99% 2N 99.9% 3N 99.99% 4N 99.999% 5N 99.9999% 6N
RARE EARTHS INFORMATION CENTER
AE Rare Earths™
What are the rare earths? The lanthanide or rare earth metals include lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium and lutetium. scandium and yttrium are also sometimes included in this group in that they share many properties. They appear much like the transition metals, silvery metallic, and find many similar applications. Lanthanum and cerium are used in many solar energy, alloying, electronic, glass, fuel cell, nanotechnology and ceramic applications. Neodymium, praseodymium, erbium and dysprosium ions emit and absorb wave lengths within the visual light range making them useful in applications as varied as welding goggles to fiber optics to medical lasers. Promethium is the one lanthanide that does not naturally occur. Safety Information, properties and technical data for each of the rare earth elements and their many forms are provided.
Annual Chinese rare earth oxide production presently stands at between 70,000-90,000 metric tons, so the availability of rare earth supplies, from the standpoint of rare earth reserves, is not an issue. However recent changes in limitations placed by the Chinese government on rare earth production and export will limit their availability in the future. |
Production quality has also benefited from China's proximity to Japan, a major innovator in rare earth applications in the electronics and automotive industries. As stated, China has two production regions. In the north, "ceric" or "light rare earths" are produced from Bastnazite resources from Baotou. In the south, "yttric" or "heavy rare earths" are mined from ion adsorption clays located in the provinces of Jiangxi and Guangdong.
Additionally, globally outside of China there are a few rare earth sources including Bastnazite (USA), monazite (Australia, India and South Africa), ioparite and apatite (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine) and ion adsorption clays (Southern China). As described below, most of these regions are not exploiting their reserves. For example, we estimate that current world neodymium oxide production as a percentage basis is as follows:
| REGION | % OF GLOBAL PRODUCTION |
| China | 86% |
| Russia and Former USSR States | 8% |
| India | 4% |
| Other | 2% |
Australia has monozite deposits in Western Australia as a bi-product of their zirconium and titanium production from heavy mineral sands. In the early 1990's Australia produced a substantial quantity of monozite for export to rare earth separation plants in Asia and Europe. However, production essentially stopped in 1994 due to the problems associated with the disposal of radioactive thorium (a monozite bi-product). There have been several proposals to develop deposits in Western Australia, such as the Mt. Weld deposit in Pinjarra. There are currently not any large commercial producers in Australia.
Brazil also has large monozite deposits in beach sands on the northeast coast of the country. Brazil has several facilities that produce relatively small quantities of separated rare earths. Since 1997, there has been a plan to separate rare earths from a stockpile of monozite at Industrias Nucleares do Brasil's former mining and milling complex with the intent to store the extracted thorium as fuel for nuclear power plants. There are no current large commercial producers in Brazil.
India is currently the largest monozite producer from beach sands along the coast of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Producers export monozite concentrate, mixed rare earth Chlorides and oxides.
Russia. Several small rare earth processing facilities exist in Russia which process from loparite and apatite deposits in Kazakstan, Uzebekistan and Ukraine. Operations are sporadic and production is usually available only on a spot sale basis.
South Africa has been planning since 1998 to start up production of monozite from the Steenkampskaal mine in the Western Cape province. Estimated reserves are 250,000 metric tons.
United States. Until 1998, the United States was the second largest producer of rare earths from the Molycorp mine in Mountain Pass, California. The facility was closed in December 1998 due to certain environmental concerns. Several monozite deposits were mined in the past in Florida. These operations were forced to close due to the high cost associated with disposing of the radioactive thorium waste products.
American Elements' Rare Earth Production. American Elements maintains the world's largest catalogue of rare earth materials, including metals, compounds, nanoparticles and ultra high purity forms. American Elements' Chinese production facility is one of only a few major rare earth separations plants in Baotou with warehouse and shipping facilities at the port in Tianjin. The facility produces under ISO 9002 certification.
As a major Baotou-based producer, American Elements maintains close working relationships with the key city, state and national Chinese government officials controlling both mineral availability and separated rare earth exportation. Our quota allocation is timely granted and more than sufficient to allow for required sales. We will often have early information on the intentions of government officials and some limited ability to provide input in these areas. By producing close to the mineral source, transportation costs are minimized.
Rare Earth History and Historical Pricing. The history of rare earth use in industry began in the 1950's with the invention of the television which required europium as the phosphor. In the 1960's discoveries were made which created applications for the two rare earth elements that make up over 50% of the Bastnazite ore body; cerium and lanthanum. These elements found uses primarily in glass production and production of various catalysts.
The rare earths began to achieve global
commoditized pricing in 1987 when large scale prices were first
established as a result of the initial commercialization of the NdFeB
magnet. Prices steadily rose until around Q2 1989. 
Stimulated by these
relatively high prices and forecasts of 100%+ annual growth, Chinese
rare earth separation plants rapidly expanded output capacity
resulting in over capacity and price declines through 1992, which was
also influenced by a concurrent recession in the global computer
market. By Q4 1992 a combination of (1) plants closing that could not
compete in this market environment and (2) exponential growth in NdFeB
alloy demand, caused a supply shortage. Prices again recovered,
steadily rising from Q1 1993 through Q1 1996. However, as early as the
end of 1994, Chinese rare earth producers again rapidly increased
capacity with, in our estimate, supply actually exceeding demand as
early as Q3 1995.
As prices began to again fall at the beginning of 1996, an effort was initiated by Chinese government agencies to cause producers to voluntarily reduce production to within the projected demand with the stated goal of Chinese officials to establish a continuing "reasonable price" range. This voluntary program was under the threat that China would take a direct hand to control production output and exportation, if voluntary measures were insufficient. However, prices continued to fall through Q3 1999 when Chinese officials announced that export licenses would soon be required for all rare earth product exports. First to respond to this was Japanese buyers who purchased substantial inventories commencing Q4 1999 causing prices to steadily increase.
Prices were additionally impacted by the 1999 closure of the only large scale rare earth mine outside of China; the Mountain Pass mine owned by Molycorp (see above).
In Q2 of 2000, China in fact
implemented its export license system granting each producer and
certain Chinese import/export companies with quarterly export quota
limits based somewhat arbitrarily on a combination of historical
volume and a government desire to close many small facilities and
reduce the number of ionic clay processors in Southern China in favor
of production from Baotou. Additionally, China ordered a production
stoppage at many ionic clay
mines in Southern China, such that now
substantially all rare earth mineral supplies for both exportation and
domestic consumption come from Baotou
Current and Projected Rare Earth Trends and Pricing. The forgoing efforts by China to increase and stabilize rare earth prices had only marginal effect. The desire of the central government to continue to collect U.S. currency acted as a countervailing balance. However, in 2005 China first indicated that it was placing a greater emphasize on retaining its raw material resources than continuing to build its cash reserves. This lead to a serious effort to restrict rare earth exports and thereby increase prices.
In 2006, the government issued its first of currently two 10% export tariffs on rare earths. A third 10% tariff is expected before the end of 2007. Additionally, it began to strict the amount of quarterly export quota granted to producers to a very small percentage of the quotas first issued in 2005. In 2008, these factors are expected to force rare earth prices even higher with lower grade forms potentially becoming scarce further in the future.
Forms of Rare Earths. As stated, American Elements is the world's largest catalogue of rare earth materials with forms including metals, oxides, nanoparticles and nanopowders, compound powders and compound solutions and organometallics.
Rare Earth Metal can be purchased in numerous forms for alloying, for use in coating and thin film Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) and Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) processes including Thermal and Electron Beam (E-Beam) Evaporation, Low Temperature Organic Evaporation, Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD), Organometallic and Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) for specific applications such as fuel cells and solar energy.
Rare Earth Oxide is available in many forms including pellets and targets for coating and thin film Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) and Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) processes including Thermal and Electron Beam (E-Beam) Evaporation and powders for ceramic applications.
| Oxides | Oxide Pellets | Oxide Pieces | Oxide Powder | Oxide Tablets | Oxide Sputtering Targets | Oxide Nanopowder |
| Lutetium Oxide Pieces |
Cerium Oxide Polishing Powders
Lutetium Oxide Powder |
Lutetium Oxide Tablets | Lutetium Oxide Sputtering Target |
Lutetium Oxide Nanopowder
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Rare Earth Compounds are available as powders in all of the standard compound forms for uses were a soluble form of the rare earth is needed or in the case of the fluorides (which are insoluble) in situations where oxygen is not desirable, such in metal alloy production and certain optical applications.
| Acetate Powder |
Chloride Powder | Nitrate Powder |
Sulfate Powder |
Bromide Powder |
Fluoride Powder | |
| Cerium Acetate |
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Lutetium Fluoride |
Rare Earth Solutions of each of the forgoing rare earth compounds are produced by American Elements' AE Solutions division in both research and commercial (bulk) quantities.
| Acetate Solutions |
Chloride Solutions | Nitrate
Solutions |
Sulfate
Solutions |
Bromide
Solutions |
| Lutetium Chloride Solution | Lutetium Nitrate Solution | Lutetium Sulfate Solution | Cerium Bromide |
Rare Earth Organometallics provide a rare earth source that is soluble in non-aqueous (organic) solvents. A brief list of the organometallic rare earths produced by American Elements are listed below.
| Acetylacetonate | 2-Ethylhexanoate |
Trifluoromethanesulfonate |
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Recent Research & Development for Rare Earths
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