Marcos de Campos

Abstract:

Rare-earths have many applications in the high-technology industry, especially for magnets and luminescent phosphors, which are also important for lasers and optical fibers. This paper reviews the current trends of the market, wherein a crisis emerges: although the typical rare-earth ore - monazite - has ~45% Ce, 30% La, 15% Nd, and 5% Pr, cerium and lanthanum are at 1/25 of the price of neodymium. Elements as Cerium and Lanthanum often do not have a market and need to be stockpiled by the mining companies. Thus, the rare-earth market is now driven my magnets, and elements such as terbium, dysprosium, and holmium are among the most needed by the market, besides neodymium and praseodymium. Until recently, europium was strongly used as phosphor in all TVs, including plasma TVs. But now LED TVs obtain white color principally by mixing blue LED and a yellow phosphor that uses the cheap yttrium and cerium. In this presentation, a review of the present situation of the Brazilian rare-earth industry [1], and methods for rare-earth reduction, are provided.