Hydrova’s Harvest™ Platform

Hydrova’s Harvest™ is a sustainable critical minerals extraction and processing platform built upon core leaching and extraction technology. Rare earth metals (REMs) are among the many products able to be extracted using the Harvest™ platform.

Ultrasound-assisted organic acid leaching technology aims to enable drastic improvements to efficiency and sustainability during production of a variety of metals including REMs, precious metals, and more. REMs can be produced from bastnasite and monazite ore deposits using ultrasound-assisted organic acid leaching with significant reductions to processing cost and environmental impact. The growing demand for advancing technologies made from REMs is predicted to reach $2.5 trillion worldwide by 2030.

Organic acid leaching works by solubilizing metals using organic acids from the metabolic/enzymatic activity of microorganisms while using ultrasound to increase efficiency. Energy consumption can be reduced by approximately 10x by using ultrasound compared to traditional leaching (source). Compared to traditional solvent extraction which can require hundreds of complex solvents and create a large amount of acid and base waste, organic acid leaching requires a single harmless solvent and produces no hazardous waste. The solid byproducts of the leaching process can be used as a substrate for phytomining, minimizing the overall waste production.