Rare earth metals finally extracted in Europe
If you are keen on Chemistry, you must be familiar with the rare earth elements. Better known as rare earth metals or rare earth oxides, they refer to a set of 17 natural, nearly indistinguishable, lustrous, silvery-white soft and heavy metals. These are, as the name suggests, rare in occurrence. Moreover, they are highly malleable, with increased melting and boiling points.
They may be rarely occurring in nature but they do have diverse and vital applications in the real world such as in the electrical and electronics industry, laser industry, glass manufacturing, magnetic industry and other commercial purposes. As a result, their demands are always skyrocketing with countries and organisations putting in efforts to mine them.
With that in mind, a Swedish state-owned mining company named LKAB recently discovered more than a million tonnes of these rare earth metals in Kiruna, Northern Sweden, one of the first rare earth metal discovery in Europe. It is a region near the Arctic Circle that has been known for rich deposits of rare earth elements since many decades now. However, until recently, they were untraceable largely because they intermittent in nature, and even if they are found are complex to extract.
Thus, no wonder, the current incident has triggered the demand for these rare earth elements, turning it into an all-time high. In fact, experts suggest that this latest finding is good news for Europe and its climate crisis. How? Well, as it turns out, they help in the production of raw materials that are essential for the green transition and can be crucial in building a sustainable environment. Not only that, so far, Europe has been vastly dependent on the import of these rare earth oxides from other countries such as China and Russia as they were scarcely unearthed in European continent.
As already mentioned, rare earth metals play a pivotal role in the growth and development of green technologies such as wind energy from turbines and batteries for electric vehicles. It also helps in solar power generation. In fact, the nuclear reactors that are now being used to make artificial sun also requires these rare earth metals to capture the neutrons during the process of nuclear fission.
Sources also cite that these rare metals are useful to refine fossil fuels such as petroleum and gadolinium. Besides, they are significant factors in determining the future of technology as it helps build components for quantum computers. How? Well, these supercomputers derive their power from electrons, particularly the ‘f-electrons’ as they offer both magnetic and luminescent properties and rare earth oxides are rich in ‘f-electron’ content.
The luminescent and magnetic abilities are also vastly required in endowing the colours of smartphone screens, using fluoresce to signal authenticity of banknotes, relaying signals through fibre optic cables under water, producing sound waves in headphones, detecting invisible lights of varied wavelengths, and even shifting the paths of missiles. In addition, rare earth elements are the key component in making some of the world’s strongest and most reliable magnets.