O que está realmente em movimento
This is the most-crossed border in the atlas. Rare-earth ore is mined in one country, chemically opened in a second, separated into individual elements, turned into metal and alloy in a third, made into a magnet, and only then fitted into a motor. Mining rare earths outside China solves the first step of five.
- O material
- Neodymium
- A variedade
- Weathered carbonatite concentrate, high in neodymium and praseodymium
- Onde começa
- Australia — Mount Weld, a 2-billion-year-old volcanic pipe whose top has been rotted by weathering into a natural concentrate
Passo a passo, e fronteira a fronteira
Australia · Mount Weld, Western Australia detido por Lynas Rare Earths (Mineiro)
Mining a natural concentrate
Open-pit mining of deeply weathered carbonatite. Weathering has already done much of the concentrating work over geological time.
Por que aqui: Carbonatite pipes are rare, and ones with a thick weathered cap are rarer still.
Australia · Mount Weld concentrator detido por Lynas Rare Earths (Mineiro)
Flotation to a concentrate
Milled and floated to a mineral concentrate at roughly 40% rare-earth oxide.
O que aconteceu ao restante: 980 tonnes of tailings, on site, in Australia.
Por que aqui: Concentrate at the mine, always.
Malaysia · Fremantle to Kuantan, Malaysia detido por Lynas Malaysia (Refinador)
First border crossing
Concentrate is shipped to Malaysia, where the plant that cracks it was built.
Por que aqui: The cracking and separation plant was permitted and built here rather than in Australia — a decision about chemistry, cost and permitting that took years and remains contested.
Malaysia · Kuantan, Pahang detido por Lynas Malaysia (Químico)
Cracking it open with acid
Roasted with concentrated sulfuric acid to break the mineral apart, then leached. Thorium and uranium that came with the ore have to be separated and managed here.
O que aconteceu ao restante: The radioactive residue is the reason this step is hard to permit anywhere, and the reason so few countries have it.
Por que aqui: Because someone was willing to build it and see it through.
Malaysia · Separation plant detido por Lynas Malaysia (Refinador)
Hundreds of stages to tell them apart
Solvent extraction through hundreds of mixer-settler stages, exploiting differences in ionic radius so small they are almost invisible. Out come separated oxides: neodymium-praseodymium, lanthanum, cerium.
O que aconteceu ao restante: Cerium and lanthanum come out too, in larger quantities than anyone wants them. Surplus light rare earths are the industry's structural problem.
Por que aqui: This is the hardest step in the chain and the one with the fewest operators worldwide.
China · Metal and alloy plants detido por Metal and magnet makers (Fabricante)
Oxide to metal to alloy
The oxide is reduced to metal by molten-salt electrolysis, then strip-cast with iron and boron into a rapidly-quenched NdFeB alloy ribbon.
Por que aqui: Metal-making capacity outside China is very small. This is the step a Western mine cannot yet route around.
China · Ningbo or Ganzhou detido por Magnet manufacturer (Fabricante)
Making the magnet
Hydrogen decrepitation, jet milling to a few microns, pressing in a magnetic field to align the grains, sintering, machining, and a nickel-copper-nickel coating so it does not corrode. Dysprosium or terbium is diffused into the grain boundaries so it survives heat.
O que aconteceu ao restante: Machining swarf is recycled internally — magnet scrap is one of the few genuinely closed loops in this industry.
Por que aqui: Roughly 30% of a sintered magnet's mass is rare earth. This is where the ore finally becomes a component.
Germany · Motor and vehicle plants detido por Motor and vehicle manufacturers (Fabricante)
Into a traction motor
1.6 tonnes of magnet is on the order of two thousand car traction motors, or the generator of a single large offshore wind turbine.
Por que aqui: Four countries, three oceans, five processing steps — from one tonne of Australian rock to the thing that makes an electric car move.
Este é um exemplo elaborado. Acompanha uma quantidade inicial declarada através de rendimentos e recuperações típicos publicados, pelo que as proporções são verificáveis; não é o registo de uma remessa específica. Os factos relativos à rota — quais os países, quais os processos e por que o material não pode simplesmente ser tratado noutro local — são compilados a partir de informação pública.