Analysis of China's rare earth industry chain

Elements collectively is 17 kinds of rare earth elements, specific for lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium and lutetium, scandium and yttrium, they have excellent thermal, mechanical, electrical, optical and magnetic properties, and widely used in transportation, electronics, aerospace, military defense, and other fields.Next, let's briefly analyze China's rare earth industry chain in 2021.

The industrial chain of rare earth mainly consists of the mining of rare earth resources in the upper reaches, the preparation of rare earth materials in the middle reaches and the application fields in the lower reaches.

First, the upstream of rare earth industry

Up to now, more than 250 rare earth minerals have been discovered, of which about 50 ~ 60 are of industrial value. The most important rare earth minerals are fluorocerium (lanthanum) ore, monazite, xenotime ore, ion-adsorbable rare earth ore, brown yttrium niobite and so on.

As a country with a large production and consumption of rare earth in the world, China's rare earth minerals are distributed in six regions of North China, Northeast China, East China, Central China, Southwest China and Northwest China, and are mainly concentrated in the Bayan Obo Fe-Nb and Rare Earth Mine in Inner Mongolia in North China, which is the main production base of light rare earth in China.

Data show that China mined 132,000 tons of rare earth minerals in 2019, ranking first in the world, and is expected to mine 140,000 tons in 2020.In second place is the United States, which mined about 26,000 tons of rare earths in 2019, or about 12.38 percent of the world's total rare earth mining (which was just over 210,000 tons in 2019).

Middle stream of rare earth industry

Middle reaches for the preparation of rare earth materials, upstream mining ore after smelting and refining can be made into all kinds of rare earth compounds, such as praseodymium oxide, neodymium oxide and cerium oxide, terbium oxide and dysprosium oxide, europium oxide, etc., according to different purposes of, after they can make the catalytic materials, permanent magnetic materials, hydrogen storage material, luminescence materials, etc.

1. Rare earth catalytic materials

Lanthanum, cerium and praseodymium are used as excellent additives and co-catalysts because of their unique 4f electron layer structure and good co-catalysis in chemical reactions.In industrial applications, there are mainly molecular sieve rare earth catalytic materials, rare earth perovskite catalytic materials and cerium zirconium solid solution catalytic materials, used in oil fission catalysis and environmental catalysis.

2. Rare earth permanent magnet materials

Rare earth permanent magnet material is an alloy composed of samarium, neodymium mixed rare earth metals and transition metals (such as cobalt, iron, etc.), which is pressed and sintered by powder metallurgy method and made by magnetic field magnetization.It can be divided into samarium cobalt permanent magnet and ndfeb permanent magnets, not only to application of computer, automobile, instruments, meters, household appliances, petrochemical industry, health care, aerospace and other industries of various micro motor, can also be used in wind power, new energy vehicles, frequency conversion electrical appliances, elevators, oil pumping unit of energy conservation and so on in the emerging field.

3. Rare earth hydrogen storage materials

Rare earth hydrogen storage materials mainly use nickel and rare earth metals as raw materials, which are produced on a large scale through vacuum induction smelting furnace. About one third of the raw materials used are light rare earth metals.At present, there are two types of La-Ni AB5 and La-Mg-Ni AB3.5, both of which have achieved commercial application.

4. Rare earth luminescent materials

Rare earth luminescent materials are produced by the jump of rare earth 4f electrons between different energy levels. Due to the different excitation modes, the luminescence can be divided into photoluminescence, cathode-ray luminescence, electroluminescence, radioluminescence, X-ray luminescence, triboluminescence, chemiluminescence and bioluminescence.The material has narrow spectral band, high color purity, bright color, strong light absorption ability, high conversion efficiency, high temperature resistance, can withstand the effects of high-power electron beam, high-energy radiation and strong ultraviolet light, widely used in lighting, display, imaging, medical radiation images, radiation field detection and recording and other fields.

Third, the downstream of rare earth industry

At present, rare earths are mainly used in the military, petrochemical, glass ceramics, new materials, precision electronic components and other industries.

1. The glass

Rare earth polishing powder and decolorizing agent are widely used in plate glass, optical glass, picture tube, panel glass and other special rare earth luminescent glass.

2. Agricultural materials

In agriculture, the main production of rare earth - carbon - ammonia series compound fertilizer, rare earth - urea series compound fertilizer, rare earth organic fertilizer, rare earth micro fertilizer, rare earth feed yeast.

3. Electronic devices

Electronic components are components of electronic components and small machines and instruments. They are usually composed of several parts and can be used in similar products.Often refers to electrical appliances, radios, instruments and other industrial parts, is the capacitor, transistor, hairspring, spring and other electronic devices.