BCS Member Groups

All About Rare Earths | BCS Oxfordshire branch

Synopsis Rare earths, a family of 17 elements, are essential ingredients in modern life and key to many digital and low carbon technologies. Their magnetic and fluorescent properties have been used to create the technologies that drive electric cars, generate electricity in wind turbines, help store data and provide sound and colours in electronics, create lasers, catalyse chemical reactions, and even clean ovens. Despite all these uses, most applications of rare earths don’t need very much of them and there are only a few rare earth mines in the world, mostly in China. It is this importance and vulnerability to supply disruption if China closes its doors that put the rare earths at the ‘top of the class’ of critical minerals. China was way ahead in recognising the opportunity of rare earth mining and manufacturing and the rest of the world is now playing catch up. There are lots of different sorts of rare earth deposits though, all formed in different ways and with various advantages and disadvantages. The race is on to bring more mines into production but producing rare earths is challenging. It is not just about finding a deposit, that is just the start. Sorting out how to process the minerals and then do the chemistry to separate the rare earth element family from each other into products for onward manufacturing is not for the feint hearted. The talk will highlight all these aspects with examples and some case study stories. About the speaker Professor Frances Wall is a Professor of Applied Mineralogy at the Camborne School of Mines at the University of Exeter. She specialises in technology raw materials, especially the rare earth elements, lithium and cobalt needed for decarbonisation, with interests in geology, processing, responsible sourcing and circular economy. Professor Wall was named one of the 100 Global Inspirational Women in Mining 2016 and awarded the William Smith medal of the Geological Society of London for applied and economic aspects of geology in 2019.