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A lot has been said about “rare earth” minerals lately, and with our Spring Manufacturing & Policy Conference right around the corner, I thought I’d take a moment to describe what these are, the process used to refine them, and their most common applications and uses. For starters, rare earths are not something you simply dig or dredge up and say, “Aha! We’ve found rare earth minerals!” They are typically byproducts of extracting other minerals. But first, a little more background.
Rare earths are not used in large volumes. In fact, the electronics in your car may have less than a tenth of a gram of a rare earth in them. There are roughly 13 known rare earth minerals in the world, and they are almost always used in microscopic amounts. Rare earths typically start out as something else, such as copper, silver, or iron ore, and after extraction of roughly 97 to 98 percent of the mineral being processed, the tailings, or industrial residue (excessive waste), left behind are washed through vats of acid repeatedly — sometimes over one hundred times and over several months. After several tons of tailings are washed this way, the resulting byproduct is about one ounce of what we now call a rare earth.
This is a very tedious, expensive, and environmentally challenging process. That is why most of the world’s rare earths are refined in China. The most common use of rare earths in U.S. manufacturing is in high-end batteries, wind turbines, permanent magnets, and as catalysts used to break crude oil into refined products. More specialized applications include advanced alloys for aerospace components, medical imaging, radar guidance, and other defense industry uses. All in all, these materials are a powerful example of how even the smallest components can have an enormous impact on modern industry.
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