Digital Panning for Rare Earth Elements
Rapid screening of large sample sets for rare-earth-element signatures
Rare-earth elements (REEs) are critical to advanced electronics, permanent magnets, energy systems, communications, and defense applications, yet identifying new sources can require costly and time-consuming geochemical exploration. Conventional quantitative inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) workflows require sample-specific optimization and are not well suited to rapidly screening thousands of samples. Mining, geochemical laboratories, government programs, and other organizations need a scalable way to triage samples and focus detailed analysis on the most promising locations.
Digital Panning is a proxy-based screening method that uses (ICP-MS) and digital data processing to identify samples likely to contain REEs. In one demonstrated approach, the method records the m/z 144 signal associated with neodymium and samarium, compares counts-per-second intensity against a defined threshold, and uses computer scripts to identify samples for follow-up confirmation. The approach can leverage samples already collected for other metals analyses, enabling broad screening with little additional analytical burden and reserving full quantitative REE analysis for selected samples.
Benefits:
- Faster sample triage: screens large datasets to identify samples that warrant confirmatory REE analysis
- Lower analytical burden: focuses time-intensive, costly quantitative ICP-MS work on the most promising samples
- Leverages existing samples and workflows: can use environmental samples already collected and analyzed for metals, expanding the value of prior sampling efforts
- Scalable and data-driven: combines an adjustable ICP-MS screening threshold with digital data processing to support broad geographic and geochemical screening
Applications:
- Early-stage mineral exploration
- Rapid target identification
- Resource evaluation
- Sample prioritization
- Mine-waste screening
- Critical mineral recovery
- Environmental screening
- Strategic mineral mapping
Patents
- 18/660,077 (Copy & search patent)