Researchers Find Potential New Source of Rare Earth Elements
Study could benefit the U.S. clean energy and electronics industries

March 3, 2019

Researchers have found a possible new source of rare earth elements – phosphate rock waste – and an environmentally friendly way to get them out, according to a study published in The Journal of Chemical Thermodynamics.

The approach could benefit clean energy technology, according to researchers at Rutgers University–New Brunswick and other members of the Critical Materials Institute, a U.S. Department of Energy effort aimed at bolstering U.S. supply chains for materials important to clean energy.

Rare earth elements like neodymium and dysprosium are essential for technologies such as solar and wind energy and advanced vehicles, along with modern electronics like smartphones. But a shortage of rare earth element production in the United States puts our energy security at risk. China produces roughly 90 percent of all such elements.

Recovering them from phosphogypsum – waste from phosphoric acid production – is a potential solution. Each year, an estimated 250 million tons of phosphate rock are mined to produce phosphoric acid for fertilizers. The U.S. mined approximately 28 million metric tons in 2017. Rare earth elements generally amount to less than 0.1 percent in phosphate rock. But worldwide, about 100,000 tons of these elements per year end up in phosphogypsum waste. That’s almost as much as the approximately 126,000 tons of rare earth oxides produced worldwide each year.

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