Ucore Rare Metals Inc is taking over Innovation Metals Corp (IMC), a privately held Canadian company that has developed RapidSX, a proprietary technology for the separation and purification of critical metals including rare earth elements, lithium, nickel and cobalt.

RapidSX is an accelerated solvent-extraction-based separation technology, successfully piloted by IMC.

Ucore said the process has been highly effective at the pilot scale in separating both heavy REE and light REE feedstocks to commercial-grade rare-earth oxides, with expected significant technical and economic efficiencies relative to existing technologies.

RapidSX combines the chemistry of solvent extraction, the REE industry's current standard bulk commercial separation technology, with a new column-based platform, which significantly accelerates separation performance, resulting in smaller process-plant size and lower expected capital and operating costs, the company added.

IMC is also looking at utilizing RapidSX with other feedstocks, including nickel and cobalt from Ni-Co concentrates and lithium from brines.

Ucore chairman Pat Ryan said: We firmly believe that RapidSX holds considerable merit for Ucore's own prospective Alaska Strategic Metals Complex ... as well as industry-wide commercialisation in particular due to the scalable and modular nature of RapidSX."