Rare Metal (RM) and Rare Earth Element (REE) Resources: World Scenario with Special Reference to India

Abstract

The RM (Li, Be, Ti, Zr, Nb, Ta, Th and U) and REE (Light Rare Earths and Heavy Rare Earths including Yttrium) are strategic and critical for sustaining a variety of industries such as nuclear, defence, information technology (IT) and green energy options (wind, solar, electric vehicles and others). The 2010 ‘Rare Earth’ crisis of the world, following China’s monopoly with over 80% share and export restrictions in the REE market, led to an exploration boom for REE all over the world including India. This led to a substantial increase in REE mineral resources (98 Mt of contained REO in 2015) outside China located in Canada (38 Mt), Greenland (39 Mt) and Africa (10.3 Mt) that represents a five-fold increase in resources (c.f. Paulick and Machacek, 2017). As per the 2019, USGS commodity survey, the world reserves of REE have been estimated at 120 Mt in countries such as China (44Mt), Brazil (22Mt), Vietnam (22 Mt), Russia (12 Mt), India (6.9 Mt) and others (13 Mt). At present world resources of RM and REE are adequate to cater the demands of the different industries. The constraints, however, appear to be not technical but mainly environmental and social issues.

Environmental Technologies to Treat Rare Earth Element Pollution: Principles and Engineering

“…REE and the alloys that contain them are used in a variety of high-tech applications, such as the national defense and satellite systems, radar systems, wind turbines, electric vehicles, rechargeable batteries, laser crystals and robots. The 2010 'Rare Earth' crisis of the world, following China's monopoly with over 80% share and export restrictions in the REE market, led to an exploration boom for REE all over the world, including India (Krishnamurthy, 2020).…”

Development of a simple and efficient two-step microwave-assisted digestion method for the determination of REEs, HFSEs and other elements in granite samples by ICP-OES

“…6,7 According to the 2023 reports, India is the world's sixth-largest producer of rare earths with an estimated production of 2900 metric tons of rare earth oxide equivalent. 8 Still there is a wide gap between the availability of existing REE resources and demand for high-tech applications. 9 In view of the increasing demand for REEs and other rare metals, there is an urgent need to explore economically viable new mineral REE deposits and investigate possible strategies to recover them in order to ensure indigenous supply of these rare metals.…”

Analysis of the Rare Earth Mineral Resources Reserve System and Model Construction Based on Regional Development

“…Pan et al believed that there have been many studies on the catalytic and surface performance of alkali metal, alkaline earth metal, and other metal oxides, but rare earth oxides have received relatively little attention [ 4 ]. Krishnamurthy presented and explained the geochemical characteristics, classification, and distribution of rare earth elements in sedimentary rocks [ 5 ]. Xiao investigated the effect of rare earth elements on the compressive ductility of ferromagnetic shape memory alloys and found that rare Earth elements can significantly improve the material's compressive ductility [ 6 ].…”