Environmental Life Cycle Perspective on Rare Earth Oxide Production

Abstract

Rare earth elements (REEs) are a collection of 17 chemical elements that are critical to the functionality of a host of modern commercial industries including emerging clean energy technologies, electronics, medical devices, and national defense applications. Despite their key importance in multiple industries, to-date there has been little emphasis on environmental systems analysis of REE production. Rapid growth in these industrial sectors could result in heightened global demand for REE. As such, assessing the broader ramifications of REE production on human health and the environment is crucial for guiding the sustainable development of these industries. In this study, life cycle assessment (LCA) is performed to evaluate the environmental impacts and resource intensity of producing rare earth oxides (REO) from the Bayan Obo mine located in Inner Mongolia, China. Analysis indicates that the mining, as well as extraction and roasting phase(s), had the greatest contribution to overall life cycle environmental impacts. Additionally, the results reveal that the production of heavy REO consumes over 20 times more primary energy as compared to steel (per unit mass). The high primary energy consumption and life cycle environmental impacts of REO production highlight the critical need for development of REE recycling operations and infrastructure.

Lessons Learned from a Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of Rare Earth Permanent Magnets

“…Comparison with other LCA studies is quite difficult because of the use of different functional units (1 kg of REO, 1 kg of REO equivalents, 1 kg of metal, and 1 kg of magnet) as well as life cycle impact assessment methods. With respect to 1 kg of Nd 2 O 3 , climate‐change values of this study (77 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents [CO 2 ‐eq] for BO) are higher than in Koltun and Tharumarajah () (66 kg CO 2 ‐eq) and Zaimes and colleagues () (50 kg CO 2 ‐eq). For a rough comparison with the results from Sprecher and colleagues (), the impact assessment methods applied are additionally calculated by using CML 2001 (Guinée et al.…”

Effect of Nd3+ Ion Concentration on the Corrosion Resistance of API X70 Steel in Chloride‐Rich Environments

“…In particular, the availability of Nd for the synthesis of corrosion inhibitors can be attractive if the new technologies for the recycling of rare earths are considered [21][22][23][24]. erefore, in this study, the corrosion inhibitory capacity of neodymium chloride on API X70 steel in a 3.5% NaCl solution at room temperature is evaluated.…”

Rare Earths from Mines to Metals: Comparing Environmental Impacts from China's Main Production Pathways

“…Altogether, the production process is fairly energy and materials intensive (Peiro and Mendez ; Zaimes et al. ) and generates significant quantities of pollution that includes radioactive waste, hydrogen fluoride (HF), and acidic waste water (Hurst ; Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection ). So far, life cycle studies on rare earths production in China have all focused solely on the production chain in Bayan Obo (Schüler et al.…”