed so that it can be converted to different separation tasks and feed materials within a few hours. At the same time, protocols are being trained that allow the operation – planned or unplanned – to be stopped for minutes to weeks and then resumed without long start-up phases.
Heavy Rare Earth Complex from Ucore Rare Metals in Louisiana Taking Shape
The aim of the activities in the CDF is the gradual transfer of RapidSX™ technology to the Louisiana SMC in Alexandria. There, Ucore Rare Metals is planning a commercial separation plant with a focus on medium (Sm, Eu, Gd) and heavy rare earths (initially Tb and Dy, potentially later also yttrium), supplemented by the option of also producing an NdPr rare earth oxide product.
According to company information, preparations for the installation of the first “RapidSX™ machine” in Louisiana are underway for the middle of 2026. This includes field and detail engineering, approval procedures and the procurement of long-term components and heavy raw material for test runs and the initial start-up. Parts of the future components are already being tested and scaled in the CDF on a reduced scale.
With this first unit, Ucore Rare Metals is pursuing a modular approach: the plant concept tested in Canada is to be replicated in Louisiana in the sense of a “copy & paste” principle and then gradually expanded by further RapidSX™ machines. In this way, the company wants to gradually increase capacity without having to build an oversized plant in early project phases.
Technical Advantages of RapidSX™ and Role in US Supply Chain Development
Compared to classic liquid extraction, Ucore Rare Metals sees several structural advantages of the RapidSX™ platform. The process stages are more compact, predominantly made up of standard industrial components (“commercial off-the-shelf”) and require less space. At the same time, the throughput should be two to four times higher than with conventional plants, depending on the design, which should reduce both operating costs and the ecological footprint.
Fewer tanks required and a smaller physical plant could also lead to a lower investment volume (CAPEX) and less structural complexity. From the perspective of the US Department of Defense, the accelerated start-up phase is particularly relevant: the OTA explicitly aims to build up processing capacities for heavy rare earths within the USA, which are used in strategic applications such as permanent magnets, defense technology or high-performance electronics.
The combination of demonstration operation in Canada and the planned transfer to Louisiana creates a kind of “development bridge”. Instead of testing the technology directly on a large scale, process chemistry, control and analysis tools are first established in the CDF under almost commercial conditions. Only then does the transition to the US plant take place, which reduces the technical risk for the Louisiana SMC.
Next Steps: Ucore Rare Metals Plans Heavy Rare Earths Launch in 2026
With the completion of the current demonstration phase in the CDF, Ucore Rare Metals is now concentrating on the final prerequisites for setting up production in the USA. In addition to the technical scaling tests in Kingston, these include the complete design of the operating and laboratory protocols for the Alexandria site, the procurement of raw material for the first charge and the final elaboration of the plant layout.
The company reports that all essential work packages – from process engineering optimization to analytical control and plant planning – are closely coordinated along the schedule for Louisiana. The goal is to start processing heavy rare earths in the Louisiana SMC in 2026 and thus create a building block for the diversification of the western supply chain in this strategic raw material segment.
Ucore Rare Metals remains an example of how technology-driven separation technology and state-supported projects can work together to build independent value chains for rare earths outside the established Asian centers in the medium term – a topic that has recently become increasingly important for both industry and politics.
