Lanthanum: Water treatment reagents, cats, fuel cells
Dysprosium: fluorescent lighting (although it is also alloyed with Nd for magnets).
From memory, erbium was used in lasers for DVDs and CDs. Nd magnets in HDDs, DVDs and CDs, as well as in all speakers/headphones in modern devices, wind turbines and electric motors of all shapes and sizes.
Europium was emphasized as being important to LYC as it is a much higher proportion of the Mt Weld mix than Baotou has.
that finding substitutes for REEs is not feasible:
“About people trying to find substitutes and its the end for rare earth and i politely disagree.
Sure people may try to find a substitute for rare earth but they can never get close in terms of price to power/efficiency that rare earth magnet has in comparison to cheap substitute.”
If we look at what substitutes have already been developed that affects LYC, we find that:
Cerium: still the leader for glass polishing, silicon chip polishing etc. (I used it as a kid to polish a telescope mirror) but easily recycled from these uses as an industrial material. It is also used for decolouring glass. Use in cats seems stable, fuel cells are an emerging technology and not a significant user.
Europium: CRT – they are dead and gone. PDP – they’re gone too. LEDs? Can be used to make white ones, but then so can other elements. Definitely needs a new use.
Yttrium: like europium, it was used a lot in CRTs and PDPs. Has other uses in Al and Mg alloys but is not critical in that respect.
Terbium: same as europium.
Neodymium: always be a use for Nd. But not as much as hoped for seven years ago. Omgwen’s comment about magnets was just way off the mark. Tesla have not substituted the magnet, they’ve eliminated it totally for what could have been hoped to be THE major user of it. Similarly, entire markets for Nd in HDDs, DVD and CD players have disappeared (I’ve just bought a car sound system, just uses a stick, but in the shop they had a “special” for a radio-cassette player for $15. I explained to my daughter that it really was top of the range because it had auto-reverse!). Our Sony handycam has no drive in it, it is all recorded to flash sticks. And erbium for the lasers in some of those devices, no longer required.
Lanthanum: no change.
Dysprosium: I left comments on fluoro lighting until the end. This used to be a fairly small user of REEs, until govt legislation in Europe and Australia (amongst many other places) outlawed the use of ordinary tungsten filament bulbs. This is what I meant by my comment that being forced to develop a substitute could lead to the whole market being eliminated. The pressure is on to avoid using Dy, Sm, Tb, Y, and Eu because eliminating the old bulbs has pushed up their prices to astronomical levels. So when the commercial alternatives become more readily available, their eventual cheapness will cause fluoros to become obsolete. Which in view of their toxicity, will be a good thing.
So we can see big changes have already occurred for the most expensive elements including europium. Much less in the cheaper elements. Neodymium will probably remain fairly strong in the short to medium term, but will surely be affected by the new Brazilian discovery.
The rate of change of technology in the electronics field has been remarkable over the last 30 years. Flash memories will only grow in TB/cm. cubed and speed as the atomic transistor is refined. Solar cells will become more efficient as wafer slices are reduced to molecular dimensions – requiring less of everything (but manufacturing more).
Omgwen again: “In order for scientists to find a true substitute for rare earth it would mean making a scientific break through discovery discovering a whole new Element on the periodic table which i am doubtful that they would.”
Clearly they aren’t going to find a new (non-radioactive) element! But they are developing new organic molecules (of which there are almost an infinite amount), and finding new uses for existing ones. New combinations of semi-conducting elements with new properties.
And finally: “The only time i have ever heard that scientists has creating even more powerful magnets is in fact by combining 2 rare earth elements together.”
Alternatively, think outside the box. Tesla “don’t need no stinkin’ magnets”.
Uses for REEs won’t disappear, but they are already diminishing in ways which weren’t imagined only seven years ago by most of us. To consider that substitutes can never be found is very rash, imo. Anybody still got shares in carburetor companies?
LYC Price at posting:
80.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
(20min delay)