SMU Professor Secures $25 Million Grant to Revolutionize Rare Earth Mining with Fracking Technology
Saeed Salehi, the Herman Brown Chair of Mechanical Engineering at SMU, has been awarded $19.3 million in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, part of the department’s Mine of the Future initiative. With additional funding from industry partners, Salehi's total research funding amounts to $25 million, marking the largest individual research funding commitment in SMU history. The project, named the Well-to-Mine Proving Ground, aims to adapt oil and gas fracking technologies for rare earth mining. Salehi plans to develop the world's first synthetic mine in Navasota, Texas, which will emulate real mining conditions to test these fracking technologies. This initiative seeks to address the U.S.'s reliance on foreign imports for over half of its rare earth metals and minerals consumption, which are crucial for manufacturing cell phones, computers, and cars.
