September 28, 2026 - West Virginia University researchers are working to transform one of Appalachia’s longstanding coal mining challenges into a potential source of valuable rare earth elements and critical minerals, with plans to scale technology that recovers the materials from coal mine drainage.

Researchers at WVU have spent roughly a decade developing methods to recover rare earth elements, or REEs, from acid mine drainage associated with coal mines. The technology could provide a new domestic source of minerals essential to advanced manufacturing, energy, electronics and national defense while also helping address water pollution from historic mining operations.

At the center of the effort is WVU’s Acid Mine Drainage Rare Earth Extraction, or AMDREE, program.

Rather than developing a conventional rare earth mine, the process captures minerals contained in water already being treated at coal mine sites. Researchers have found that acid mine drainage in Appalachia can contain economically interesting concentrations of rare earth elements.

WVU’s work has progressed well beyond laboratory experiments.

The A34 AMDREE facility near Mount Storm, West Virginia, opened in 2022 and became the nation’s first integrated pilot-scale facility designed to recover rare earths from acid mine drainage.

The facility can process as much as 500 gallons of mine drainage per minute and produce nearly two tons annually of rare earth elements and critical minerals in mixed-oxide form.

Researchers are now looking toward a much larger operation.

The U.S. Department of Energy awarded WVU $8 million for front-end engineering and design work for a larger demonstration facility capable of recovering rare earths and other critical minerals from acid mine drainage and other mining-related materials.

Plans have called for a facility capable of producing hundreds of tons of rare earth and critical mineral products annually, with approximately 300 tons representing the lower end of production estimates discussed for the larger-scale operation.

The distinction is important: WVU is not currently producing 300 tons of rare earths annually. The existing Mount Storm operation is a pilot facility intended to demonstrate and refine the technology before significantly larger commercial-scale production is attempted.

One of the most promising aspects of Appalachian mine drainage is the composition of the rare earth elements it contains.

WVU researchers have reported that more than 60% of the rare earths found in acid mine drainage consist of neodymium, praseodymium and heavy rare earth elements. Those materials include some of the most strategically important and difficult-to-source elements used in modern technology.

Among them are dysprosium and terbium, which are used in high-performance permanent magnets. Such magnets are important components in electric motors, generators, aerospace equipment, electronics and defense applications.

WVU researchers have estimated that a larger demonstration operation could potentially produce quantities equivalent to approximately 5.4% to 7.3% of worldwide requirements for terbium and dysprosium.

The research could have significant implications for the Appalachian coalfields.

Acid mine drainage has traditionally represented a costly environmental liability associated with active and abandoned mines. Water flowing through old mine workings can become acidic and carry dissolved metals that must be removed before the water is discharged.

WVU’s approach seeks to turn some of those materials into marketable products.

The process can be incorporated into mine-water treatment systems, allowing operators to recover valuable minerals while treating the water. It also means that rare earth materials could potentially be produced without developing an entirely new conventional rare earth mine.

Earlier research supported by the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory estimated that acid mine drainage treatment sludge generated in West Virginia and Pennsylvania alone could contain hundreds or potentially thousands of tons of rare earth elements annually.

WVU researchers have also demonstrated significant improvements in the quality of the material they recover. Earlier pilot work produced mixed rare earth oxide concentrates at approximately 80% purity in 2019, increasing to approximately 98% purity in subsequent testing.

The technology can also recover other critical materials, including nickel, cobalt, manganese and zinc.

The effort comes as the United States is seeking to reduce its dependence on foreign sources of critical minerals and establish domestic supply chains for materials essential to manufacturing and national security.

For Appalachia, the technology offers another potential opportunity: using the infrastructure, workforce and resources of historic coal-producing regions to participate in a growing critical-minerals industry.

WVU took another step toward commercialization in May 2026 with the launch of the WVU Rare Earth Elements Initiative and Mission Critical Materials, a for-profit startup created to help move the university’s rare earth recovery technology toward commercial deployment.

The initiative builds on years of research supported by the Department of Energy and other partners.

If the technology can be successfully expanded from pilot operations to large-scale production, coal mine drainage could become more than an environmental problem requiring treatment.

It could become a domestic source of some of the world’s most strategically important minerals — providing a new use for resources found throughout America’s coalfields while helping clean up the legacy of past mining.