Rare Earth Metals: The Secret Ingredient in Today's Technology

Frank Herbert's Dune series introduced readers to spice melange as an indispensable natural substance that sustained intergalactic civilizations. Today, rare earths - an assortment of 17 metallic elements that is the source of technology-driven life - play an equally crucial role in our fast-paced technological universe.

Mining, processing and consuming these metals aren't without controversy - pollution concerns and production being heavily concentrated in one country (China) being among them.

What are Rare Earth Elements?

Rare earth metals refers to a group of 17 elements (comprising 15 lanthanide elements plus yttrium and scandium), found together naturally and sharing similar properties, that occur together and occur together naturally in nature. They play an essential role in manufacturing high-tech items like optical materials, alloys and permanent magnets.

Rare earth elements possess unique chemical, optical, mechanical or electronic properties that are perfect for engineering applications. Examples of rare earth applications include luminescent materials, luminescence enhancing compounds, luminescent batteries, catalysts ceramic pigments phosphors nuclear industry medicine

Rare earth metals are defined as such because their concentrations do not allow them to be mined economically, yet are essential components of modern technology and thus their supply is an integral component of global economic activity. With growing green energy and defense needs as well as expectations of increasing electric vehicle use around the globe, demand for rare earths is expected to skyrocket further in coming years.

Rare earths are indispensable due to their peculiar atomic structure. While most elements that appear next to each other on the periodic table exhibit greatly divergent chemical properties, rare earth atoms fill their outer electron shells equally, which allows them to react in similar ways with each other and act as catalysts in various industrial processes - for instance converting harmful carbon monoxide emissions to nontoxic carbon dioxide emissions via gasoline-powered cars.

Electromagnets are also utilized in producing powerful permanent magnets used in hybrid-electric vehicles and wind turbines, and more recently as part of high-capacity fiber-optic lines that carry internet data and long-distance telephone calls around the globe.

Rare Earth metals are in short supply and finding new mining locations can take years to establish. Therefore, finding ways to recycle and reuse existing rare earth materials is vitally important; scientists are looking at using water draining from mines as an alternate source for rare earths as well as waste from producing fertilizers as sources for these essential metals.

http://www.mining.com/russian-getting-back-into-rare-earth-game/

What are the Benefits of Rare Earth Elements?

Rare earth elements play an indispensable role in modern technologies, thanks to their special optical, mechanical, and electronic properties. Rare earths offer improved digital and magnetic technologies by increasing efficiency, miniaturization, speed and durability.

Neodymium (atomic number 60) is an essential element in many high-tech products, including hybrid electric vehicle motors. Additionally, televisions, lasers, rechargeable batteries and hard disk drives all rely on this rare earth element that cannot easily be replaced. Neodymium's use in our high-tech economy cannot be underestimated - nor should its absence.

Rare Earth Elements (REEs) can be found throughout Earth's crust, yet their extraction requires considerable energy and resources. Rare earths typically exist as mixtures with other metals in ore deposits such as bastnasite and monazite ores, making their extraction more expensive and time-consuming than for other metals such as europium, terbium dysprosium and yttrium which require additional complex processing to isolate.

China is currently the world's top producer and consumer of rare earth elements, restricting exports in order to protect their value-added manufacturing sector - an issue which has angered nations like Australia, Japan and America who need reliable supplies of rare earths for manufacturing purposes.

Rare earths are nonrenewable resources, making it essential to use them responsibly and reduce consumption. Businesses can further minimize waste by recycling or reusing equipment when no longer required; this helps significantly lower mining requirements for new raw material sources.

REEs are in short supply globally and prices have been increasing as demand rises. New sources take time to develop; therefore, global trade policies should prioritize geopolitically secure supplies with responsible mining and refining practices.

As our reliance on portable electronic devices increases, so will our need for rare earth elements. Without more efficient and sustainable mining methods, however, a severe shortage may develop; thus the Department of Energy is offering Rare Element Resources support as they create an innovative separation and recovery process that can bring these essential materials in line with global demand.

http://www.globalfinancialradio.com/node/70

How are Rare Earth Elements Mined?

Rare earths are mined like any metal: by extracting rock from underground deposits and sorting out valuable ore from waste material. What makes rare earths different, however, is their need for an additional step to separate individual elements; this additional process takes more time and money than expected and drives up production costs accordingly.

Rare earths is something of an indefinable term; many of its 16 elements are abundant and found in workable deposits around the world. China is by far the world's primary producer and refiner of rare earth elements; Japan, Australia, Brazil India Kazakhstan Russia also produce significant quantities. Workable rare earth mineral ores include apatite cerium yttrium lanthanum neodymium samarium and terbium (with some trace amounts of thulium, lutetium and gadolinium).

Solvent extraction is the primary means of producing rare earths. Unfortunately, however, it is an energy-intensive, costly, and difficult-to-calibrate method, making its success dependent upon geological deposits containing different rare earth minerals that affect how effective solvent extraction will be.

Researchers are investigating various alternative approaches for producing rare earths, which could potentially become viable forms of large-scale production in the future. Some light rare earth elements can be extracted from power plant coal combustion ash and slag while radioactive material mixed in with some ores can yield usable quantities of light rare earth elements if extracted; ocean floor mud as well as certain thorium-based nuclear reactors also contain potentially useful rare earth materials that could eventually make large-scale production possible.

At present, none of these alternative methods produce rare earths in sufficient quantity or at competitive prices to compete with China's current monopoly on the market, leading to trade disputes. But with demand increasing steadily for rare earth elements, companies that rely on them are taking measures to secure domestic supplies; over time this may allow critical applications such as military equipment and advanced batteries over less essential ones like headphones and golf bags, forcing these latter products' manufacturers to pay more.

What are the Risks of Mining Rare Earth Elements?

As with any mining activity, rare earth extraction poses substantial environmental hazards. Finding mineable concentrations of rare earth elements isn't easy: their concentrations are scattered throughout the Earth at low levels and worth very little without processing costs. Furthermore, solvent extraction and pyrometallurgy are primary methods of extraction that involve toxic chemicals which pollute the environment as they work to extract rare earths ores - processes which create huge, polluted waste sites which inevitably spill into nearby rivers; in doing so they pollute groundwater supplies which in turn kill fish species as they leach into groundwater systems and ultimately kill off species altogether.

Even after mining operations are complete, concerns still exist regarding potential health effects from heavy metals that remain behind in leaching ponds and other forms of waste at mining sites. Furthermore, there remains concern regarding radioactivity of waste produced during mining operations, although only limited epidemiological evidence and no scientifically valid proof that long-term effects will impact human health are available, according to Ali.

Another major issue arises from countries that control most of the global supply of an element. They can raise prices and restrict exports, leading to panic buying and shortages - as was seen when China restricted rare earth exports in 2010, giving it 80 percent control of global demand that year.

New sources for rare earth elements have begun emerging. Australia, Malaysia and the U.S. now produce significant amounts, with Mountain Pass Mine accounting for an estimated 4 percent of rare earth oxide production worldwide in 2012.

Furthermore, obsolete electronics and industrial goods present another potential source for recycling. Scientists are working on non-toxic techniques for extracting rare earths from electronic waste - as opposed to the more toxic methods such as pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical methods which require high temperatures and liquid corrosives for extraction processes.

Scientists are developing technologies that could significantly cut down the time required to extract rare earths from ore and raw materials, such as chemical ion exchange techniques developed during the Manhattan Project for use with nuclear reactors (including plutonium-239 and neptunium-249) and apply these to non-metal ore concentrates to increase mining and processing efficiencies.