Jeffrey Willis’s trip to Belfast appears to be a strategic move to benchmark and adapt magnet recycling technology from Ionic Technologies for United Rare Earths’ Caryville facility with no official joint project yet, but clear alignment is emerging.
Belfast Pilot vs. Caryville Ambition - Pilot Facility Visit....
In May 2025, Jeffrey Willis led a delegation from United Rare Earths to Belfast to tour a functioning pilot magnet recycling plant. The visit aimed to observe the separation processes firsthand and evaluate compatibility for scaling to their Tennessee site. Alderman Josh Monday was also invited by Willis, showing local government interest in aligning Caryville’s Phase One with Belfast’s operations.
Technology Translation - Ionic Technologies (a Queen’s University Belfast spin-out) runs a demo plant in Belfast that separates rare earth oxides from spent magnets and is advancing to a full-scale facility. Willis’s team likely examined their ionic-liquid-based hydrometallurgical techniques—valued for high-purity outputs (≥99.5%) to inform the design and engineering of Caryville’s first phase.
Collaboration Without Announcement. While no formal partnership has been announced, United Rare Earths is reportedly granted an Oak Ridge National Laboratory license, and their engineers are described as aiming to scale Belfast’s pilot design in Tennessee. Both initiatives, Belfast and Caryville are part of a broader Western trend to diversify rare-earth processing away from China, suggesting strategic alignment even absent corporate announcements .
Willis’s Belfast visit wasn’t just exploratory—it’s part of a clear, yet still unofficial strategy: to observe and potentially adapt Ionic Technologies’ proven pilot design into United Rare Earths’ Caryville facility. Although there's no formal partnership publically declared, the groundwork seems laid for possible collaboration or technology transfer.
(20min delay)