Rare Earth Minerals

About Rare Earth Minerals:

• Rare Earth Elements or Rare Earth Metals are a set of 17 elements in the periodic table — the 15 lanthanides, plus scandium and yttrium, which tend to occur in the same ore deposits as the lanthanides, and have similar chemical properties.
• They are used in production in a huge number of sectors, including renewable energy technology, oil refinery, electronics, and the glass industry.
• Rare Earth elements are used in space shuttle components, jet engine turbines, and drones. 
  • Cerium, the most abundant Rare Earth element, is essential to NASA’s Space Shuttle Programme.
• Although called "rare", they are actually found relatively abundantly in the Earth's crust.
• However, they are hazardous to extract, and there are relatively few places in the world that mine or produce them.
• According to the Rare Earth Technology Alliance (RETA), the estimated size of the Rare Earth sector is between $10 billion and $15 billion. About 100,000-110,000 tonnes of Rare Earth elements are produced annually around the world.

Reserves of Rare Earth Minerals:

• China has the largest reserve (37 percent), followed by Brazil and Vietnam (18 percent each), Russia (15 percent), and the remaining countries (12 percent).
• India has the world’s fifth-largest reserves of rare earth elements (contributing a total value of nearly $200 billion to the Indian economy), nearly twice as much as Australia.

 

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Q1) What is lanthanide contraction?

Lanthanide contraction is the steady decrease in atomic and ionic size of lanthanides as their atomic number increases. 

Source: PIB