What exactly are rare earth metals? The most important facts about the sensational discovery in Sweden

To get straight to the point: rare earths are neither rare nor earth. Yet they are in high demand, as they are a basic building block of modern technologies on the way to a fossil-free future. They are needed for the production of smartphones and electric cars, for example for batteries, catalytic converters and magnets, but also for lighting.

Do you remember the periodic table of the elements from your school days? Here you will find the rare earth metals in the 3rd subgroup. There are these 17 metals: scandium (Sc), yttrium (Y), lanthanum (La), cerium (Ce), praseodymium (Pr), neodymium (Nd), promethium (Pm), samarium (Sm), europium (Eu) , gadolinium (Gd), terbium (Tb), dysprosium (Dy), holmium (Ho), erbium (Er), thulium (Tm), ytterbium (Yb), and lutetium (Lu).

The technical term is actually “rare earth metals”. It is misleadingly abbreviated to rare earth metals. In the meantime, the almost mysterious-looking abbreviated term has established itself in everyday language.

Rare-earth metals were first found in rare minerals – making them rare again – and isolated from them in the form of their oxides. Oxides used to be called “earths”, hence the name. Some of them – cerium, yttrium and neodymium – are more common in the Earth’s crust than lead, molybdenum or arsenic. Thulium, the scarcest rare earth element, is still not as rare as gold or platinum.

The 17 elements are almost always present in very low concentrations. They also cannot be found in pure form like gold, but only as an admixture in minerals. This makes it very difficult to obtain.

The demand for rare earth metals has increased twentyfold in the last 20 years. This is because, due to their special chemical properties, they are used in the production of smartphones, notebooks, LED lamps, electric motors, wind turbines, flat screens and other high-tech products. You only need small amounts, a bit like spices in cooking, but these are essential.

What does “special chemical properties” mean? Let’s take neodymium as an example: it makes magnets even more magnetic. This property makes the raw material indispensable for manufacturers of electric cars.

Rare earth metals are found all over the world. In Sweden, the Swedish state-owned company LKAB has now found rare earths in the order of over a million tonnes far in the north of the country. European record! Most rare earths are currently mined in China, the US and Myanmar. (t-online, stupid)