MCRE Resources Sdn. Bhd.
Level 8, Menara Zenith,
Jalan Putra Square 6,
Putra Square, 25200 Kuantan,
Pahang Darul Makmur, Malaysia.
What are Rare Earths?Rare Earth History:Where are Rare Earths Found?Learning to Use the Rare Earth Elements:Rare Earth Elements and their applicationsThe Rare Earths Industry Chain:
What are Rare Earths?
Rare Earths are a group of 15 chemical elements in the periodic table with atomic numbers ranging from 57 to 71, plus scandium and yttrium with similar chemical property. They are categorised into light elements (lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium) and heavy elements (europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, lutetium). The heavy elements are less common, and consequently more expensive.
While Rare Earths are relatively abundant in the Earth’s crust, due to their geochemical properties, they are typically dispersed and often not found in sufficient concentrates to make them viable to mine. Their unique magnetic and electrochemical properties are important resources to enable technologies to perform with greater efficiency and durability. Due to their unique beneficial properties, Rare Earth-enabled technologies power global economic growth, their end-uses enable specialised treatments and life-saving products, and help shrink our carbon footprint.
The elemental forms of Rare Earths are iron gray to silvery lustrous metals that are typically soft when in their metallic state while those with a higher atomic number tend to be harder. They are commonly fluorescent under ultraviolet light, which can assist in their identification. Rare Earths are generally ionic and display high melting and boiling points, and will react with other elements to form compounds with different chemical behaviours. The Rare Earths’ unique properties are used in a wide variety of electronic, optical, magnetic and catalytic applications.
Rare Earth History:
An unusual black rock was unearthed by Lieutenant Carl Axel Arrhenius at a quarry in Ytterby, Sweden, in 1787. The ore was called “rare” because it had never yet been seen, and “earth” because that was the 18th-century geological term for rocks that could be dissolved in acid. In 1794, the chemist Johan Gadolin named this previously unknown oxide yttria, after the town where it was discovered. Over time the mines around Ytterby extracted rocks that yielded four elements (yttrium, ytterbium, terbium, and erbium) named for the town.
Identifying new elements were prestigious but contentious activities for European chemists during the 19th century. Due to the difficulty in separating the metals and determining the separation is complete, there were dozens of false discoveries. In 1913, the British physicist Henry Moseley determined there were 15 elements in the Lanthanide series using X-ray spectroscopy.
Not much was known about the chemistry of the Rare Earths prior to 1960s as this group of 17 elements seems to consist of fairly unreactive metals that all behaved similarly. The major applications for the Rare Earths included using mixtures of Rare Earth Oxides for polishing mirrors and lenses, using cerium and lanthanum oxides as promoters in zeolite catalysts for petroleum refining, using the incandescent properties of an alloy of neodymium and praseodymium for petroleum vapor lamps, and using mischmetal rare earth alloys with iron as flints for lighters as well as ignition devices in automobiles.
Rare Earths acquired a new status in 1939, after Otto Hahn, Lisa Meitner and Fritz Strassmann discovered nuclear fission of Uranium, and identified Rare Earth elements in fission products. This insight leading to the development of an atomic bomb a theoretical possibility, although the Rare Earth Elements were impurities that prevented a nuclear chain reaction by absorbing neutrons. In the 1940s, while working on the code-named Manhattan Project, leading American Rare Earth Chemist, Frank Spedding, developed chemical ion-exchange procedures for separating and purifying the Rare Earth Elements. The Ames Laboratory at Iowa State University, now the U.S. government’s premier Rare Earth Elements research facility, was born out of Spedding’s wartime work, with a mission to further develop Rare Earths, initially for military uses and space exploration.
Where are Rare Earths Found?
Before 1965 there was relatively little demand for Rare Earth Elements. Most of the world’s supply at that time was being produced from placer deposits in India and Brazil. In the 1950s, South Africa became the leading producer from Rare Earth bearing monazite deposits, and the Mountain Pass Mine in California, USA, was producing minor amounts of Rare Earth Oxides from a Precambrian carbonatite.
In the mid-1960s, following the launch of the first colour television sets, the demand for Rare Earths were ramped up. The Mountain Pass Mine began producing europium from bastnasite, and led to the USA becoming the largest Rare Earth producer in the world at that time.
During the globalisation of the 1980s and 90s, China had begun producing notable amounts of Rare Earth Elements. Through the 1990s and early 2000s, China steadily strengthened its hold on the world’s Rare Earths market due to its production and exports of Rare Earths increased rapidly at low prices. As prices dropped, other producers throughout the world were unable to compete and thus ceased operation.
During the 2000s, world demand for Rare Earth Elements continued to sky rocket as they are used as materials for defence, aviation, industrial, medical, consumer electronics and clean energy industries. In 2009, China monopolised global Rare Earth Elements production up to 97%, which caused worldwide concern and was known as the “Rare Earth Crisis”. This resulted in a number of non-China based producers reopening former mines and establishing new operations. While China dominates production as a whole, USA, Myanmar, Australia and rest of the world make up the other 40 per cent of the world’s Rare Earth Elements production currently.
Globally, most of the Rare Earth Elements are found in China, Australia, India and Vietnam. Malaysia has been blessed with a significant amount of non-radioactive Rare Earth deposits, which the US Geological Survey estimates that some 30,000 metric tonnes of Rare Earth ores can be found in Peninsular Malaysia.
Learning to Use the Rare Earth Elements:
The arms race between the USA and the Soviet Union during the Cold War (1945 – 1991) led to heavily government-funded research and development in many areas, including the Rare Earth Elements. The samarium-cobalt magnets for making possible more powerful radar instruments, scandium to make aluminum stronger and lighter which increased the performance of fighter planes, and yttrium-aluminum-garnet lasers for guided weapons were invented and developed during this period.
New applications of the Rare Earth Elements were being developed by corporate and industrial research. The demand for Rare Earth Elements saw its first explosion in the mid-1960s, as the first colour television sets were entering the market. Europium-doped yttrium salts was used as red phosphors in the picture tube of this newly developed colour television technology. In the USA, the Mountain Pass Mine began producing europium, and they supplied most of the worldwide Rare Earth metals consumption between 1965 and 1995.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Lanthanum and neodymium were used in the nickel-metal hydride battery which later became popular for use in portable electronics, such as video games and were widely used in hybrid cars.
In the 1990s, the tiny, lightweight, powerful and permanent magnets created by neodymium-iron-boron magnets have a huge market in computer hard drives as personal computers became widespread in homes and offices. The erbium-doped fiber amplifier was developed to boost the signal in fiber-optic cables. These small devices made possible a global network of long fiber-optic cables that reduces the price of long-distance telephone calls then, and now carry internet data around the world.
In 2007 and 2008, with the first iPhone by Apple and the world’s first Android-powered mobile phone entered the market, we see another example showing how far advances in Rare Earth metallurgy and applications had developed. They use lanthanum to reduce distortion in their camera lenses, neodymium magnets to improve sound, and yttrium and erbium phosphors to make bright colours in energy-efficient screens.
Rare Earth Elements and their applications
Rare Earths Elements and alloys that contain them are the backbone of many devices we use on a daily basis. Many vehicles use Rare Earth catalysts in their exhaust systems for air pollution control. A large number of alloys are made more durable by the addition of Rare Earth Elements. Glass, granite, marble and gemstones are often polished with cerium oxide powder. Many motors and generators contain magnets made with Rare Earth Elements. Phosphors used in illuminated screens on electronic devices, monitors and televisions are created with Rare Earth Oxides. Many rechargeable batteries for computers, cell phones and electric vehicles are made with Rare Earth compounds.
Rare Earth Elements also play an essential role in defense uses. The military uses night-vision goggles, precision-guided weapons, communications equipment, GPS equipment, batteries and other defense electronics. Rare Earth Metals are key ingredients for making the very hard alloys used in armored vehicles and projectiles that shattered upon impact.
Due to their specific optical, magnetic and catalytic properties, Rare Earths are used in a variety of applications:
| Properties | Applications |
| Phosphors | Ray tubes and flat panel displays;
Screens that range in size from smart phone displays to stadium scoreboards; Energy efficient fluorescent lamps; Light bulbs, panels, televisions. |
| Glass | Polishing, UV absorption, refractive index improvement;
Additives that provide colour and special optical properties; Digital camera lenses, cell phone cameras. |
| Catalysts | Petroleum catalytic cracking;
Chemical catalysis; Automotive catalytic converters. |
| Magnets | Semi-conductors manufacturing;
Micro-motors for computers and servers hard disks; Acoustic devices including earphones and high-quality speakers; Conventional automotive sub-systems such as power steering, electric windows, power seats and audio speakers; Direct drive wind turbine. |
| Battery Alloys | NiMH batteries for electronic devices and electric vehicles. |
| Polishing Powders | Remove impurities in steel making;
Special alloys production. |
According to Natural Resources Canada, the largest global demand by market sector for Rare Earth Elements in 2021 are in magnets (43.2%), followed by catalysts (17.0%), polishing powers (11.2%), metallurgical (7.1%), glass (6.4%), battery alloys (3.6%), ceramics (3.0%), phosphors (0.5%), pigments (0.3%) and other products (7.6%).
Rare Earth Elements are increasingly important within high tech appliances and green technology. At present, a very small proportion of Rare Earths (approximately 1% of annual consumption) are recycled for reuse from magnets, batteries and fluorescent light bulbs, hampered by the design of consumer products not intended to be recycled and the very small quantity used. Rare Earth supplies are expected to remain strategically important.
Rare Earth Elements and their applications
The Rare Earths Industry Chain mainly comprise of three parts: ore mining and selecting, smelting separation, and processing application. The industrial chain of rare earths is pyramid-shaped, the upper end is ore mining, selecting and smelting separation, and the use and consumption of rare earths are relatively extensive. They mainly use in permanent magnet materials, catalytic materials, alloy materials, luminescent materials and other industries.
