They are neither lands, nor are they rare. We are talking about a group of chemical elements, mostly belonging to the lanthanide family (that little group that forms a separate row under the periodic table) Scandium and tritium, which usually appear mixed with lanthanides in deposits, too are included in rare earths.
It is very likely that we hear more and more about rare earths: it turns out that many of these elements are key to the functioning of technological devices and screens that we are no longer able to live without. They are fundamental components for data storage, in the development of modern electric motors, and are part of laser crystals, screens, devices used in medicine and dentistry, as well as more everyday devices such as microwaves, headphones, speakers, etc.
Expensive and polluting extraction
Despite what its name may suggest, rare earths are not rare, it is estimated that there are deposits throughout the world, although these are especially concentrated in China, Brazil and Russia. The problem with them lies in the difficulty of their extraction: as explained in this Nobbot article, we are talking about a highly polluting process, which generates hundreds of liters of contaminated salt water, uses toxic materials and generates radioactive waste. For example, lanthanides are separated from most elements by precipitation of oxalates or fluorides from nitric acid solutions.
This is an important environmental problem, and to minimize it a good idea is to try to give a longer life to our technological devices.
According to the Illustrious Official College of Geologists on its Earth and Technology page, the main commercial deposits of rare earths are associated with four types of rocks: carbonatites, alkaline igneous rocks, lateritic clays and pleasure-type deposits such as monazites. T he main concentrations of rare earth elements are associated with rare varieties of igneous rocks, alkaline rocks and carbonatites. Currently, China covers more than 80% of all rare earth supplies, since in the rest of the countries, due to unsustainable production costs, extraction has been abandoned.
Because of this, China has a very important geopolitical weapon in its hands, since a cut in the supply of rare earths would jeopardize the production of cutting-edge technological devices in all Western countries, including Japan. This is the reason why rare earths are being talked about more and more.
Neither land nor rare
We already said it at the beginning of the article: we are talking about chemical elements, mostly from the group of lanthanides. But they are so named because, at the time they were discovered, oxides were called that. And ‘rare’ because, compared to other more abundant deposits such as lime, they were quite scarce, in addition to being difficult to find in their pure state.
Elements such as cerium, yttrium, and neomidium are even more abundant than lead. The rarest of them, thulium, is still more abundant than gold and platinum.
