After using a $50,000 grant to test whether useful elements can be extracted from mining and farming waste, a local environmental firm is declaring success. Whether the process can become profitable remains to be tested.

Fort Lauderdale-based environmental firm Periodic Products said its technology has recovered rare earth elements — critical to national security and used in consumer electronics — from waste by-products.

"I believe with this work that we've only just begun to realize the potential of the materials. This technology is going to be responsible for establishing the next American mining boom," said Joseph Laurino, founder and chief executive of Periodic Products.

Rare earth elements are used in military equipment, and also are used in the manufacture of cell phones, hybrid engines, specialty magnets, computer hard drives and other products.

Periodic Products' process was able to extract all 17 rare elements found in the earth, which include materials with names such as scandium, cerium, erbium and terbium.

Using the company's extraction technology, there's the potential to "meet 20 percent of the U.S. demand for rare elements," Laurino said.

The findings were part of a study co-funded by Florida Industrial and Phosphate Research Institute, a scientific research center created in 1978 by the Florida Legislature. In June, Periodic Products received a $50,000 grant from the institute to demonstrate the commercial application of its technology to the phosphate mining industry.

Periodic Products uses a process to recover the rare earth elements in which phosphate waste products are washed with proprietary water-based extraction solutions. The wash solutions are filtered through its proprietary polymers, the company said.

Brian Birky, executive director of the institute, said he expected Periodic Products' technology to work and "we're happy it worked as well as it did."

Laurino said element extraction could become Florida's next big business as well.

"Florida has about one third of the phosphate industry. There's about 30,000 tons of it annually sitting in their waste each year," Laurino said. "It represents a tremendous opportunity for the State of Florida."

Birky said the business potential will depend on the price for rare elements, which fluctuates, and how economical the process is.

Laurino said the extraction industry won't mean more workers going down into coal mines because the rare elements are located in the waste already produced in mining, and in byproducts including phosphate fertilizer, which is used in farming.

He said Periodic Products' technology was designed not to bind to calcium or sodium, which are typically in found in waste or water, making it difficult to extract rare minerals. "We can pick needles out of the haystack," he said.

Extraction of rare elements from recycled electronics isn't there yet. "There's no economical way to do this right now but I think we will get there," Laurino said.

Laurino, a former chemistry professor at the University of Tampa, developed a nontoxic, biodegradable polymer, or chain of molecules, to remove and recover metals in water. He launched his company in 2009, designing products for cleaning pool water and removing stains. Metals such as copper and iron stain pool walls and hardware and can turn water cloudy.

Periodic Product has been awarded several U.S. and international patents on its technology.

Detailed results of this study will be presented by Laurino at the 30th Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration & Dreyer Conference at the Lakeland Center in Lakeland on Oct. 8.