/ world today news/ In terms of reserves of rare earth metals (REM), Russia is in second place, but production is only 2% of the world’s. Development is hampered by a lack of domestic demand, while up to 90 percent of the R&D needed by local businesses is imported from abroad. For years, the relevant departments have been trying to untangle this tangle of contradictions. Looks like things are finally moving forward.
Special items
The rare earth metals are the 15 elements of the lanthanide group plus yttrium and scandium. They have similar chemical properties and are usually found together in nature. The name “rare earths” appeared at the end of the 18th century, because these elements, firstly (as it was believed then), were relatively rare and, secondly, formed refractory, water-insoluble oxides, previously called “earths”.
In 1794, the Finnish chemist Johan Gadolin, examining ore samples found near the Swedish town of Ytterby, discovered a previously unknown “rare earth”, which he called yttrium. German scientist Martin Klaproth then separated these samples into yttrium and cerium. Since then, light (cerium) and heavy (yttrium) groups of rare earth elements have been distinguished.
They are now widely used in radio electronics, instrument making, nuclear engineering, mechanical engineering, chemical industry, metallurgy and the defense sector. Strategically important SRMs are factors for global competition and internal security.
From gas lanterns to rockets
At the end of the 19th century, cesium and thorium were used in the production of gas grates for gas and kerosene lanterns. In the 1960s, the “Europium Era” began. In the 1970s and 1980s, samarium, which is needed for samarium-cobalt magnets, became the most scarce. Today they have been replaced by neodymium.
The most popular now are neodymium and dysprosium, as well as scandium. Due to the increase in the production of electric vehicles, the demand for electric vehicles will increase. So, one Toyota Prius model car requires about four kilograms of rare earth metals: two and a half – lanthanum and one and a half – neodymium. Neodymium magnets are needed in powertrains and transmissions and they must operate at high temperatures, and this also requires dysprosium alloying additions.
Another important area of application of RZM is the catalysts for oil extraction, oil refining, chemical industry and polymer production, as well as purification of exhaust gases from vehicles and industrial emissions. Environmental regulations are tightening around the world.
In metallurgy, alloying additions of rare earth elements significantly increase the operational properties of alloys. This is important, including for military equipment. So, in the American fighter-bomber F-35, there are 417 kilograms of munitions. And lutetium, one of the rarest and most expensive, is used in pulse rocket engines.
Unrealized potential
The largest player in the world market of RZM is China: 62% of production and more than 42% of reserves. Up to a third of the world volume is mined in the Bayan-Obo deposit in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. There, the ores are of the carbonatite type, they were formed as a result of the solidification of a specific magma, mainly carbonate. The same type is found in other large deposits in China, the USA, Australia and Russia (Tomtor in Yakutia, which is not yet fully explored and developed).
China fully satisfies its needs for this strategic raw material and controls the world market. China accounts for 72% of the world’s consumption of rare earth elements.
The US buys from China. Other large users of RDM – Japan, Great Britain, EU countries – completely import from China and Australia.
The main reserves of Russia are concentrated in hard-to-reach and poorly explored deposits. Only Lovozerskoe on the Kola Peninsula is being developed, where complex loparite ores are mined, containing tantalum, niobium and titanium in addition to RZM. As related components, rare earth elements are also extracted from apatite-nepheline ores from a number of deposits in the Murmansk region.
The enriched ore is sent to the country’s only magnesium plant in Solikamsk, where an intermediate product is obtained – the combined carbonate concentrate of RZM. In order to extract the metals so necessary for industry, it is necessary to separate them into oxides. There are no enterprises in Russia capable of doing this on an industrial scale. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, they moved to Kazakhstan and Estonia. The collective concentrate was sent for processing precisely there, now this scheme does not work.
As a result, Russia, which has one of the world’s largest mineral resource bases for WMD, has become one hundred percent dependent on the import of this strategic raw material. No deposits are developed and no separation plants are built because there is no demand.
Breaking the vicious circle
In July 2019, the government and the state corporation Rosatom signed an Agreement of Intent for the development of the high-tech direction “Technologies of new materials and substances” in the Russian Federation. At the VI National Mining Forum “Gorpromexpo-2022”, held recently in Moscow, a separate session was dedicated to rare earth metals. Andriy Shevchenko, director of technological development of the state corporation Rosatom, presented there a roadmap with goals for key projects.
“RZM metals are included in the list of the main types of strategic mineral raw materials, which was approved by a government decree dated August 30, 2022,” he said. “The current situation in the industry is not euphoric, but we do not consider it hopeless and we are working on it. There are currently problems with industrial-scale separation facilities that allow the production of individual oxides. The second thing that holds us back is low domestic consumption “We will increase domestic consumption and enter the foreign market, where there is very strong competition from manufacturers from other countries, mainly from China,” adds the expert.
The representative of “Rosatom” noted that by 2025, the dependence on imports should be reduced to 50 percent, and the production of rare earth metals should reach 2,700 tons. By 2030, according to plans, Russia will be fully self-sufficient, producing 7,500 tons of munitions per year.
The Association of Producers and Users of Rare and Rare Earth Metals, established in July 2020, should become a kind of headquarters of the industry, coordinating the interaction of all market participants.
“For now, the gap between how much needs to be produced to become profitable and domestic demand is too big,” explains Ruslan Dimukhamedov, chairman of the association, business development director of JSC “Atomredmetzoloto” (the mining division of “Rosatom”). “We have deposits. There are also end uses, but no intermediate processing stages. Now we have to build a chain: from oxides to metals, from metals to base alloys, from base alloys to products.”
Richness on the surface
The first step, according to the authors of the road map, is a project to include in the processing of phosphogypsum, a by-product of the production of phosphate fertilizers. The RZM of the cerium group in it is 0.4-0.5 percent, and strontium, which is no less in demand in high-tech industries and the nuclear industry, is up to one and a half.
“White mountains” of phosphogypsum now lie all over the country. The company “Skigrad”, which launched the first industrial production in Russia for the separation of rare earth metals in the city of Korolyov near Moscow, once developed a technology for processing this man-made raw material, according to which, together with a cheap gypsum binder, RZM concentrate is obtained.
The company continues to operate. By 2023, “Skygrad” plans to reach 500 tons of separated oxides per year, in 2024 – 1000 tons, by 2025 – 2000. A project of the same scale, but with a year behind schedule, is also being implemented by “Atomredmetzoloto”.
This is enough to cover domestic needs. After that, it will be necessary to develop new deposits, build large processing plants to provide the developing high-tech industry with its own rare earth metals and enter the foreign market.
According to experts, only the Tomtorskoe deposit, after completion of exploration and bringing production to full capacity, will satisfy up to ten percent of the world’s demand for rare earth metals. And this despite the fact that Tomtor’s ores contain the most scarce heavy group of rare earth elements. But everything depends on the problems of logistics and the search for investors, complicated by economic sanctions.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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