Ionic Mineral Technologies was mining the clay in Utah when it chanced upon what could be the critical mineral equivalent of a gold mine.
Ionic MT had leased the land as part of its business producing nanosilicon for lithium-ion batteries, which are used in electric vehicles. But the company told WSJ Pro Sustainable Business that what it found was a host of other minerals, in what it says may be the most significant critical mineral reserve in the U.S.
Ionic MT said it discovered high grades of 16 different types of minerals, everything from lithium to alumina, germanium, rubidium, cesium, vanadium and niobium at the site in Utah’s Silicon Ridge.
China dominates the critical minerals market while supplying about 90% of the world’s rare earths. The Trump administration sees critical mineral mining in the U.S. as a national security priority: The minerals are used in everything from semiconductors for electronics to defense. The administration recently struck a deal
with Australia to invest more than $3 billion combined in such projects.
Ionic MT said it has had several meetings with the Trump administration and that the White House has expressed “clear enthusiasm about our work and its potential national impact.”
Rubidium and cesium, which are used for atomic clocks, can be found at the Utah site, along with scandium, which is essential for the aerospace industry. The U.S. currently relies on other countries to secure rubidium, cesium and scandium.
Independent testing shows that the Utah deposit is made up of “a halloysite-hosted ion-adsorption clay,” which essentially means it can be rich in minerals, the same kind of geological formation that supplies a big chunk of China’s rare earth production, the company said.
“You can’t make a vehicle without these, you can’t make a fighter jet without some of these metals,” said Andre Zeitoun, founder and CEO of Ionic MT, adding that the minerals are also essential for semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence.
The company so far has drilled an area covering more than 600 acres to a depth of 100 feet, but there is much more to explore. “We know this is a sizable deposit, and we know that’s just scratching the surface,” Zeitoun said.
The Utah land is already permitted for mining, which will speed up production, and the area benefits from having full infrastructure already in place over its 8,000 acres. The company will process the minerals at its manufacturing facility nearby in Provo, Utah.
“This is a district, not a mine,” he said, given the scale of the site. “A lot of things that bog down mining is access to roads and water, but that’s already established here.”
Regarding the reserve, Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz, a Republican, said, “Our energy and national security depend on having a reliable supply of critical minerals—and Utah is uniquely positioned to lead the way.”
Amid the push to shore up the U.S. supply, the Interior Department recently expanded what the country considers critical minerals, including copper and uranium, for example.
“We have got assets in this country that belong to the public: public lands, public minerals, onshore and offshore, in a magnitude and abundance that virtually no country in the world could imagine,” said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum
at a conference in Washington, D.C., last week.
Zeitoun said it would be fairly easy for the company to secure the minerals from the earth.
“Think of it like a lake bed that dried out over many millions of years,” he said. “It’s very soft clay, and we’re mining from the surface.”
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