Improving rare earth separation

Rare earth elements are crucial for modern technologies such as batteries, magnets and consumer electronics, but their similar chemical properties make them difficult to separate. Currently only China performs the extended series of solvent extraction steps needed to produce significant amounts of pure metals from mixed ores. Development of cleaner and less intensive separation methods would remove a barrier to worldwide recycling and production of rare earths.

As part of ongoing research into critical metal reuse and recycling, chemical engineers have teamed up with chemists to develop a simple photochemical method for separating vital rare earth metals, europium and yttrium.

This article provides a link to coverage by Chemistry World