Rare Earth Processing
Turning separated rare earth elements into consistent, high-value products requires precise control of heat, moisture, and particle size. Bepex develops continuous solids processing systems to help producers move from recovered or precipitated rare earth elements toward finished oxides, powders, and other downstream products.
Build Better Processes for Critical Materials
Rare earth elements are essential to permanent magnets, electronics, energy systems, defense systems, and more. As new supply chains emerge and demand increases ten-fold, producers are being challenged to fast-track development while ensuring technical viability, consistent quality, and scalable designs.
That is where Bepex fits.
Our legacy is in developing, designing, and delivering brand new processes. Our thermal processing, size reduction, and particle processing technologies are configured around your specific application. Need validation and proof? Our Process Development Center provides a palce to prove it works as expected before committing to commercial scale.
Controlled Thermal Processing
Rare earth intermediates often require drying, heating, calcinination, reaction, solvent removal, or cooling as they move towards a finished product.
Bepex continuous thermal technologies provide precise control over temperature, residence time, and atmosphere, allowing the process to be designed around the material, rather than forcing the material into a standard thermal design.
Protect Valuable Material
When every pound or kilogram matters, unecessary product loss, contamination, and material holdup matters too.
Our systems are configured for continuous, enclosed processing, minimizing potential contamination. They may be designed for inert, or carbon-free processing, to protect against accidental chemical conversion. In the case of our Solidaire thin-layer paddler dryer, they are designed to minimize the working material volume inside the thermal unit, meaning process changes can be made rapidly, minimizing lost product in the inbetween.
Develop the Process Before Scaling It
Many emerging rare earth projects are not simply selecting equipment for a mature, expanding process. They are building the process themselves.
Bepex can begin with a small quantity of material, evaluate processing feasibility, and progress through pilot-scale testing to validate a continuous system.
Thermal and Particle Processing for Rare Earths
Filter Cake Drying
Precipitation and separation processes often produce wet cakes from a filter press. Bepex direct and indirect drying technologies can remove water or solvents, while controlling material temperature, residence time, atmosphere, and final moisture.
Solids Cooling
High-temperature solids after calcination often need controlled cooling before downstream processing or packaging. Bepex indirect cooling technologies provide efficient solids cooling without introducing large volumes of cooling gas or ambient air.
PCX
The PCX dispersion flash dryer processes high-moisture materials including non-pumpable wet cakes, pastes and slurries into a fine powder or small granules. No extra dilution is required for processing, meaning faster drying, less energy use, and lower emissions.
Solidaire
The Solidaire thin layer paddle dryer offers the highest heat transfer coefficient available. Process dry or wet solids, liquids, slurries, cakes or pastes more efficiently, with more control, at lower cost. Solidaire applications include drying, devolatilizing, reacting, cooling, and crystallizing.
TorusDisc
The TorusDisc dryer is designed for high heat loads and long residence times. The TorusDisc provides maximum heat transfer and complete processing control in a compact footprint, making it ideal for drying, reacting, crystallizing, and heating or cooling processes.
Build the Process Here First
Helping advance domestic processing capacity for critical rare earth materials.
Developing a reliable rare earth supply chain requires more than access to raw material. It requires a scalable process that can consistently transform separated intermediates into usable product. That is where process development matters.
At Bepex, we use our Process Development Center to evaluate the thermal and particle processing steps that come after separation. This includes drying filter cakes, time and temperature control for thermal conversion or activation, cooling material after high-temperature treatment, reducing particle size, or preparing powders for better downstream performance.
Testing and process system validation allows us to understand how the material behaves, determine the right processing approach, establish operating conditions, and generate the data necessary to move towards guaranteed success at commercial scale.
Explore Our Resources
Process Development
Feasibility
All new inquiries begin with a feasibility study. These studies aim to provide preliminary insights into the viability of a commercial process. Using as little as 100 grams of material, we can begin early process design, develop plans for pilot-testing and/or confirmation, and begin providing early economic estimates. Our experience across our wide range of technologies gives us a unique ability to provide quick feedback on the feasibility of your process.
Development
From our learnings, we’ll begin the process development work. The primary work in this phase takes place in the form of pilot-scale testing in our Process Development Center. Our pilot tests look a bit different than what you may have experienced in the past. Each test is designed to measure the system performance and feasibility rather than that of any single machine.
Each system is custom assembled for each test. Our goal is to provide as much of a pilot-scale simulation as possible while gathering scale-up data to deliver on commercial capacities. When a certain technology proves ineffective, we’ll draw from our range of options to determine if there is a better fit. The Process Development Center is our sandbox to build, test, and revise to ensure we get every detail right.
Budget Evaluation
With a successful pilot simulation completed, we now have everything we need to scale up and provide proposals for capital equipment with included performance guarantees.
System Design And Build
After receipt of the purchase order, we begin with both equipment and system engineering. Each proprietary technology we sell is custom-designed and built per application. We do not have any off-the-shelf units. At this stage, your exact system begins to take shape, including auxiliary equipment, process flow diagrams, process and instrumentation diagrams, safety provisions, and more.
Commissioning
After delivery and installation of your new system, Bepex will provide a mechanical check to ensure everything is placed according to plan. This is followed shortly thereafter by system commissioning. This is where our pilot-scale simulations become invaluable, as our team of application engineers, controls technicians, and sales engineers begin working with your team to successfully bring your system online.
Support
At this point, you’re up and running at rate, producing a quality product, but our work doesn’t stop there.
Following commissioning, Bepex remains a reliable partner, providing quality OEM parts, immediate field service, process optimization, training, system troubleshooting, and more. We have consistently had high customer retention rates, and we believe it is due in large part to our comprehensive approach to serving our customers long after the original sale.
Start With Your Material
Bring us the material, the target, and the challenge. We'll help determine what happens next.
