Rare Earth Industry Research Articles

China’s geoeconomic strategy in the rare earth industry:Case studies

This paper analyses the essence of China’s geoeconomics strategy in the rare earth industry, by analyzing two case studies, Japan, and the USA. China is the leading producer and exporter of rare earth elements, mineral substances that are critical to high technology sectors, clean industries, or defense. Available data suggest that China has been using its leading position to promote the development of the country’s main industries, but also to achieve geopolitical goals. The Chinese industrial and trade policies have made clear to importing countries the urge to keep global value chains’ resilience in strategic sectors for economic and national security.

Constraints to rare earth elements supply diversification: Evidence from an industry survey

Rare earth elements (REEs) are crucial to accomplishing renewable energy targets throughout the world, including electrical vehicles and wind energy. Despite the extensive requirements of REEs, current supply chains are mainly fulfilled by the Chinese rare earth (RE) industry. This has resulted in price volatility, supply chain uncertainties, and RE trade disputes. The authors identified 13 factors as constraints to develop RE supply chains outside China and these constraints were rated by the major RE companies outside China, including RE industry experts. The survey results obtained from RE industry experts have been statistically analysed to ascertain the key factors that affect the development of independent rare earth (RE) supply chains outside China. 4 key factors were identified as statistically important, among them, business uncertainties within the RE industry and the Chinese RE influences on global supply chains being the dominant factors.

Sustainability Assessment of the Rare-Earth-Oxide Production Process and Comparison of Environmental Performance Improvements Based on Emergy Analysis

In recent years, the rapid development of the rare earth industry has had a serious impact on the environment. Some enterprises have taken measures to improve the production process. In order to explore the sustainability of this industry and these improvements’ environmental benefits, this paper combines emergy analysis and lifecycle assessment to evaluate and compare the production process of rare-earth oxides considering the three aspects of emergy flow, pollutant emissions, and emergy-based indicators. Changes in the emergy of pollutant emissions before and after improvement of the production process are discussed. The results show that the greatest inputs in the mining and beneficiation stage and smelting separation stage are labor force and service and non-renewable resources, respectively. These two production stages are highly dependent on external input and have weak competitiveness. Both stages place great pressure on the environment, so the bastnasite production process would be unsustainable in the long term. After the improvement, the environmental impact of the production process for bastnaesite changed significantly, indicating that the improvement effect of the wastewater treatment facilities and the change of fuel from coal to natural gas is remarkable.

Transmission Mechanism of Stock Price Fluctuation in the Rare Earth Industry Chain

The transmission of stock price fluctuations of listed companies in the rare earth industry has complex characteristics. Mastering its transmission law is of great meaning to understand the relationship between the upstream and downstream of the rare earth industry chain and market investment. This article uses the time series of daily closing prices of stocks in the global rare earth industry chain in the past ten years as the research object. The Granger causality test and complex network theory were used to construct the risk transmission network of the industrial chain. We have identified the key stocks in the network of stock price fluctuation in the rare earth industry chain and obtained the transmission path of stock price fluctuation. According to the results: (1) The stocks of Chinese and Japanese listed companies considerably influence the transmission of the stock price fluctuation in the rare earth industry chain. (2) The transmission distance of the stock price fluctuation of each network is relatively small, and the transmission speed is relatively fast. (3) The fluctuation of stock price in the rare earth industry chain is mainly transmitted from the upstream and midstream links to the midstream and downstream links.

The Kinetic Aspects of the Dissolution of Slightly Soluble Lanthanoid Carbonates

The problem of the complex use of mineral raw materials is significant in the context of many industries. In the rare earth industry, in the context of limited traditional domestic reserves and dependence on imports of lanthanides, an unambiguous and comprehensive solution has not yet been developed. Promising areas include the involvement of technogenic raw materials in the industrial turnover. The present study examines the kinetics of the dissolution process of poorly soluble lanthanide compounds when changing the parameters of the system. The results obtained reflect the dependence of the degree of extraction of lanthanide on the following variable parameters of the system: temperature, concentration of the complexing agent, and intensity of mixing. On the basis of the experiment, the values of the activation energy and the reaction orders were calculated. The activation energy of the carbonate dissolution process, in kJ/mol, was as follows: 61.6 for cerium, 39.9 for neodymium, 45.4 for ytterbium. The apparent reaction orders of the carbonates are equal to one. The prospect of using the research results lies in the potential to create a mathematical model of the process of extracting a rare earth metal by the carbonate alkaline method.

New Insights into Ion Adsorption Type Rare-Earths Mining—Bacterial Adsorption of Yttrium Integrated with Ammonia Nitrogen Removal by a Fungus

Ion adsorption-type heavy rare earths found in southern China are important ore resources, whose yttrium(Y)-group rare-earth elements account for 90% of the total mass of rare earths known on the planet. At present, ammonia-nitrogen wastewater from extraction of rare earths pose threats to the environment. A bacterial strain (Bacillus sp. ZD 1) isolated from the “Foot Cave” mining area was used for adsorption of Y3+. Its adsorption capacity reached 428 μmol/g when the initial concentration of Y3+ was 1.13 mM. Moreover, 50 mg of Bacillus sp. ZD 1 (converted to dry mass) could completely adsorb Y3+ in the mother solution of mixed rare earths from the rare-earth mining area. Ammonia nitrogen in the remaining solution after adsorption was removed through denitrification using a fungus named Galactomyces sp. ZD 27. The final concentration of ammonia nitrogen in wastewater was lower than Indirect Emission Standard of Pollutants for Rare-earth Industry (GB 26451-2011). Furthermore, the resulting fungal cells of Galactomyces sp. ZD 27 could be used to produce single cell proteins, whose content accounted for 70.75% of the dry mass of cells. This study offers a new idea for integrated environmentally-friendly extraction and ecological restoration of the mining area in southern China.

NORM survey within the second census on pollution sources in China

The Second Census of Pollution Source in China was conducted from 2017 to 2020, and the radioactive target in this census was Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM).The census plan for the radioactive component was prepared by the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Centre of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment in accord with the work requirement of the overall census. The work steps involved in performing the census included establishing the organization structure, document formulation, conducting a pilot survey, relevant training, screening of preliminary survey data, quality assurance, detailed data collection and analysis, data verification and reporting, and final summarizing. The survey mainly involved 15 kinds of NORM industries, which include the rare earth, niobium/tantalum, zircon, zirconia and tin industries, etc. Almost 30,000 enterprises were investigated in the screening phase, and nearly 2000 enterprises were determined to satisfy the screening criteriafor the presence of NORM. A total of 3500 samples including discharge water, raw ore, milling ore and solid waste were obtained and measured resulting in about20,000 individual datum. The Nuclear and Radiation Safety Centre of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment had responsibility for the NORM census and has completed a comprehensive statistical analysis of the data including analysis of the characteristics from different perspectives.

China's rare earth industry technological innovation structure and driving factors: A social network analysis based on patents

Based on patent information, the paper analyzes the technological comparative advantages from the perspective of industrial chain, and adopts the Social Network Analysis (SNA) method and knowledge production function model to explore technological innovation network structure of China's rare earth industry and its driving force. The results show that, overall, China's rare earth industry technological innovation ability has continued to increase in terms of the breadth and depth, and the industrial chain has shown the characteristics of “strong upper and weaker lower”. The network structure analysis show that the overall technical connection network tends to be close and stable, but it is still in a state of weak connection. In terms of individual networks, technologies represented by the development, extraction and smelting of rare earth resources constitute the core participants in the innovation network, and play the role of the power and control center of the technological innovation network. Further factors identification shows that China's innovation environment is the biggest driving force for technological innovation in the rare earth industry, followed by R&D investment and resource retention capacity. Additionally, the development of strategic emerging industries related to rare earths and resource production capacity have obvious lag effect on the technological innovation level.

Catastrophe progression method - path (CPM-PATH) early warning analysis of Chinese rare earths industry security

China is the only country in the world with a complete rare earths industry supply chain. Therefore, it is a significant case study country to conduct a risk assessment and early warning evaluation of industry security. Industry security refers to a country having the autonomy, control, and development rights over its rare earths industry and a guarantee that the existing or potential rights and interests will remain unharmed. An industry security assessment framework is developed in this study, using 18 selected indicators with regards to four aspects: resources, politics, economy, and technology. The “catastrophe progression method” (CPM) and path analysis method (PATH) were used to identify the early warning status of the rare earths industry and to highlight influencing factors. This paper found that (1) China's rare earths industry is in a “secure” state in general. The security index of the technology subsystem shows a saturated growth of 135.7%; meanwhile, the politics subsystem's security index has a significant declining trend of 21.7%. (2) From 2006 to 2019, the security status of China's rare earths industry experienced three periods of significant fluctuation, which can be summarized as resource-driven, economic-driven and politically-driven respectively. To be more specific, the years of 2006, 2009, and 2012 are important points when the security status of China's rare earths industry underwent significant changes. (3) The security value of subsystem has changed significantly, mainly reflected in the surge of the technology subsystem in 2013 and the sharp drop in the political subsystem in 2017. (4) all the variables considered in the path model influence the security index significantly directly or indirectly or both. The resource subsystem has the largest impact on the security index, followed by the politics subsystem. Finally, based on the above findings and the status-quo of the rare earths industry, we highlight policy recommendations from resources management, international cooperation, market governance, and technology innovation perspectives respectively.

Господдержка развития редкоземельной промышленности и проблемы модернизации экономики

The paper reviews problems of improving the economic mechanism of subsoil use. This may help rationalize the use of natural resource potential and expand opportunities for extraction of rare and rare earth metals. Russia receives more than ninety percent of rare earth raw materials from abroad possessing its own significant reserves of rare earth metals. At the same time, the development of high-tech industries is impossible without a wide range of rare earth metals. The paper reveals the situation of Russian rare earth industry and offers recommendations to expand the raw material base by using technogenic deposits. The expediency of using concession schemes for development of small, including man-made mineral deposits has been substantiated. The paper proves the necessity of extending the practice of levying additional income tax (APT) to small complex deposits of solid minerals and also demonstrates the influence of new technologies.

Investigation of thorium separation from rare-earth extraction residue via electrosorption with carbon based electrode toward reducing waste volume

Rare-earth (RE) industries generate a massive amount of radioactive residue containing high thorium concentrations. Due to the fact that thorium is considered a non-economic element, large volume of these RE processed residues are commonly disposed of without treatment. It is essential to study an appropriate treatment that could reduce the volume of waste for final disposition. To this end, this research investigates the applicability of carbon-based adsorbent in separating thorium from aqueous phase sulphate is obtained from the cracking and leaching process of solid rare-earth by-product residue. Adsorption of thorium from the aqueous phase sulphate by carbon-based electrodes was investigated through electrosorption experiments conducted at a duration of 180 minutes with a positive potential variable range of +0.2V to +0.6V (vs. Ag/AgCl). Through this research, the specific capacity obtained was equivalent to 1.0 to 5.14 mg-Th/g-Carbon. Furthermore, electrosorption of thorium ions from aqueous phase sulphate is found to be most favorable at a higher positive potential of +0.6V (vs. Ag/AgCl). This study's findings elucidate the removal of thorium from the rare-earth residue by carbon-based electrodes and simultaneously its potential to reduce disposal waste of untreated residue.

ELECTROLYSIS TREATMENT OF AMMONIUM CHLORIDE WASTEWATER BY DOUBLE CHAMBER MEMBRANE PROCESS

Aiming at the problem that ammonium chloride wastewater generated from the rare earth and fertilizer industries is difficult to treat, combining with the actual case of a factory in Guangdong province that produced a large amount of ammonium chloride waste solution in the treatment of alkaline copper chloride etching liquid, this paper put forward the method of electrolysis to treat ammonium chloride wastewater and probed into the optimal experimental conditions. It was found that the anion exchange membrane was used to separate the electrolytic cell into a bipolar chamber, which could prevent the contact between chlorine gas and ammonium ion from producing explosive nitrogen trichloride, ensure the safety of operation, and effectively separate chlorine gas from the anode and hydrogen from the cathode, so as to facilitate products collection. On this basis, through exploring the impact of anode chamber and electrolyte concentration, cathode chamber ammonium chloride solution concentration, electrolytic time on treatment effect, optimized experimental condition was as follows:20 mL 5 g/L sodium chloride solution in the anode chamber, 20 mL 100 g/L of ammonium chloride solution in the cathode chamber, constant current of 0.3 A, and electrolysis time of 3 hours, then 93% of chloride ions were transformed into chlorine and sodium hypochlorite. Under this condition, the factory could make an income of at least RMB 1950 by treating 15 t of ammonium chloride waste liquid per day. The membrane electrolysis method could effectively remove chloride ions from ammonium chloride wastewater and produce chlorine gas, sodium hypochlorite and ammonia water. Compared with the traditional electrochemical treatment technology, it had the advantages of simple device and high removal rate, with controllable reaction rate.

The Feedback Effect of Rare Earth Development Policy on Economy and Society

China is rich in rare earths (RE). However, the exploitation of rare earths not only promoted the social and economic development, but also produced negative environmental externalities, so the relevant departments issued policies and regulations to carry out pollution control work. This paper made a macroanalysis of China firstly. And then this paper took Jiangxi province as the main research area, which compared with Inner Mongolia, Guangdong, Sichuan and Fujian. This paper used the method of non-radial SBM to measure policy execution efficiency. Based on calculating the social and economic development indicator, economic development and social development indicator, this paper explored the feedback correlation of policy execution efficiency and the development of society and economy by grey relational analysis. The results showed that China reduced its dependence on rare earth resources. However, the efficiency of policy implementation needs to be improved. Effective implementation of rare earth industry policy has a feedback effect on social and economic development. From the perspective of case analysis, the implementation efficiency of vegetation destruction policy in Jiangxi province is higher than that of air pollution policy. The overall policy implementation efficiency of Jiangxi province has a strong feedback effect on the overall level of social and economic development, among which the air pollution and water pollution policy implementation efficiency has a relatively obvious feedback effect on social and economic development.

Determination of affinities of lanthanide-binding proteins using chelator-buffered titrations.

The recent discoveries of the first proteins that bind lanthanides as part of their biological function not only are relevant to the emerging field of lanthanide-dependent biology, but also hold promise to revolutionize the technologically critical rare earths industry. Although protocols to assess the thermodynamics of metal-protein interactions are well established for "traditional" metal ions in biology, the characterization of lanthanide-binding proteins presents a challenge to biochemists due to the lanthanides' Lewis acidity, propensity for hydrolysis, and high-affinity complexes with biological ligands. These properties necessitate the preparation of metal stock solutions with very low buffered "free" metal concentrations (e.g., femtomolar to nanomolar) for such determinations. Herein we describe several protocols to overcome these challenges. First, we present standardization methods for the preparation of chelator-buffered solutions of lanthanide ions with easily calculated free metal concentrations. We also describe how these solutions can be used in concert with analytical methods including UV-visible spectrophotometry, circular dichroism spectroscopy, Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET), and sensitized terbium luminescence, in order to accurately determine dissociation constants (Kds) of lanthanide-protein complexes. Finally, we highlight how application of these methods to lanthanide-binding proteins, such as lanmodulin, has yielded insights into selective recognition of lanthanides in biology. We anticipate that these protocols will facilitate discovery and characterization of additional native lanthanide-binding proteins, will motivate the understanding of their biological context, and will prompt their applications in biotechnology.

A DPSIR-TODIM Model Security Evaluation of China’s Rare Earth Resources

Rare earth is an important strategic mineral resource for national economy and national security. As the largest producer and exporter of rare earth, China’s rare earth industry has problems associated with excessive production, mismatched pricing power and environmental pollution. Therefore, an in-depth study of the rare earth industry security is necessary. Based on proposed definition for mineral resource security, this paper established a rare earth resource security evaluation model based on the “driver-pressure-state-impact-response” conceptual model using an extended TODIM (an acronym in Portuguese for interactive and multi-criteria decision-making) method combined with the E-DEMATEL (entropy and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory) method. The model was then applied to Chinese rare earth data from 2006–2015 to assess the security, from which it was found that while the security level was not high, the overall trend was improving. Moreover, some critical response factors affecting REEs (rare earth elements) security are identified, including tariffs, research investment, etc. This paper not only introduces a new evaluation of REEs security but also explores the crucial indicators and the response mechanism.

Transport Models of Ammonium Nitrogen in Wastewater from Rare Earth Smelteries by Reverse Osmosis Membranes

Wastewater from rare earth smelteries contains large amounts of ammonium nitrogen (NH4+-N), which causes severe environmental problems. In this contribution, the desalination efficiency of reverse osmosis (RO) was investigated in the treatment of NH4Cl or NaCl solutions from 0.1 to 40 g/L under different operating pressures with a commercial RO membrane. Experimental results showed that when an operating pressure above 30 bar is applied to the 5 g/L NH4Cl solution, the permeate was found to meet the discharge standards of NH4+-N. Compared to NH4Cl, the permeate fluxes of NaCl solutions were higher due to the higher net driving force and lower propensity to membrane fouling. Theoretical models indicate a linear relationship between water flux and the net driving force for both NH4Cl and NaCl solutions. On the contrary, a power function between the salt flux and concentration difference correlated well with the experimental data for salt transport. The equations for water and salt transport obtained by this work would provide a facile and practical means for predicting the membrane performance in design and optimization of RO processes for the treatment of wastewater from the rare earth industry.

The efficient separation of thorium from rare earth using oxamic acid in hydrochloric acid medium

Thorium (Th) is a promising element that can be converted to fissile uranium for nuclear energy. A large amount of slag containing Th need to be effectively treated and stacked in rare earth (RE) industry. It is of importance to develop some novel processes for separating Th from REs using solvent extraction. The amide group was considered to have good selectivity for Th separation from REs. In order to solve the problem of RE entrainment during Th separation together with primary amine (N1923, (CnH2n+1)2CHNH2 n = 9–11) does not extract Th in hydrochloric acid system, three oxamic acid type extractants have been designed and synthesized in this paper. Among the extractants, the separation performance of 2-(dibenzylamino)-2-oxoacetic acid (DBOA) was indicated to be the best. As for the effective separation, the electron affinity of Th was larger, it was more preferred to coordinate with the extractant. The hydrogen ions released by the extractant could inhibit the extraction of REs rather than Th. Accordingly, Th could be separated from REs. Saponification process of oxamic acid extractant could be omitted in this separation process. By extracting Th using a lower concentration of oxamic acid selectively, not only the loss of RE could be reduced, but also a higher purity of Th could be obtained. Using a simplified fractional extraction experiment, the purity of RE in aqueous phase was increased to be 99.92% or higher, and the purity of obtained Th after stripping from loaded organic phase was increased to be 99.5%.

Economic Loss Dynamics of Rare Earth Industry along the Yellow River: Taking Renewable Energy Accounting as an Observation Indicator

Qian, A.; Zhu, X., and Wang, F., 2020. Economic loss dynamics of rare earth industry along the Yellow River: Taking renewable energy accounting as an observation indicator. In: Yang, Y.; Mi, C.; Zhao, L., and Lam, S. (eds.), Global Topics and New Trends in Coastal Research: Port, Coastal and Ocean Engineering. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 103, pp. 101–106. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.The environmental pollution and ecological destruction caused by the exploitation of raw materials in the renewable energy industry is a neglected topic at present. Poor environmental management is one of the important reasons for the ecological damage of renewable energy projects. Rare earth resources are the main raw materials for renewable energy, and their production and mining mainly take place in China. According to Chinese government, the pollution caused by rare earth was most obvious between 1992 and 2010 and mainly happened in Baotou, which contributed 80% of global rare earth production. Therefore, this paper will combine the development of renewable energy before 2009 to demonstrate the pollution of China's rare earth mining areas. Based on the Input-Output Table developed by the European Union, by using multi-country input-output model to study the renewable energy consumption. It is found that, in rapid development period of renewable energy, the smaller the gap between global supply and demand, the greater the degree of exploitation in production areas, and the greater the ecological degradation. Based on 2019 IRNEA's forecast, our paper holds that the global renewable consumption can be used as a more intuitive indicator for the government to evaluate the economic loss level caused by the rare earth industry.

International Rare Earth Supply and Demand Forecast Based on Panel Data Analysis

Rare earth supply and demand forecasting plays a crucial role in the development of the rare earth industry, but there are some problems in common prediction methods, such as big error and insufficient authenticity. Through the use of panel data analysis methods to predict and analyze international rare earth supply and demand can greatly improve the authenticity and reliability. Spatially analyze the positive correlation between international rare earth supply and national GDP, rare earth production, and rare earth imports, while negatively correlated with the price of rare earth. From the time analysis, the international rare earth consumption presents the general trend of decline. At the same time, the supply and demand forecast of rare earth in China is analyzed and compared and strive to provide an important reference for the comprehensive development and utilization of rare earth resources in China through the analysis of panel data.

Selective flotation separation of bastnaesite from calcite using xanthan gum as a depressant

The inability of rare earth and gangue minerals to be efficiently separated by flotation due to their similar physicochemical properties is a major challenge of the rare earth industry. Bastnaesite is one of the principal sources of light rare earth elements. The use of traditional flotation reagents often poses the problem of poisonous wastewater generation. Therefore, we use xanthan gum (XG) as a non-toxic, biodegradable, and cheap depressant to selectively separate bastnaesite from calcite by flotation and probe the corresponding mechanism. Microflotation experiments/zeta potential measurements conducted with/without XG using sodium oleate as a collector demonstrate that at pH 8, XG decreases the flotation recoveries of calcite and bastnaesite by 85.09 and 22.37%, respectively. Further analysis of adsorption behaviour on the mineral surface and possible reagent-mineral interactions shows that selective mineral separation is due to the preferential interaction of XG with Ca ions on the calcite surface and the suppression of oleate ion adsorption thereon due to the steric hindrance of polymeric XG. Hence with regard to the potential of XG in calcium-bearing mineral separation, XG could be as a new depressant for RE mineral flotation.