US Patent Issued on June 16 for "Continuous ion exchange processes for separating rare earth elements" (Florida Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,655,499, issued on June 16.

"Continuous ion exchange processes for separating rare earth elements" was invented by Andrew Peter Gillespie (Mulberry, Fla.) and Gordon John Rossiter (Lakeland, Fla.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present invention employs continuous ion exchange processes in binary configurations during the refinement of rare earth elements to convert an input stream of mixed rare earth elements into two or more separate streams of isolated rare earth elements. The present invention leverages the different chemical properties and behaviors of heavier and lighter REEs to separate them in continuous ion exchange devices. ...