A new way to separate valuable metals, starting with the rare earths the West cannot get. Molecularly designed carbon electrodes, switched by potential.
The problem
The strongest permanent magnets, in electric vehicles, wind turbines and defence systems, need neodymium and praseodymium; the high temperature grades add terbium and dysprosium. Ore is mined in many countries. Almost all of it is sent to one country to be separated into single elements.
Mining is spread out. Separation is the choke point. Without the capacity to turn mixed oxides into single metals, every mine and every magnet plant outside China depends on a Chinese step.
China's share of each step. Sources: US DOE, Rare Earth Magnets Supply Chain Deep Dive, 2022; IEA Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025 (91% of separation and refining, 2024).
Why it is hard
Chemistry, not scarcity.
Neighbouring rare earths carry the same 3+ charge and are almost the same size. Praseodymium and neodymium differ by about 0.7% in ionic radius; terbium and dysprosium by about 1.2%. A separating chemistry has to read differences of about one picometre.
Ionic radii: R. D. Shannon, Acta Crystallographica A32 (1976), coordination number 6.
Today's answer
Solvent extraction: a small gain per stage, so a very long cascade.
An extractant in kerosene is contacted with the acidic feed. Neighbouring elements load almost equally in each contact, so purity takes long chains of mixer-settler stages. Loading and stripping are driven by acid; caustic follows to neutralise. The plant is large, fixed, and designed and financed as one piece.
The idea
A rigid, redox-active aromatic unit is bonded covalently to graphitic carbon. Donor atoms on the unit form a coordination pocket, and the pocket sets which ion fits. Because the unit sits on a conductor, its redox state, and with it the shape and charge of the pocket, is set by the electrode potential.
Capture at one potential, release at another. Each target ion has its own capture and release window. Stepping the potential is the whole separation step: no extractant, no stripping acid, no solvent inventory. The support is commodity activated carbon from coconut shell, coal or wood, serving as electrode and substrate in one material.
A solid, reusable material sits in the dissolved feed: a carbon textile carrying molecules bound to its surface, each one interacting differently with the metal ions in the solution.
Porous carbon electrodes
Functionalised with surface-bound molecules that act as chemical locks.
Potential-driven capture
Target ions bind under one voltage and are released cleanly under another.
No organic solvent
Aqueous, electrically driven. Acid to dissolve the feed, a reagent to precipitate the oxide, standard waste water treatment.
The electron is the reagent
One electrode, four steps, then again
1 · Load
At the capture potential the pocket takes the target ion out of the dissolved feed and leaves the others in solution.
2 · Rinse
Unwanted solution is removed from the pores before release, so the product stream is clean.
3 · Release
The redox state changes, the pocket opens, and the element leaves into a clean, concentrated stream.
4 · Reset
The electrode returns to the capture state. Solvent volume is traded for cycle count on a reusable solid.
The base
Macropores carry flow, mesopores give access, micropores give area. The grafted layer covers the fibre surface and fills the pore mouths, and stays there: the bond to the carbon is covalent. The material rests on a decade of published work on grafted carbon cloth in energy storage, now pointed at a new job.
Three routes, side by side
| Solvent extraction | Ion exchange, chromatography | SelectREE, design intent | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Selectivity | Small gain per stage | Resin and complexing eluent | Pocket plus potential |
| Release | Strong acid | Eluent or acid | Potential step |
| Medium | Solvent in kerosene | Resin beads | Grafted carbon |
| Consumables | Acid, caustic, solvent | Eluent, regenerant | Electricity |
| Fouling | Interfacial crud | Fe, Al, Si, organics | To validate on real feed |
The right-hand column is what SelectREE is designing toward. It is the thesis until the development programme measures it.
Team
Six people work in the company today, in the laboratory at Petah Tikva. The scientific base is the founders' own published work on carbon fabrics carrying redox-active molecules; the laboratory, equipment and patents behind it are now SelectREE's.
Founder, CEO and CTO
Chemical engineer, organic chemist and electrochemist (PhD, Bar Ilan University, Aurbach group). More than twenty years in the chemical industry. First author of the published work the material rests on; sole inventor of the platform filing. Leads surface chemistry, product development and the move to an industrial system.
Founder and Chief Scientific Officer
Electrochemist and surface scientist with about thirty-five years across energy storage, spectroscopy, light-metal chemistry and extractive metallurgy. More than 150 peer-reviewed papers. Leads the capture mechanism, the design of the targeting molecules and electrochemical validation.
Founder and Executive Chairman
Thirty years from systems engineering to company building, most of it in electrochemical and energy technology; chairman of a group of electrochemistry companies in climate and critical materials. Leads financing, partnerships and corporate development.
Lead Electrochemist
Fifteen years in research and industry on carbon electrodes, battery materials and extractive metallurgy. Leads the day-to-day electrochemical programme and owns the measurement protocols.
Senior Electrochemist
Materials engineer with five years in battery research and development, from junior researcher to project lead. Runs the electrochemical measurements on the grafted electrodes.
Process Engineer and Chemist
Materials engineer and chemist, Tel Aviv University. Runs the wet chemistry of the programme and the process development from bench cell toward the test machine.
A board of three: David Malka, Yehuda Borenstein and Pini Althaus, investor director. Pini Althaus is the founder and first Chief Executive of USA Rare Earth (Nasdaq: USAR) and leads Cove Capital, which made the company's founder round in 2026 and brings market knowledge, government relationships and direct access to material.
Contact
Independent validation with a US partner is the next step on the roadmap. We are talking to refiners, recyclers, magnet makers and laboratories who can run our material on their feed. Investor and partnership enquiries are welcome; technical diligence material is available on request.
Founder, CEO and CTO
Founder, Executive Chairman
Laboratory
14 Odem Street, Petah Tikva, Israel
Entities
Critical Materials Systems Inc., Delaware, USA
SelectREE Technologies Ltd., Israel
September 2026
NLR Innovation Showcase, Avon, Colorado
