This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Criticality of the Rare Earth Elements: Current and Future Sources and Recycling" that was published in Resources
This book examines the development, use, extraction, and recovery of rare earth metals. Rare earth elements (REEs) occupy a key role in daily life in industrial applications. They are one of the critical elements for energy and sustainable growth. REEs are utilized in many modern electrical and electronic devices such as smart phones, computers, LED lights etc. Recovery of the REEs from secondary resources represents a way to meet the growing demand for electronic devices. Because of their rarity, utility, and importance, the recovery, utilization and recycling of rare earth metals is of utmost importance. This book presents both current methods of processing rare earths from primary and secondary sources and new, green routes for their isolation and purification. The book also addresses their utilization, re-use, reduction, and recycling policies that exist globally. Applications in metallurgy, magnets, ceramics, electronics, and chemical, optical, and nuclear technologies are discussed.
The Chemical Sciences Roundtable (CSR) was established in 1997 by the National Research Council (NRC). It provides a science oriented apolitical forum for leaders in the chemical sciences to discuss chemistry-related issues affecting government, industry, and universities. Organized by the National Research Council's Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology, the CSR aims to strengthen the chemical sciences by fostering communication among the people and organizations - spanning industry, government, universities, and professional associations - involved with the chemical enterprise. One way it does this is by organizing workshops that address issues in chemical science and technology that require national attention. In September 2011, the CSR organized a workshop on the topic, "The Role of Chemical Sciences in Finding Alternatives to Critical Resources." The one-and-a-half-day workshop addressed key topics, including the economic and political matrix, the history of societal responses to key mineral and material shortages, the applications for and properties of existing minerals and materials, and the chemistry of possible replacements. The workshop featured several presentations highlighting the importance of critical nonfuel mineral and material resources in history, catalysis, agriculture, and electronic, magnetic, and optical applications. The Role of the Chemical Sciences in Finding Alternatives to Critical Resources: A Workshop Summary explains the presentations and discussions that took place at the workshop. In accordance with the policies of the NRC, the workshop did not attempt to establish any conclusions or recommendations about needs and future directions, focusing instead on issues identified by the speakers.
This book is aimed to compile the distribution of rare earth elements in various resources with their processing from secondary resources. It includes details of various processes developed for extraction of rare earth elements from varied raw materials ranging from e-wastes, tailings, process wastes and residues. It emphasizes importance of processing of the secondary resources to assist environmental remediation of such untreated wastes and get finished products. It covers all aspects of rare metals and rare earth metals in one volume covering extraction, separation and recycling of secondary resources for extraction of these metals along with relevant case studies.
Mobile electronic devices such as smart phones and tablets are a significant source of valuable metals that should be recycled. Each year over a billion devices are sold world-wide and the average life is only a couple years. Value metals in phones are gold, palladium, silver, copper, cobalt and nickel. Devices now contain increasing amounts of rare earth elements (REE). In recent years the supply chain for REE has moved almost exclusively to China. They are contained in displays, speakers and vibrators within the devices. By US Department of Energy (DOE) classification, specific REEs (Nd, Dy, Eu, Tb and Y) are considered critical while others (Ce, La and Pr) are deemed near critical. Effective recycling schemes should include the recovery of these critical materials. By including more value materials in a recovery scheme, more value can be obtained by product diversification and less waste metals remains to be disposed of. REEs are mined as a group such that when specific elements become critical significantly more ore must be processed to capture the dilute but valuable critical elements. Targeted recycling of items containing the more of the less available critical materials could address their future criticality. This presentation will describe work in developing aqueous electrochemistry-based schemes for recycling metals from scrap mobile electronics. The electrorecycling process generates oxidizing agents at an anode while reducing dissolved metals at the cathode. E vs pH diagrams and metals dissolution experiments are used to assess effectiveness of various solution chemistries. Although several schemes were envisioned, a two stages process has been the focus of work: 1) initial dissolution of Cu, Sn, Ag and magnet materials using Fe+3 generated in acidic sulfate and 2) final dissolution of Pd and Au using Cl2 generated in an HCl solution. Experiments were performed using simulated metal mixtures. Both Cu and Ag were recovered at ~ 97% using Fe+3 while leaving Au and Ag intact. REE were extracted from the dissolved mixture using conventional methods. A discussion of future research directions will be discussed.
This collection presents papers from a symposium on extraction of rare metals as well as rare extraction processing techniques used in metal production. It covers metals essential for critical modern technologies including electronics, electric motors, generators, energy storage systems, and specialty alloys. Rare metals are the main building blocks of many emerging critical technologies and have been receiving significant attention in recent years. Much research in academia and industry is devoted to finding novel techniques to extract critical and rare metals from primary and secondary sources. The technologies that rely on critical metals are dominating the world, and finding a way to extract and supply them effectively is highly desirable and beneficial. Rapid development of these technologies entails fast advancement of the resource and processing industry for their building materials. Authors from academia and industry exchange knowledge on developing, operating, and advancing extractive and processing technologies. Contributions cover rare-earth elements (magnets, catalysts, phosphors, and others), energy storage materials (lithium, cobalt, vanadium, graphite), alloy elements (scandium, niobium, titanium), and materials for electronics (gallium, germanium, indium, gold, silver). The contributions also cover various processing techniques in mineral beneficiation, hydrometallurgy, separation and purification, pyrometallurgy, electrometallurgy, supercritical fluid extraction, and recycling (batteries, magnets, electrical and electronic equipment).
As the importance and dependence of specific mineral commodities increase, so does concern about their supply. The United States is currently 100 percent reliant on foreign sources for 20 mineral commodities and imports the majority of its supply of more than 50 mineral commodities. Mineral commodities that have important uses and face potential supply disruption are critical to American economic and national security. However, a mineral commodity's importance and the nature of its supply chain can change with time; a mineral commodity that may not have been considered critical 25 years ago may be critical today, and one considered critical today may not be so in the future. The U.S. Geological Survey has produced this volume to describe a select group of mineral commodities currently critical to our economy and security. For each mineral commodity covered, the authors provide a comprehensive look at (1) the commodity's use; (2) the geology and global distribution of the mineral deposit types that account for the present and possible future supply of the commodity; (3) the current status of production, reserves, and resources in the United States and globally; and (4) environmental considerations related to the commodity's production from different types of mineral deposits. The volume describes U.S. critical mineral resources in a global context, for no country can be self-sufficient for all its mineral commodity needs, and the United States will always rely on global mineral commodity supply chains. This volume provides the scientific understanding of critical mineral resources required for informed decisionmaking by those responsible for ensuring that the United States has a secure and sustainable supply of mineral commodities.
"Advances in Raw Material Industries for Sustainable Development Goals" presents the results of joint scientific research conducted in the context of the Russian-German Raw Materials Forum. Today Russia and Germany are exploring various forms of cooperation in the field of mining, geology, mineralogy, mechanical engineering and energy. Russia and Germany are equally interested in expanding cooperation and modernizing the economy in terms of sustainable development. The main theme of this article collection is connected with existing business ventures and ideas from both Russia and Germany. In this book the authors regard complex processes in mining industry from various points of view, including: - modern technologies in prospecting, exploration and development of mineral resources - progressive methods of natural and industrial mineral raw materials processing - energy technologies and digital technologies for sustainable development - cutting-edge technologies and innovations in the oil and gas industry. Working with young researchers, supporting their individual professional development and creating conditions for their mobility and scientific cooperation are essential parts of Russian-German Raw Materials Forum founded in Dresden 13 years ago. This collection represents both willingness of young researchers to be involved in large-scale international projects like Russian-German Raw Material Forum and the results of their long and thorough work in the promising areas of cooperation between Russia and Germany.
This work introduces into the chemistry, materials science and technology of Rare Earth Elements. The chapters by experienced lecturers describe comprehensively the recent studies of their characteristics, properties and applications in functional materials. Due to the broad range of covered topics as hydrogen storage materials, LEDs or permanent magnets this work gives an up-to-date presentation of this fascinating research.
