In West Virginia, a solution to America's need for rare earth minerals might come from polluted water in old coal mines.

WVU researchers are working to turn acid mine drainage into a source of critical minerals used in many products.

The US relies on other countries for rare earth elements. Heavy rare earth minerals are very valuable for defense and energy.

The US got a win against China in the race for African rare earth minerals.

Water from coal mines is very acidic and dirty.

WVU researchers found that the dirty water already had valuable materials in it.

The focus was on cleaning the water, but they found rare earth elements too.

Researchers were cleaning the water and found it had rare earth elements. This discovery opened a new door.

This discovery means they can clean up pollution and get valuable minerals at the same time.

The dirty water is cleaned at West Virginia University.

There's a chance to make money from cleaning the dirty water.

WVU's research found that the dirty water has more heavy rare earth elements than other sources.

The dirty water has 50% heavy rare earths, which is much more than other sources.

Heavy rare earth elements are very valuable and hard to find.

A new discovery in the Arctic could hurt China's control of rare earth minerals.

WVU extracted heavy rare earth minerals from the dirty water.

WVU started researching this nearly a decade ago and is now expanding its work.

In 2022, WVU opened a facility to recover rare earth minerals from dirty water.

This technology could help the US rely less on other countries for rare earth minerals.

Rare earth elements are used in many products, like cell phones and electric vehicles.

Inside the facility where WVU is working on rare earth minerals.

Rare earth elements are important for clean energy.

WVU is working to commercialize the technology to get it to the market.

The goal is to find other sources of critical minerals, like hard rock mines.

The process works for hard rock mines too, not just coal mines.

Heavy rare earth minerals are used for defense, like submarines.

This approach uses existing polluted sites, so no new mines are needed.

The process is faster than building a new mine and is environmentally friendly.

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WVU researchers think this process can help with two problems: cleaning water and producing needed materials.

The next step is to build a bigger facility to produce and sell heavy rare earth materials.

Pete Cuddihy is a reporter for Fox News based in Philadelphia.