Rare earths: A review of the landscape
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Review Rare earths: A review of the landscape
Rajive Ganguli and Douglas R. Cook, Mineral Industry Research Laboratory, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska 99775, USA Address all correspondence to Rajive Ganguli at [email protected] (Received 17 September 2017; accepted 11 May 2018)
ABSTRACT New demand for electric vehicles—are rare earths the bottleneck in the supply chain? Can recycling and substitution make a dent in the demand for REE in the near future? Is it economically feasible for advanced nations to mine for REE but process them elsewhere to allay environmental concerns at home? Rare earths are critical components to many technologies that drive the modern world. Though rare earths are present in most parts of the world, they are produced mostly in China because of a confluence of several factors. This paper reviews various aspects of rare earths including extraction, geopolitics, and challenges. Rare-earth elements (REEs) not only replace each other in the mineral structure but also occur within different mineral structures in the same deposit. Separation of one REE from another is therefore difficult, environmentally challenging, and expensive. Less than 1% of REEs is recycled due to many challenges of collecting various end products and separating the REE from other metals/contaminants. Recycling investments have primarily focused on applications such as magnets, where economies of scale have allowed it. Substitution for the REE is difficult for most applications, though the automotive and wind energy industries are making good advances with motors and generators. The rare earth market is small and, thus, easily disrupted. Factors that can impact the market are increased production from existing mines, development of mine prospects advanced during price spikes, research and development efforts focused on improving REE recoveries, recycling, substitution, alternate sources of REEs, and governmental policies. Keywords: rare-earths; economics; recycling; environment; geologic
DISCUSSION POINTS • Rare earths are key to modern society. • L ow grades, complex processing, and environmental impacts mean that rare earth production is concentrated in a few countries only. • S ince the rare earth market is small and concentrated, it is susceptible to disruptions. • R ecycling and substitution are extremely difficult and thus, are not near-term solutions.
Introduction Rare-earth elements (REEs) have become important over the last century as their electrochemical, magnetic, alloy strengthening, and luminescent characteristics are at the core of manufactured modern electric vehicles, green energy generation, electronics, and high performance airframes. This is reflected in the compounded annual growth rate of 13.7%
that is expected between 2017 and 2021 for the global rareearth metal market.1 The global rare earth market is, however, modest at $9 billion and an annual consumption of about 150,000 tons of rare-earth oxide (REO) worldwide. Despite the small direct economic footprint, the rea
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