A Yale University graduate, David D’Addario has over 35 years of experience in the aluminum industry. He leverages his expertise to lead different investment and management decisions, including selling a majority stake at New Day Aluminum, LLC to Concord Resources. David D’Addario also spearheaded the establishment of Element Mineral US, a rare earth elements (REE) company seeking sustainable and feasible technospheric extraction.
REEs are crucial for electric and construction components, especially in green innovations, due to favorable physicochemical properties. Traditionally, extracting rare metals required expensive, invasive, and highly destructive mining and refining methods. Favorable availability also faces monopolistic market supply and price manipulation, with China providing 99 percent of the global supplies, necessitating alternative extraction methods and sources. Technospheric extraction recovers the rare metals from aluminum bauxite waste (red mud). Red mud forms the primary residue, by weight, from aluminum production, at a rate of two tons per one ton of alumina produced. From the mud, depending on location, the REE percentage averages at 0.03 percent total residue weight, a large number considering the relative global scarcity. The REE remains unchanged during the Bayer process, with extraction yielding, among others, scandium, a highly sought after but rare REE used in light air structure alloys, reducing the plane weight by 15-20 percent. With concentrations as high as 50ppm, extraction from red mud is considered one of the most feasible and sustainable REEs sources.
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AuthorDavid D'Addario - Growth-Focused Metals Executive. Archives
October 2023
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