Things you do not know about rare earth

Probably a lot of you have heard about rare earths, "precious than gold" metals help China's economy grow galloping. So what is rare earth? Why is it so expensive? Invite you to learn about rare earths through the article below.

What is rare earth?

Rare earth is a rare group of elements that have little content in the Earth's crust and are difficult to separate each element separately.

Among rare earth elements, there are elements with higher levels in the Earth's crust than silver and lead.

Rare earth elements include 17 elements divided into two groups:

1. Heavy groups include 10 elements : Dysprosium (Dy), Erbium (Er), Europium (Eu), Gadolinium (Gd), Holmium (Ho), Lutetium (Lu). Terbium (Tb), Thulium (Tm), Ytterbium (Yb), Yttrium (Y).
2. Light group includes 07 elements : Cerium (Ce), Lathanium (La), Neodymium (Nd), Praseodymium (Pr), Promethium (Pm), Samarium (Sm) and Scandium (Sc).

In the Earth's crust there are more than 10 minerals containing rare earth elements, of which the main source of rare earth is minerals BASTNAESITE (Ce, La, Y .), CO3 (f, OH) 3 and MONAZITE (Ce, La, Nd, Th, Y .) (PO4, SiO4) 3.

Rare earth mining

Countries with significant rare earth reserves:

1. China (27 million tons accounted for 30.6% of the world).
2. America (13 million tons accounted for 14.70%).
3. Australia (5.2 million tons).
4. India (1.1 million tons) .

Rare earth mining requires a very high technological process.

There are four significant rare earth mining countries: China, India, Brazil, Malaysia . China is the world's most rare earth mining country.

The largest consumer of rare earths is the US, Japan and China. The largest exporters of rare earth products are: China, America, Japan and Thailand. The largest importers of rare earth products are Japan, France, Germany, England and Australia.

Uses of rare earth

Rare earths are widely used in high-tech industries such as food technology, medical, glass polishing, ceramic porcelain, computers, color television screens, lighting, environmentally friendly cars, magnets. , batteries, catalytic refining, missiles, radar .

1. Used to make permanent magnets for generators
2. Used to put in fertilizer preparations because of quantity to increase productivity and to resist pests for plants
3. Used to make magnets in magnetic sorting machines that look for mineral sorting technology
4. Used to kill termites, and trees to preserve historical relics
5. Used to manufacture cathode lamps in television sets
6. Used as a catalyst in oil refinery technology and environmental treatment
7. Used as superconducting material
8. Rare earth ions are also used as luminescent materials in photovoltaic applications
9. Applied in laser technology

Note: Rare earths are very toxic elements (there are many radioactive elements). Therefore, if exploitation is not guaranteed, it will cause environmental pollution. In addition, to exploit, recruit and process rare earth requires a very high technological process . Therefore, the exploitation of rare earth needs to be studied thoroughly.