Ionic Rare Earths (ASX: IXR) has, through its wholly owned U.S. subsidiary, Ionic Rare Earths USA, entered into a joint venture (JV) term sheet with Missouri-based US Strategic Metals (USSM) for the construction of magnet recycling facilities at USSM’s fully permitted site in Missouri. 

Ionic USA and USSM have agreed to form a 50-50 JV that plans to develop an integrated campus for the production of critical minerals and metals at USSM’s 1,800-acre (728.4 ha) fully permitted site near Fredericktown. 

The JV aims to construct one or more magnet and other rare earth recycling facilities at the site, processing recycled permanent neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) and samarium-cobalt (SmCo) magnets and magnet scrap. The companies also said they intend to evaluate recycling heavy rare earth elements (REEs). 

The JV will be funded with $100 million for the construction of initial NdFeB and SmCo magnet recycling facilities, comprised of $95 million funding from USSM and a $5 million equity contribution split equally between Ionic USA and USSM.  

The initial $5 million equity contribution will be used to complete front end engineering design or the facility and accelerate demonstration-scale magnet recycling at the site or other location agreed on, the companies said.  

Under the proposed deal, IonicRE’s wholly owned Belfast subsidiary, Ionic Technologies, will contribute a non-exclusive licence to the proposed JV for its magnet recycling technology for the recycling of magnets and magnet scrap plus other heavy REE containing compounds. 

 
“The proposed JV will seek to provide IonicRE with a practical and capital-efficient method of building rare earth magnet recycling capacity in the United States, the world’s biggest economy,” IonicRE managing director Tim Harrison said in a news release.  
 
“Magnet recycling is a fast and low-cost pathway to developing a secure, sovereign and sustainable rare earths supply chain. It is intended that the proposed JV will deliver on the capability already demonstrated at demonstration scale at Ionic Technologies in the UK to deliver a resilient supply of high purity, separated REOs for US industrial needs.”