​FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CF Technologies, Inc. and Battelle Energy Alliance are granted U.S. Patent No. 12,416,064 B2 for Separation and Purification of Metals, with a focus on Rare Earth Elements.
Boston, MA — March 10, 2026 — CF Technologies, Inc., an innovator in the field of separation technologies, announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted U.S. Patent No. 12,416,064 B2, entitled Systems and Methods for Selective Recovery of Metals from Ion Exchange Resins, covering a novel approach to purify valuable metals, including lanthanide radio isotopes such as lutetium 177 used in medicine, nuclear forensics, and research.
This patent strengthens CF Techs’ intellectual property portfolio around its core separation technologies and provides protection for key innovations as development moves to commercialization.

Key Details & Significance

• Patent number & issuance: U.S. Patent No. 12,416,064 B2, issued on September 16, 2025.
• Title: Systems and Methods for Selective Recovery of Metals from Ion Exchange Resins
• Inventors / Assignees: The inventors are Dr. Laura Sinclair, John Moses, Jessica Sweeney and Justin Gonzalez of CF Technologies, and Drs. Robert Fox and Mary Case of Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC (Idaho National Lab). The patent is assigned to CF Tech and Battelle Energy Alliance.
• Technology summary: The invention covers systems and methods for purification of rare earth elements, including radioisotopes used in the treatment of cancer. The non-aqueous process has numerous advantages over conventional purification technologies. It provides greater purification in higher yield in a single step, it is faster, lower cost, more efficient, and generates less hazardous waste than conventional methods.
• Problem addressed: The process addresses a long-standing challenge by offering a simple, cost-effective method to quickly produce in very high purity, short-lived radioisotopes.
• Applications & market potential: Along with other innovations at CF Tech, this technology can be deployed in small volume uses such radiopharmaceuticals manufacturing, stable isotope production, and nuclear forensics, and large volume rare earth element recovery, separation, and purification from recycling, mining, magnets and ore refining. Rare earth elements are needed for numerous applications in defense and electronics, and in magnets for electric vehicles, wind turbines, and many other applications. While radiopharmaceutical use continues to increase due to its success in cancer therapy, a key to both economic and patient outcomes is the speed of processing these short-lived isotopes. As global demand intensifies for radiopharmaceutical therapies and imaging, [Lu-177, Tb-161, Ac-225, Tl-201, Ga-67, Yt-90, At-211, Cu-64, Cu-67, among others], this patent positions the company to lead in commercialization and licensing for production of these critical radioisotopes.

 
Co-inventor and company president, John Moses, thanks employees, and the group at Idaho National Lab, and the MIT Nuclear Research Lab for their contributions to the development of this groundbreaking technology, which when implemented enables greater purification in a simplified process, resulting in reduced worker and environmental hazards and improvement in the treatment of cancer patients at lower cost.

Strategic Outlook & Next Steps
With this patent, CF Technologies, Inc. is positioned to:

• Engage in strategic partnerships and technology licensing,
• Advance development and validation in additional applications,
• Explore commercialization in markets prioritized for 2026 and beyond,
• Use the patent as a differentiator in funding rounds, marketing, and customer engagement.

“As we look to partners for commercial rollout," said Jessica Sweeney, Vice-President of CF Technologies, Inc., “the issuance of U.S. Patent No. 12,416,064 B2 marks a milestone in securing IP protection for our core innovation. This patent validates our direction and bolsters confidence among investors, collaborators, and customers in our path forward.”

About CF Technologies, Inc.
CF Technologies, Inc. is a world-renowned research, engineering, and manufacturing firm specializing in supercritical fluid processes and separations technology. Founded in 1989, the company focuses on advancements in clean and green technology upgrades including those in medical and renewable fuel industries.
For more information, visit cftechnologies.com for specific details on CF Tech’s Lu-177 radioactive separations as described in our white paper, 8914-WP3.
About Battelle Energy Alliance / Idaho National Laboratory
Battelle Energy Alliance manages INL for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy. INL is the nation’s center for nuclear energy research and development, and also performs research in each of DOE’s strategic goal areas: energy, national security, science and the environment. For more information, visit www.inl.gov and follow on social media: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X.

Media Contact
Jessica Sweeney, Vice President, CF Technologies, Inc.                                                                     
(617) 364-2500
[email protected]
cftechnologies.com

In just a single, well thought out experiment, CF Tech confirmed their hypothesis, selective extraction of rare earth elements is not only feasible, but successful! Please comment if you have a rare earth element containing feedstock or waste stream! What's interesting about it, what is the composition? Is it a waste stream that could provide additional revenue streams? If so, it's worth having CF Tech check it out for extraction and separation. Please contact us for more information, [email protected]
As all good scientists know, if you want to believe the results, you must run in at least triplicate. We did, the results are still promising, we will continue to run simulated feedstocks before switching over to real world matrices. 
Josh Harrington of Eldex Corporation, a key supplier for high pressure pumps came to visit our bench top setup and provide valuable system pumping guidance, he discusses his visit around Massachusetts, including to AIChE Boston 2025. 

CF Tech is proud to release separation and purification details on our Lutitium-177 radioisotope purification development. This technology is a fast, safe and inexpensive method for separation of the product from the irradiated target to be used in cancer therapy. After the irradiation, the target passes through a single chromatographic column and the highly pure product of interest, Lutitium-177 is collected. The product undergoes analysis and can be directly processed. CF Tech's technology is patent pending. Process and analysis details are included in our White Paper - available for download - for review and comment. 

This research was sponsored by the US Department of Energy with partners at the Idaho National Laboratory and was performed at CF Tech and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technologies' Nuclear Reactor Lab.

The United States Department of Energy has awarded CF Technologies with a SBIR Phase I grant to develop analytical scale rare earth element separation chromatography for the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation group within the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration.

Rare earth elements are necessary for the manufacture of green energy technologies, defense systems, glass, ceramics,  catalysts, and lights. Rare earth element isotopes are also important byproducts of nuclear energy and produced for medical therapy. Many industries therefore require high accuracy techniques to measure rare earth element content within a myriad of different samples. Measuring rare earth elements can be very difficult, and often requires multi-step processes to extract and purify the rare earth elements from the bulk material. Existing processes suffer from high complexity and intensive labor requirements. This introduces potential issues associated with human error and contamination. Most importantly, these processes require long processing times, sometimes 12 hours or more, which lead to increased errors in quantification due to half-live losses when analyzing for short-lived isotopes. Better purification techniques are therefore required for advanced manufacturing, nuclear medicine research, and nuclear power industries.
CF Technologies, Inc. has developed a more rapid and more simple process to purify individual rare earth elements from a variety of feedstocks. This process uses inexpensive, off-the-shelf chemicals to purify elements much faster than conventional methods, resulting in substantial savings and better data. During this Phase I development (scheduled to take place July 2023 - July 2024) the process will be developed further for application to a wider range of rare earth elements. This process is expected to be particularly applicable to the nuclear industry, where speed is critical for analysis of short-lived isotopes. During Phase I, CF Technologies, Inc. will focus on separating a wide range of rare earth elements, including the heavy and light varieties, from each other at high purities, simulating real life mixed nuclear products.
Commercial application of this technology will result in faster and less expensive analysis across the nuclear industry, including waste management, medical isotope production, and researching nextgeneration fuels. After demonstrations on non-radioactive material, Phase II will involve purification of irradiated targets to demonstrate applicability to nuclear samples. Commercialization will involve licensing and equipment sales to the nuclear industry and to nuclear chemistry research laboratories.

Thank you to the USDOE for this opportunty! Check out the other Phase I awardees here and the CF Tech award summary!

On May 19, 2022 the Department of Energy announced the winners of the Phase I Release 2 SBIR/STTR winners, CF Tech has been awarded a grant to conduct research and development of an innovative supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) process to extract and purify rare earth elements from Florida's phosphate mining waste streams!
CF Tech has been using scCO2 for decades to replace hazardous and expensive chemicals in process operations. This extraction process aims to open a new pathway for access to valuable critical materials - which are in desperate need.
The CF Tech team will be partnering with industry leader and expert, Dr. Patrick Zhang and the Florida Polytechnic University's FIPR. Finding value in waste streams is something that CF Tech is very good at, whether it's biodiesel or astaxanthin, we're finding ways to find, separate, purify and produce the good parts!  
The Department of Energy release quoted U.S. Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm "Tackling the climate crisis and securing America’s economic competitiveness will require the full scope of American enterprise, especially the small businesses that are propelling clean energy advances. These projects will not only unlock a range of equitable climate solutions, but also create good-paying jobs, lower costs, and forge a better future for underprivileged American families and communities."
CF Tech is so proud to be included amongst the awardees! In parallel with this grant, CF Tech will look at a variety of streams from mining to recycling to pursue domestic, economical methods of rare earth element collection and production.

Hyde Park, Boston MA is having their 150th birthday in 2018! Being a small business, it's important to stay involved in the community, to know your neighbors, your neighborhood and to bring positive influences, economy and safety. Hyde Park has been CF Tech's home for about 25 years and wouldn't want to be anywhere else! The Westinghouse complex roots go back as early as 1910 and have housed many manufacturing and service business over the past century. CF Tech has contributed to the community by bringing in employees and clients to eat, shop and stay locally, as well as paying real estate and income taxes. In 2015, we hosted the Hyde Park Main Street's Havana Nights fundraiser and plan to remain part of the community for decades to come, congratulations Hyde Park and remember to shop local whenever possible.

www.hp150.org

facebook.com/hydepark150

With the CF Tech successful FOG to biodiesel and green diesel processes, we should be well suited to assist in this goal by 2030 - we are planning for even sooner. Europe is already showing huge potential in the transfer to renewable fuels, let's hope that the US legislature can follow suit and require DOMESTIC production of renewable fuels to replace fossil fuels.

Yesterday, the Department of Energy released their list of SBIR/STTR Phase II award winners, CF Tech was selected to continue their development of ASTM biodiesel! CF Tech is honored to be on this short list of winner and wishes the best to all of the other award winners.

The list of EERE winners can be found on the Energy.gov website here:
https://energy.gov/eere/technology-to-market/downloads/fy-2017-sbirsttr-phase-ii-release-2-award-selections

In this program, CF Tech will work with a Federal Laboratory and WRR to turn waste water treatment plant and consolidation plant "brown grease", trust me, it's some nasty stuff, into ASTM certified B100. Additional research is on-going and we plan to be providing commercial scale systems to waste water treatment plants and consolidation facilities all across the country within a few years, stay tuned for more info!

A preliminary process design package includes essential information for customers thinking of installing a commercial plant. Let's back up a second - if you are thinking about installing a commercial plant, it's likely that you have performed bench and/or pilot studies to gauge the success of your idea. Provided all the data was promising and you're ready to move to the next step, let me recommend a Preliminary Process Design Package.
This is a key step in the design phase, for a minimal amount of money, almost always less than half a percent of the installed plant cost, CF Tech can provide you with a package that provides and compares the processing costs in addition to the installed capital costs and the value product profits, as well as savings from, for example, recycling the CO2, all at costs pertaining to your location. The cost tables provide key pieces of information: the pay back period and expected yearly profits.
This easy to follow package, which includes a process narrative, process flow diagram, equipment, material balance and cost tables is informational to Engineering Divisions and Business Management Teams alike.

CF Tech has been awarded a DOE 2016 Phase 1 STTR grant to research Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP) Fats, Oils and Greases (FOG's) conversion to Biodiesel. Work on this STTR will begin this month in conjunction with a research institute and our colleague Richard Madrak of WRR (Waste Resource Recovery).

CF Tech and the RI will use supercritical carbon dioxide (SCCO2) technology and Idaho National Laboratories Patented Supercritical Solid Catalyst technology www4vip.inl.gov/research/supercritical-solid-catalyst/ to produce biodiesel without water and sulfur contaminants.

The goal of this project is to produce enough data on the reaction and separation of contaminants within the FOG and purification of the resultant biodiesel to produce ASTM D6751 quality biodiesel. In Phase II, CF Tech will design and fabricate a pilot sized facility to be installed at a WRR partner location in Connecticut to process the FOG into biodiesel for sale.

The DOE list of awardees can be found in a downloadable Excel file from the US DOE Department of Service: