October 5, 2026ionX briefs a Taiwan delegation at Stanford
ionX briefed a visiting Taiwan delegation on its path from Stanford Hacking for Defense to a company.
More critical minerals from the same mine.
We design the chemistry that makes it happen: in months, not a decade.
$6.5 trillion
of production outside China is exposed if China fully enforces its rare earth export controls.
$65 billion
committed by governments to critical minerals in 2025, over four times the 2023 level.
The hard step is separation.
- Mine
- Crush and grind
- Separate
- Metal and magnets
Reagents split the valuable mineral from the rock. If the chemistry doesn’t suit the ore, the mineral is lost to tailings.
85%
of rare earth refining was in China in 2025.
Reagents are chosen by costly trial and error.
- Lab campaign (months)
- Ore changes
- Start again
Plants test catalog reagents in lab campaigns that take months, then start over when the ore changes.
$10K–$100K
per lab campaign.
Source for $6.5 trillion, $65 billion and 85%: IEA, Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026.
ionX develops reagent chemistry matched to your feedstock.
Ore-specific
Designed for each feed and flowsheet.
Sustainable
More metal from ore already mined.
Designed for existing equipment
No new capex.
CharacterizeFeed + process profile
→
ScreenDigital twin + ranked formulations
→
Bench validateOptimize chemistry
→
Pilot validateReplicate plant conditions
→
PackageChemistry + operating window
→
Deploy & verifyImplement + confirm performance
→
Update for ore variabilityAdapt chemistry as feed changesValidated on a phosphate feedstock.
Advancing rare-earth and copper processing.
ionXReagent chemistry
01OreRun-of-mine
02ComminutionCrush & grind
03FlotationREE concentrate
04CrackingRoast & leach
05Solvent extractionElement separation
06RefiningRare-earth oxides
07Metals & magnetsNdFeB
In development.
Built on 15 years of mineral processing chemistry.
Supported by
ionX updates.
October 5, 2026
October 2026ionX receives an Anthropic AI for Science award
Compute credits supporting ionX’s reagent design work.
October 2026ionX accepted into NVIDIA Inception
Access to NVIDIA technical resources and training.
September 2026ionX awarded Tranche 2 of the DIU prototyping fund
Extends the bench line from flotation through leach and solvent extraction, under the DIU Commercialization Fellowship.
September 1, 2026ionX awarded the TomKat Innovation Transfer Grant
Expands the computational side of ionX’s platform.
July 2026ionX awarded Tranche 1 of the DIU prototyping fund
Funds ionX’s computational rig and the flotation stage of its bench line.
May 18, 2026Meet H4D Team ionX: Closing the Strategic Minerals Gap
How ionX pairs ore-specific reagent formulations with bench validation to raise recovery.
Read the feature →
2026A 2026 national-security problem statement
A 2026 Stanford Hacking for Defense team, sponsored by In-Q-Tel, working on heavy rare earth separation.
View the problem →
Contact
Let's talk critical minerals.
Rare earths, phosphate, or another strategic feed — we'd like to hear from you.
LocationStanford, California