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Oregon DEQ Briefing Paper: Rare Earth Elements

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Oregon DEQ Briefing Paper: Rare Earth Elements Briefing Paper: Rare Earth Elements Oct. 4, 2011 Primary Author: Barb Puchy Executive Summary This paper describes rare earth elements - their composition, qualities and uses – and how these difficult-to-extract elements play a role in the global material management system. It describes how these elements may become more critical in the future for the military and for technologies including hybrid cars, wind turbines, cell phones and spy planes. This paper looks at the environmental consequences of using rare earth minerals, their limited availability, and how reusing and recycling these elements can be part of a more sustainable worldwide system. Rare earth elements include 17 chemical elements that are not really “rare” but are actually relatively abundant in the Earth’s crust. However, they seldom exist in pure form and are rarely in concentrated minable deposits, making them costly to extract. They include lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, and lutetium (the lanthanide elements on periodic table). Yttrium and scandium are also often considered rare earth elements since they tend to occur in the same ore deposits as the lanthanides and exhibit similar chemical properties. These rare earth elements’ unique properties have led to an ever-increasing variety of applications. These include uses in major industries such as automotive, medical, defense, technology/computers and clean energy, as well as use in hybrid cars and wind turbines. Because of widespread use of these elements in technology, particularly by the military, the U.S. is examining domestic deposits with renewed interest and funding. Currently, about 97 percent of the world supply of rare earth elements comes from China. Other countries produce rare earth concentrates, but they are dwarfed by the scale of Chinese production. Other countries such as Greenland and Vietnam are currently exploring rare earth element mining. The only minable rare earth deposit in production in the United States is at the Molycorp Inc,.-owned Mountain Pass rare earth mine in California, owned by Molycorp, Inc . This mine is undergoing an extensive modernization and expansion, and was expected to re-enter full production in 2012. Other major domestic deposits are in Wyoming, Colorado and Alaska. These deposits are in the exploratory phase. In a federal Department of Energy report, “2011 Critical Materials Strategy,” the agency lists five rare earths - dysprosium, terbium, europium, neodymium, and yttrium - that are “critical” in terms of need and supply, from the present day to 2015. These five elements are used in magnets for wind turbines and in electric vehicle motors to improve fuel efficiency and phosphors in energy-efficient lighting. Other elements—cerium, indium, lanthanum, and tellurium—were found to be “near-critical” in terms of supply between the short and medium term (2015–2025). Recycling can reduce the risk that supplies of critical materials will fail to keep pace with demand. Recycling is especially important for critical materials with limited substitutes. New advances in recycling technology have made extraction of rare earths from discarded products more feasible. Briefing Paper: Rare Earth Metals Recycling plants in Japan plan to capture an estimated 300,000 tons of rare earths stored in unused electronics. In France, the Rhodia group, a global chemical company, is opening two factories to produce 200 tons a year of rare earths from used fluorescent lamps, magnets and batteries. Government and industry in the U.S. and elsewhere are exploring product redesign as a way to reduce the use of or find substitutes for rare earths. However, many applications of rare earths are highly specific, with substitute materials either not available or resulting in reduced performance. The 2011 DOE report emphasizes that policies directed toward the recovery of end-of-life products and equipment can encourage a higher rate of recovery, and support for research and development into more efficient and cost-effective recycling processes can make recycling more attractive. Introduction Rare earth elements are a group of 17 chemical elements that occur together in the periodic table (see below). These 15 lanthanide elements include lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium and lutetium. Yttrium and scandium are also often considered rare earth elements since they tend to occur in the same ore deposits as the lanthanide elements and exhibit similar chemical properties. Rare earth deposits tend to occur in two sub-groups: light rare earth elements (lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium and samarium), and heavy rare earth elements which are less common and more valuable (europium gadolinium terbium dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium and lutetium). Rare earth elements are actually relatively abundant in the Earth’s crust. However, they seldom exist in pure form and mix diffusely with other minerals underground, rarely in concentrated minable deposits, making them costly to extract. The rare earth deposits, without exception, consist of mixtures of most rare-earth elements which are often found together. Table 1. Periodic table of the elements. Atomic number and symbols for the 17 rare earth elements are circled. Rare earth elements commonly have the following properties: . Are silvery-white and often tarnished when exposed to air Oregon Department of Environmental Quality Page 2 12-LQ-025 Briefing Paper: Rare Earth Metals . Are relatively soft . React with water to release hydrogen gas . Have high melting and boiling points . Many make good magnets . Many glow strongly under ultraviolet light . Have ores that are mineralogically and chemically complex . Are commonly radioactive Geology of rare earth elements The principal concentrations of rare earth elements are associated with uncommon varieties of igneous rocks, namely alkaline rocks and carbonatites. Carbonatites are mostly intrusive rocks that contain more than 50 percent carbonate minerals, cooled from a lava melt. Structurally, they occur as volcanic plugs, dikes and cone sheets. According to the geological literature, there are about 330 known occurrences of carbonatites worldwide, but almost all are small and noncommercial. There are only a few carbonatite deposits of commercial significance in the world. The bulk of the world's supply of rare earth elements comes from the mineral bastnasite. Bastnasite is a mixed lanthanide fluoro-carbonate mineral (LnFCO3) that is found in carbonatites. Potentially useful concentrations of rare earth element-bearing minerals are also found in placer deposits, residual deposits formed from deep weathering of igneous rocks, pegmatites, iron-oxide copper-gold deposits, and marine phosphates. Major uses of rare earth elements Rare earth metals (metals which contain the rare earth elements) and their alloys are used in many devices commonly used every day such ascomputers, DVDs, rechargeable batteries, cell phones, car catalytic converters, magnets, fluorescent lighting, and many others. They’re also used in medical equipment, for defense purposes, and in “clean energy” (i.e., wind turbines and hybrid automobiles). General industrial uses include: Clean Energy • Wind turbines (neodymium) • Low-energy light bulbs (terbium) • Hybrid-car batteries (lanthanum) • Solar energy fuel sources (cerium) Automobiles • Hybrid-car batteries (lanthanum) • Electric motors (dysprosium) • Catalytic converters (cerium) • Glass and mirrors (cerium) Medical • X-ray machines (ytterbium and thulium) • Screening diseases (Europium) • Medical devices (yttrium) • Eye-safe medical and dental technologies (holmium) Defense • Missile guidance systems (neodymium) • Stealth technology (samarium) • Night-vision goggles (lanthanum) • Armor (ytterbium) • Drones (various rare earth elements) Oregon Department of Environmental Quality Page 3 12-LQ-025 Briefing Paper: Rare Earth Metals Technology/Computers • LED screens (lutetium) • Cell phone batteries (lanthanum) • Fiber-optic cables (erbium) • Lasers (ytterbium and praseodymium) • Computer memory (gadolinium) Specific uses (listed by rare earth element): • Cerium is the most abundant rare earth element. It is critical in the manufacture of environmental protection and pollution-control systems, from automobiles to oil refineries. Cerium oxides and other cerium compounds are in catalytic converters and larger-scale equipment to reduce sulfur oxide emissions. Cerium is a diesel fuel additive for micro-filtration of pollutants, and promotes more complete fuel combustion for more energy efficiency. • Dysprosium is a widely used rare earth element that helps to make electronic components smaller and faster. • Erbium has remarkable optical properties that make it essential for use in long-range fiber optic data transmission. • Europium offers exceptional properties of photon emission. When it absorbs electrons or UV radiation, the europium atom changes energy levels to create a visible, luminescent emission. This emission creates the perfect red phosphors used in color televisions and computer screens around the world. Europium is also used in fluorescent lighting, which cuts energy use by 75 percent compared to incandescent lighting. In the medical field, europium is used to tag complex biochemical agents, which helps to trace these materials during tissue
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