sorbx and cerium and lynas

I was wondering what this great saviour of Molycorp, SorbX consisted of, so I checked it out.
But first some chemistry...

We all know phosphates are great fertilisers, but that runoff can cause problems such as algal blooms.
You may know that Cerium, Lanthanum and other REs have a great affinity for phosphates. (In fact the Mt Weld ore is phosphate rock and the Lamp needs acid and furnaces to 'crack' off the phosphate.)

So I was guessing Sorbx's purpose might be to strip the phosphate from wastewater, and it is. I imagined complex filter blocks or sophisticated proprietry geometry that made Sorbx special.

Not a bit of it: Sorbx is Cerium Chloride in water solution. That's it. A great bulk commodity with a useful purpose looking to build a brand name. Add it to (say) a sewerage pond and it strips the phosphate out of solution.
My point? Cerium salts (and Lanthanum) are commodity products with at least 1 large scale application and neither Moly nor anyone else can patent a basic chloride.

Availability will create a market, and in the case of cerium it's a nice environmentally friendly one.
Which is (almost) how I came to Lynas.... I tried out a bottle of "Phosphate Remover" in my pool to control an algal bloom that was out of hand. It worked a charm. Looked at the label... Lanthanum Chloride. I googled it and found Lynas.

I checked, I'm paying about $100/kg retail for the Lanthanum in my pool. Happy to switch to $$50 Cerium!
(In either case finding Lynas has cost me a lot more than that so far!!)
But the RE market is turning, we're finally in production and Cerium is useful: I'm confident medium to long term and hope for a nice suprise this week!

http://www.molycorp.com/technology/advanced-water-technologies/sorbx-100