“…REE group consists of seventeen elements and is divided into two categories, namely the light rare-earths (LREE), including cerium (Ce), lanthanum (La), neodymium (Nd), praseodymium (Pr), samarium (Sm); and the heavy rare-earths (HREE) group including gadolinium (Gd), europium (Eu), terbium (Tb), dysprosium (Dy), thulium (Tm), ytterbium (Yb), lutetium (Lu), yttrium (Y), holmium (Ho), and erbium (Er). 5 …”