Building on plans to establish a mine-to-alloy rare earth supply chain across the Americas, Aclara Resources Inc. is expanding Project Dynamo in Louisiana to include the separation of yttrium, gadolinium, and samarium alongside the magnet rare earths at the project’s core.
Adding this trio of critical rare earths to the neodymium-praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium separation circuits already planned expands the U.S. facility’s reach further into power generation, aerospace, and other high-performance technologies.
While Aclara had previously identified samarium, gadolinium, and yttrium among the individual oxides it ultimately expected the Louisiana facility to produce, the company is now formally incorporating the additional circuits into Project Dynamo’s engineering and the demonstration program underway at Virginia Tech.
All seven are included on the 2025 U.S. critical minerals list, with samarium, terbium, dysprosium, gadolinium, and yttrium among the rare earth supply chains USGS classified as facing the highest risk of disruption.
In April 2025, Beijing imposed export controls on samarium, gadolinium, yttrium, and several other medium and heavy rare earth materials, adding another supply consideration for Western manufacturers already dependent on China for much of the world’s rare earth processing capacity.
For Aclara, yttrium represents the largest new opportunity.
“Yttrium is a particularly compelling opportunity,” said Aclara CEO Ramón Barúa.
According to the company, the element accounts for roughly half of the rare earth composition of its Penco project in Chile and around 30% at its Carina mine project in Brazil.
At full production, Aclara estimates the two ionic clay projects could produce super pure rare earth carbonate, or SPREC, containing roughly 1,400 metric tons of yttrium per year. That mixed carbonate is envisioned as the primary feed for the company’s U.S. separation operations.
Aclara sees a growing market for that yttrium in high-temperature materials used in gas turbines, aircraft engines, and other demanding applications.
With utilities and technology companies investing in new electrical generation to meet the demands of AI infrastructure and data centers, Aclara sees gas turbines as one potential source of increasing demand for yttrium-enhanced high-temperature materials.
That adds another dimension to a rare earth strategy that, until recently, has been largely focused on permanent magnets.
Neodymium-praseodymium, or NdPr, provides the primary magnetic strength in the neodymium-iron-boron magnets used in electric vehicles, robotics, wind turbines, and a long list of high-tech applications, while small additions of dysprosium and terbium allow those magnets to maintain their performance at higher temperatures.
Samarium extends Dynamo’s reach further into the magnet sector, while Aclara is positioning yttrium and gadolinium as a complementary platform serving power generation, aerospace, and other high-performance markets.
First up, Virginia Tech
Before those additional rare earths are separated at commercial scale in Louisiana, Aclara plans to demonstrate the process at Virginia Tech.
The company has begun installing additional solvent extraction circuits at its rare earth demonstration plant at the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center in Blacksburg.
Equipment for the yttrium circuit has already arrived and is expected to be installed and commissioned over the coming weeks, with gadolinium and samarium circuits to follow.
To accommodate the larger program, Aclara has doubled the physical footprint of the Virginia Tech facility and plans to roughly double the technical team supporting its operation.
Originally developed to demonstrate the separation of mixed rare earth carbonate from Aclara’s South American ionic clay deposits into individual high-purity oxides, the Virginia Tech facility serves as an important bridge between the company’s resources and Project Dynamo.
Data generated there is also feeding an artificial intelligence-enabled digital twin being developed with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory.
Using Argonne’s SolventX modeling platform, the digital twin is intended to virtually test operating conditions, optimize the separation process, and reduce the risks of scaling the technology from the Virginia demonstration plant to commercial operations in Louisiana.
The expanded program also gives future Dynamo engineers, chemists, and operators up to two years of hands-on experience with rare earth separation before the commercial facility begins operating – developing a trained workforce for the Louisiana plant while adding another workforce-development dimension to Virginia Tech’s role in rebuilding U.S. rare earth processing capabilities.
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Larger Dynamo
Adding another three separated rare earth products is making Project Dynamo a substantially larger undertaking.
Aclara expects the number of mixer-settlers used in the solvent extraction portion of the Louisiana plant to increase by 40% – from roughly 340 to 478.
Basic engineering is in its final stages and is being modified to incorporate the additional circuits.
Project Dynamo has also secured its state air permit from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, and Aclara is targeting groundbreaking during the first quarter of 2027, subject to securing financing.
Financing for that buildout received a potential boost in September when the Export-Import Bank of the United States issued a letter of interest indicating it would consider up to $750 million for the Louisiana rare earth oxides, alloys, and metals plant under its Make More in America initiative.
The contemplated financing remains preliminary, but would help fund a Louisiana complex being designed to carry rare earth material considerably further down the supply chain than the mixed carbonate produced at Aclara’s planned mines.
Aclara has also been widening the resource side of this strategy. In September, the Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security, more widely known as JOGMEC, entered a joint venture with the company to explore and advance additional heavy rare earth-enriched ionic clay deposits in Brazil – potentially adding other sources of future material to a supply chain being built from South American resources to U.S. processing.
Taken together, these pieces are gradually expanding what Project Dynamo represents.
What began largely as a pathway to separate the scarce magnet rare earths contained in Aclara’s ionic clay resources is evolving into a broader U.S. and allied rare earth processing platform.
If Aclara can successfully scale the technology and finance the Louisiana buildout, Dynamo would provide a pathway for South American rare earths to be separated into an increasingly diverse suite of high-purity products needed for aerospace, power generation, and advanced manufacturing, alongside the magnet rare earths powering the electrified and automated future.
Author Bio
Shane Lasley, Metal Tech News
Shane Lasley is the founder and publisher of Metal Tech News, where he covers the minerals, metals, and materials that make modern technology possible.
A journalist with nearly two decades of experience covering mining and mineral development, Lasley has expanded his reporting beyond where metals come from to explore what makes them valuable — the unique properties that allow elements such as lithium, rare earths, graphite, gallium, germanium, copper and dozens of others to enable advances in energy, transportation, electronics, aerospace, defense, and emerging technologies.
His reporting follows the entire materials story, from mineral discovery and mine development through processing, supply chains, materials science, and the technologies that ultimately put those resources to work.
Lasley has a particular interest in critical minerals and the increasingly interconnected relationship between mineral resources, technological innovation, energy security, global supply chains, and geopolitics. Through Metal Tech News, he seeks to give readers a deeper understanding of the materials behind innovation and why securing their supply matters.