ETH Chemist Discovers Process for Recycling Rare Earths

[Oscar]

ETH Chemist Discovers Process for Recycling Rare Earths

(Scource) [ https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth- ... waste.html ]

09.07.2024 by Michael Keller, Corporate Communications - July 9, 2024 (September 7, 2024?)

See Dr. Gordon Edwards' Comments below . . . .

EXCERPT: "Rare earth metals are not as rare as their name suggests. However, they are indispensable for the modern economy. After all, these 17 metals are essential raw materials for digitalisation and the energy transition. They are found in smartphones, computers, screens and batteries – without them, no electric motor would run and no wind turbine would turn. Because Europe is almost entirely dependent on imports from China, these raw materials are considered to be critical.

However, rare earth metals are also critical because of their extraction. They always occur in compound form in natural ores – but as these elements are chemically very similar, they are difficult to separate. Traditional separation processes are therefore very chemical- and energy-intensive and require several extraction steps. This makes the extraction and purification of these metals expensive, resource- and time-consuming and extremely harmful to the environment. . . . "

Important Resource for the Energy Transition

Rare earths are 17 metals that are used in all modern devices: in batteries, smartphones and computers, in wind turbines and electric cars. "They're all around us," says Perrin, "but only one percent of all rare earths are recycled." Recycling is important because the energy transition is requiring ever more rare earths. Their extraction is not only expensive but also highly harmful to the environment and often releases radioactivity.

There's also a geopolitical problem looming over them: Around 70 percent of rare earths are mined in China. What this could mean for the rest of the world became clear in 2010, when a conflict arose between China and Japan. China informally stopped exports of rare earths to Japan. Prices rose by over 1,000 percent, and supply shortages arose around the world. "If you compare it to oil, the largest exporting countries have a market share of 30 to 40 percent," explains Marie Perrin. . . . .

More . . .

[Oscar]

COMMENT: Dr. Gordon Edwards - March 17, 2025

Friends and Colleagues:

The article copied below, translated by Google Translate, adds an optimistic note to the rise of renewables as the most affordable choice for rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Toxic materials are often used in the construction and operation of industrial infrastructure of many kinds. This includes renewable energy equipment such as wind, solar, geothermal and other renewables.

The so-called “rare earths” (also named “lanthanides") are a group of 17 metals in the periodic table [ https://www.ccnr.org/periodic_table.html ] that have unusual properties that are ideal for use in electronic and electricity generating devices. Mining these metals is very dangerous for the workers and the environment. The metals themselves have a high chemical toxicity. But they are needed for renewable energy systems as well as many other electronic applications.

Note, however, that wind and solar do not create toxic waste. They simply make use of these naturally-occurring toxic materials that can, in principle, be recycled, and used again and again. Recycling and reusing such toxic materials ought to be an essential built-in requirement of renewable energy systems.

Nuclear power, on the other hand, literally creates hundreds of highly toxic new elements that cannot be recycled or re-used for civilian purposes simply because they are too radioactive – meaning their atoms are unstable and will spontaneously disintegrate, giving off biologically damaging atomic radiation. A radioactive variety (“isotope”) of any given element is always much more toxic than the non-radioactive variety of the same element.

Even the finest stainless steal and zirconium-alloy structures used in the core of a nuclear reactor will have to be kept out of the environment of living things for thousands of years as radioactive waste. These originally non-radioactive metals have become intensely radioactive.

Such is not the case with materials used in wind and solar. No new toxic materials are created and those toxics that are used can be recycled and reused many times.

Ironically, one of the reasons why rare earths are so dangerous to mine [
https://www.ccnr.org/Rare_Earths_2014_short.pdf ] is because of the inevitable presence of radioactive elements – uranium, thorium and their decay products – leading to excessive exposure to radon gas and radioactive dust that can be very harmful over the long term. It turns out that rare earths have a strong geochemical affinity with uranium and thorium, the two principle primordial radionuclides on Earth.

Cheers, Gordon.

P.S. One of the reasons why Donald Trump wants to acquire Greenland is because there is a mountain of rare earth ores near the Inuit community of Narsaq. Thanks to Nancy Covington and the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Canada (IPPNWC) (then called Physicians for Global Survival), I was sent to Narsaq in 2016 to explain the radioactive dangers of mining that mountain called Kvanefjeld in Danish or Kuannersuit in Greenlandic (the native Inuit language).

My presentation was at the invitation of one of Greenland’s major political parties. Since then, plans for strip-mining this particularly rich deposit of rare earths and uranium proved to be a hot “bone of contention” for several years but it was finally banned by the Greenlandic parliament.

Here are links to a presentation I made to the people of Narsaq, South Greenland, in 2016, on the health and environmental issues surrounding rare earths with special regard to the uranium mining aspect and the health effects of atomic radiation. To follow the presentation it is best to read the text while also looking at the slldes.

My presentation (text) [June 11, 2016]
[ http://www.ccnr.org/Narsaq_Edwards_2016.pdf ]

My presentation (slides)
[ http://www.ccnr.org/Narsaq_Edwards_2016_show.pdf ]