What’s Rare Earth Minerals – What Are Rare Earths Used For?

What are rare earth minerals? What are rare earths used for? Follow us to know the overview of rare earth minerals and their various applications.

How Many Rare Earth Elements Are There?

Elementos de tierras raras are the general name of the Lanthanide Rare Earth Group, it contains 17 elements including scandium (Sc), yttrium (Y), lanthanum (La), cerium (Ce), praseodymium (Pr), neodymium (Nd), promethium (Pm), samarium (Sm), europium (Eu), gadolinium (Gd), terbium (Tb), dysprosium (Dy), holmium (Ho), erbium (Er), thulium (Tm), ytterbium (Yb), lutetium (Lu). The term “rare earth” has been used since the 18th century. Because of technical constraints, rare elements were hardly separated; the obtained oxide does not melt, neither insoluble in water, its appearance resembles “soil”, and is called a rare earth.

 

 

How Many Types of Rare Earth?

Las tierras raras se dividen en "tierras raras ligeras" y "tierras raras pesadas":
“Tierras raras ligeras” refers to SC, Y, La, CE, PR, ND, PM, SM, EU with small atomic numbers.
“Elementos pesados de tierras raras” refer to Gd, TB, Dy, Ho, Er, TM, Yb, and Lu with relatively large atomic numbers.

What Are Rare Earths Used For?

 

 

1. Lanthanum

Lantano is widely used in piezoelectric materials, electrothermal materials, thermoelectric materials, magnetoresistance materials, luminescent materials, hydrogen storage materials, optical glass, laser materials, all kinds of alloy materials, etc. It is also used as a catalyst for the preparation of many organic chemical products and light conversion agricultural films.

2. Cerium

As a glass additive, cerium can absorb ultraviolet and infrared rays; it has been widely used in automobile glass. Not only can it prevent ultraviolet rays, but it can also reduce the temperature in the car, thus saving electricity for air conditioning.

Cerium is now being used as a catalyst for purifying automobile exhaust, effectively preventing a large amount of automobile exhaust from being released into the air. The United States accounts for a third of rare earth consumption in this application.

Cerium sulfide can replace lead, cadmium, and other metals harmful to the environment and human beings to be used in pigments.

El cerio se utiliza en una amplia gama de campos, incluidas casi todas las aplicaciones de las tierras raras. Por ejemplo, polvo de pulido, material termoeléctrico, electrodo de tungsteno de cerio, cerámica piezoeléctrica, catalizador de gasolina, aleaciones de acero y metales no ferrosos, etc.

 

 

3. Praseodymium

Praseodymium is mainly used in glass, ceramics, and magnetic materials.
It is mixed with a ceramic glaze to make a colored glaze that has a pure, elegant color.

For making permanent magnets, using the cheap praseodymium-neodymium metal to replace the pure neodymium metal to make the permanent magnetic material, its anti-oxygen performance and mechanical performance are improved obviously, and can be processed into various shapes of magnets. Widely used in all kinds of electronic devices and motors.
C. Used for catalytic cracking of petroleum, abrasive polishing, optical fiber applications, and so on.

4. Neodymium

The largest user of the metal neodymium is the neodymium-iron-boron permanent magnet material. The appearance of the Nd-Fe-B permanent magnet has injected new vitality and vigor into the field of rare-earth high-tech. Neodymium is also used in Non-ferrous metal materials. The addition of 1.5 ~ 2.5% neodymium to magnesium or aluminum alloys can improve the high-temperature properties, gas tightness, and corrosion resistance of the alloys, and is widely used as aerospace materials. In addition, neodymium also has a great influence on medicine, glass, ceramics, and rubber products.

5. Promethium

Promethium is an artificial radioactive element from a nuclear reactor. The primary uses of promethium are (1) as a heat source. To provide auxiliary power for vacuum detection and satellites. (2) PM 147 emits low-energy radiation to make promethium batteries.

 

 

6. Samarium

Samarium is the raw material for making samarium-cobalt permanent magnets. Samarium-cobalt magnets are the first rare-earth magnets to be used in the industry.

7. Europium

El óxido de europio se utiliza sobre todo en fósforos.

8. Gadolinium

A. Su complejo paramagnético soluble en agua puede mejorar la señal de resonancia magnética del cuerpo humano en el campo médico.
B. Its sulfur oxide can be used as the Matrix Grid of the Special Brightness Oscilloscope Tube and the X-ray screen.
C. El gadolinio en Gadolinium gallium Garnet es un sustrato único ideal para la memoria de burbujas.
D. Without the limit of the Camot Cycle, it can be used as a solid-state magnetic cooling medium.
E. Se utiliza como inhibidor del nivel de reacción en cadena para controlar las centrales nucleares a fin de garantizar la seguridad de las reacciones nucleares.
F. Se utiliza como aditivo para los imanes de cobalto samario para garantizar que las propiedades no cambien con la temperatura. Además, el óxido de gadolinio se utiliza con el lantano para mejorar la estabilidad térmica del vidrio.

9. Terbium

The terbium element is mainly used as an activator of green powder in fluorescent powder, magneto-optical storage material, magneto-optical glass, sonar, regulating mechanism of space telescope, aircraft wing regulator, and so on.

 

 

10. Dysprosium

El disprosio desempeña un papel importante en muchos campos de la alta tecnología, como aditivos para imanes permanentes NdFeB, activadores de fósforo, materiales metálicos necesarios para aleaciones Terfenol, materiales de almacenamiento magneto-óptico, absorbedores de neutrones, etc.

11. Holmium

El holmio se utiliza como aditivo en las lámparas de halogenuros metálicos, en el granate de itrio-hierro o itrio-aluminio, en la comunicación por fibra óptica y en medicina.

12. Erbium

Las propiedades ópticas del erbio son tan excepcionales que los investigadores le han prestado mucha atención. La emisión de luz ER3+ a 1550 nm reviste una importancia especial. El rápido desarrollo de la comunicación por fibra óptica abrirá nuevos campos de aplicación para ER3 +.

 

 

13. Thulium

Thulium can be used as a radiation source for portable medical X-ray machines, and can also be applied in clinical diagnosis and treatment of tumors, reducing the radiation and harm of X-rays to humans, which has important practical significance in medical applications.

14. Ytterbium

A ytterbium-gadolinium gallium garnet embedded line waveguide laser has been successfully prepared by Japanese scholars, which is of great significance to the further development of laser technology. Ytterbium is also used as a phosphor activator, radio ceramic, computer memory element additive, glass fiber flux, and optical glass additive.

15. Lutetium

El lutecio se utiliza principalmente para
A. Materias primas para la memoria de burbujas.
B. Fabricación de aleaciones especiales;
C. Stable lutetium nuclide plays a catalytic role in petroleum cracking, alkylation, hydrogenation, and polymerization.
D. Se utiliza como adición al hierro itrio o al granate de aluminio itrio para mejorar algunas propiedades.
E. Utilizado en la tecnología de células energéticas y como activador del fósforo.
F. It has been found that lutetium has potential applications in electrochromic displays and low-dimensional molecular semiconductors.

 

 

16. Yttrium

Añadir itrio al acero y a las aleaciones no ferrosas puede mejorar notablemente el rendimiento. Las aleaciones que contienen itrio, con un alto contenido de itrio de hasta 90%, pueden utilizarse en la industria aeroespacial y otras aplicaciones que requieren baja densidad y alto punto de fusión. Además, el itrio también se utiliza como material de revestimiento resistente a altas temperaturas, diluyente para el combustible de reactores nucleares, aditivo para materiales magnéticos permanentes y getter en la industria electrónica.

17. Scandium

In the electronics industry, scandium can be used as a semiconductor device, in the chemical industry, as an alcohol dehydrogenation and dehydrating agent, to produce ethylene, and to produce chlorine from waste hydrochloric acid. In the glass industry, it is possible to make special glasses containing scandium. In the electric light source industry, the sodium lamp made of scandium and sodium has the advantages of high efficiency and positive color. In medicine, 46Sc is used to treat cancer.

Rare Earth metals have been widely used in electronics, petrochemicals, metallurgy, machinery, energy, light industry, environmental protection, agriculture, and other fields. Rare Earth can be used to produce fluorescent materials, rare earth hydride battery materials, electric light source materials, permanent magnetic materials, hydrogen storage materials, catalytic materials, precision ceramic materials, laser materials, Superconductor classification materials, magnetostrictive materials, magnetic refrigeration materials, magneto-optical storage materials, optical fiber materials, etc.

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