Research Forum

Rare earths are indispensable for European industry. To date, however, their extraction has been a complex process that places a burden on the environment. In the funded project “Improved extraction of rare earths through magnetic field-assisted separation,” scientists are investigating a more efficient and environment-friendly process. The project is being subsidized with €144,000 over a period of one and a half years.

Despite their name, rare earths – a group of 17 chemical elements – can be found in the Earth’s crust worldwide, but rarely in large deposits with high concentrations. They play an important role in the manufacture of modern technological products such as smartphones, electric cars, monitor screens, LEDs, and wind turbines. Rare earths are valuable and therefore number among the so-called critical raw materials.

However, chemical processes for extracting this group of elements are complex, inefficient, and place a burden on the environment; they often give rise to toxic wastewater and radioactive waste products. Currently, a large number of process steps are required; this results in an enormous ecological footprint.

In the new funded project, scientists are investigating a physically assisted separation process based on the strong differences in the magnetic properties of rare earths. Preliminary investigations on a micro scale have already shown that the presence of magnetic field gradients increases the selectivity of material transport and improves separation of the emulsion during processing. These promising findings are now to be transferred to investigations on a larger scale.