Rare Earth Elements

I keep reading about rare earth elements. What are these? They are, simply put, rare metals found in the Earth that are key ingredients for glass, lights, magnets, batteries, and catalytic converters. They are located in the middle of the per

iodic table (atomic numbers 21, 39, and 57–71). 

These metals have unusual fluorescent, conductive, and magnetic properties—which make them very useful when alloyed, or mixed, in small quantities with more common metals such as iron. That’s why they are found in many high tech devices such as cell phones, electric vehicles, LED lights, computer monitors, and defense technologies.  

There is Scandium used for lights, semiconductors, and baseball bats, then Ytterbium, which is used in rechargeable batteries and fiber optics. In addition to those two, there are 15 other elements which make up a group called the lanthanides. Some of the rare elements really aren’t that rare, but they are so named because they are difficult and costly to extract. 

The chemical properties of the rare earth elements make them difficult to separate from surrounding materials and from one another. These qualities also make them difficult to purify. Current production methods require a lot of ore and generate a lot of harmful waste to extract just small amounts. Waste from the processing methods include radioactive water, toxic fluorine, and acids.

China is by far the world’s biggest producer of rare earth elements. It holds 60% of the world’s rare earth reserves, and processes 90% of them. 

By the way, elements such as silicon, cobalt, lithium, and manganese are not rare earth elements, but are critical minerals that are also essential for the energy transition.