Critical mineral refining technology company Nth Cycle has signed a joint development and licensing agreement with Ionic Rare Earths, an integrated rare earth supply chain developer, to establish refining operations in the US and internationally.

Under the agreement, Nth Cycle will work to integrate its proprietary electro-extraction technology into Ionic Rare Earths rare earth recycling and refining operations. The companies aim to establish a production pathway that bypasses China for long-loop recycling.

Nth Cycle’s technology will be integrated into Ionic’s Belfast facility beginning in the fourth quarter of 2026.

China refines around 90% of the world’s rare earth elements found in ore and end-of-life materials. Recovery occurs during precipitation, a step that relies on the reagent oxalic acid. IonicRE and Nth Cycle will work to replace the precipitation step in IonicRE’s flowsheet with Nth Cycle’s electro-extraction closed-loop process, which uses electricity rather than oxalic acid to convert rare earth recycled feedstocks into high-purity oxides for magnet metal production.

The joint development and licensing agreement with IonicRE follows Nth Cycle’s $1.1 billion offtake agreement with Trafigura for mixed hydroxide precipitate (MHP) and battery grade lithium carbonate refined from black mass.

These agreements demonstrate the multi-application advantage of the company’s refining solution, which produces the full spectrum of critical metals from ore and recycled feedstock and integrates with any rare earth refining process regardless of upstream separation technology, Nth Cycle stated.

“Rare earth refining in the US has made progress but building a resilient supply chain in the West requires solving every point of dependence, not just the most visible ones,” said Megan O’Connor, CEO and co-founder of Nth Cycle. “Nth Cycle’s technology closes one of the largest remaining links to Chinese chemical supply chains in the rare earth refining process. And because our electro-extraction platform works across rare earths, nickel, cobalt, copper and beyond, every application of our system accelerates the critical mineral supply chains our economy and national security depend on.”

Source: Nth Cycle