AGREE – Avoiding Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Rare Earth Element Production by Transferring Space Resource Technology to Earth

Extracting metals from ores is essential for our technological society, but it requires enormous amounts of energy and is responsible for 40% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Perfluorinated hydrocarbons (PFCs), potent GHGs, are emitted in the production of rare earth metals, which are indispensable for electromobility, magnets and high-performance alloys. Europe currently imports 98% of these metals, posing geopolitical risks.

For the extraction of Oxygen from lunar regolith (“moon dust”), an Airbus led consortium developed ROXY (Regolith to OXYgen and metals conversion), a GHG-free electrolysis process that is ideal for metals with a high affinity for oxygen and hard-to-reduce oxides. AGREE is adapting this process for Earth, focusing on the rare earth elements scandium and neodymium.

The project will optimise key components such as electrodes and demonstrate efficient, PFC-free production of Sc and Nd from their oxides in the laboratory. It will also include the design of future scaled-up facilities and the establishment of industrial partnerships to scale up sustainable production of rare earth elements.

Benefits:

• Contribution to an independent rare earth metal value chain in Europe
• Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions for a sustainable rare earth element production
• Technology transfer of electrolysis technology originally developed to extract oxygen and metals from lunar regolith