Solcoa raises $75 million for planned Nevada rare-earth plant

Solcoa says it raised $75 million for Silikoa One, a planned Nevada rare-earth metallization plant with capacity of 500 tons per year. Its Alameda site is the engineering, R&D and pilot-operations hub; mature processes are to be moved to Nevada for production.

The company says it shifted about a year ago from producing almost entirely from rare-earth scrap, including material from hard drives and cars, to primary metalmaking with refined mined ore because it could not obtain enough recycled material at scale. It still recycles for a few customers. NdPr is made mainly for the auto sector, while samarium is used almost exclusively in defense. Solcoa says China’s export ban has created a samarium shortage in that market. Both products are planned to reach scale when Seltzer 1 is commissioned on July 4 of next year.