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?

Elemen Tanah Jarang 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?

Unsur tanah jarang dibagi menjadi "unsur tanah jarang ringan" dan "unsur tanah jarang berat":
“Tanah jarang ringan” refers to SC, Y, La, CE, PR, ND, PM, SM, EU with small atomic numbers.
“Elemen tanah jarang yang berat” refer to Gd, TB, Dy, Ho, Er, TM, Yb, and Lu with relatively large atomic numbers.

What Are Rare Earths Used For?

 

 

1. Lanthanum

Lanthanum 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.

Cerium digunakan di berbagai bidang, termasuk hampir semua aplikasi tanah jarang. Seperti bubuk pemoles, bahan termoelektrik, elektroda tungsten cerium, keramik piezoelektrik, katalis bensin, baja paduan, dan logam non-besi, dll.

 

 

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

Europium oksida sebagian besar digunakan dalam fosfor.

8. Gadolinium

A. Kompleks paramagnetik yang larut dalam air dapat meningkatkan sinyal pencitraan resonansi magnetik tubuh manusia di bidang medis.
B. Its sulfur oxide can be used as the Matrix Grid of the Special Brightness Oscilloscope Tube and the X-ray screen.
C. Gadolinium dalam Gadolinium gallium Garnet adalah substrat tunggal yang ideal untuk memori memori gelembung.
D. Without the limit of the Camot Cycle, it can be used as a solid-state magnetic cooling medium.
E. Digunakan sebagai penghambat tingkat reaksi berantai untuk mengendalikan pembangkit listrik tenaga nuklir untuk memastikan keamanan reaksi nuklir.
F. Digunakan sebagai aditif untuk magnet kobalt Samarium untuk memastikan bahwa sifat-sifatnya tidak berubah dengan suhu. Selain itu, gadolinium oksida digunakan dengan Lanthanum untuk meningkatkan stabilitas termal kaca.

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

Dysprosium memainkan peran penting dalam banyak bidang teknologi tinggi, seperti aditif untuk magnet permanen NdFeB, aktivator fosfor, bahan logam yang diperlukan untuk paduan Terfenol, bahan penyimpanan magneto-optik, peredam neutron, dll.

11. Holmium

Holmium digunakan sebagai aditif dalam lampu halida logam, dalam besi yttrium atau garnet aluminium yttrium, dalam komunikasi serat optik, dan dalam pengobatan.

12. Erbium

Sifat optik erbium begitu luar biasa sehingga para peneliti mencurahkan banyak perhatian padanya. Emisi cahaya ER3 + pada 1550nm memiliki signifikansi khusus. Perkembangan pesat komunikasi serat optik akan membuka bidang aplikasi baru untuk 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

Lutetium terutama digunakan untuk
A. Bahan baku untuk memori gelembung.
B. Membuat beberapa paduan khusus;
C. Stable lutetium nuclide plays a catalytic role in petroleum cracking, alkylation, hydrogenation, and polymerization.
D. Digunakan sebagai tambahan pada besi yttrium atau garnet aluminium yttrium untuk meningkatkan beberapa sifat.
E. Digunakan dalam teknologi sel energi dan sebagai aktivator untuk fosfor.
F. It has been found that lutetium has potential applications in electrochromic displays and low-dimensional molecular semiconductors.

 

 

16. Yttrium

Menambahkan yttrium ke dalam baja dan paduan non-besi dapat meningkatkan kinerja secara signifikan. Paduan yang mengandung yttrium dengan kandungan yttrium tinggi hingga 90% dapat digunakan di ruang angkasa dan aplikasi lain yang membutuhkan densitas rendah dan titik leleh tinggi. Selain itu, yttrium juga digunakan sebagai bahan pelapis tahan suhu tinggi, pengencer bahan bakar reaktor nuklir, aditif untuk bahan magnetik permanen, dan pengikat dalam Industri elektronik.

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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