Was tatsächlich transportiert wird
Heavy rare earths do not come from a conventional orebody. They come from weathered granite where the metal ions cling loosely to clay, and they are recovered by washing a salt solution through the hillside. The grade is tiny; the strategic weight is enormous.
- Das Material
- Dysprosium
- Die Varietät
- Ion-adsorption clay, very low grade, unusually rich in heavy rare earths
- Wo es beginnt
- China — Weathered granite hills in Jiangxi, Guangdong and Fujian
Schritt für Schritt und Grenze für Grenze
China · Jiangxi and Guangdong gehalten von State-consolidated producers (Staatlicher Produzent)
Leaching the hill in place
Ammonium sulfate solution is injected into the weathered granite and collected downslope. The rare-earth ions swap places with ammonium on the clay and come out in solution. Nothing is blasted and, in modern practice, little is dug.
Was mit dem Rest geschah: Older, uncontrolled in-situ leaching left serious groundwater and slope-stability damage, which is much of why the industry was consolidated under state control.
Warum hier: This deposit type needs a specific granite, a specific climate and millions of years. It is not a matter of looking harder elsewhere.
China · On site gehalten von Producers (Chemisch)
Precipitating a mixed carbonate
The pregnant solution is precipitated into a mixed rare-earth carbonate — the intermediate everything downstream starts from.
Warum hier: Concentrating before transport, as always.
China · Ganzhou, Jiangxi gehalten von China Rare Earth Group and affiliates (Raffineriebetreiber)
Separating the heavies
Solvent extraction, but far harder than for the light rare earths: dysprosium, terbium, holmium and erbium are even more alike than neodymium and praseodymium, so it takes more stages and more patience.
Was mit dem Rest geschah: Terbium, yttrium, gadolinium and the rest come out alongside. Yttrium is by far the largest fraction; dysprosium and terbium are the ones everyone actually wants.
Warum hier: Heavy separation capacity is concentrated here to a degree unmatched by any other material in this atlas.
China · Magnet plants gehalten von Magnet manufacturers (Hersteller)
Diffused into a magnet's grain boundaries
Rather than alloying dysprosium throughout the magnet, it is painted on and diffused into the grain boundaries where it does the most good. The technique cut dysprosium use per magnet several-fold.
Was mit dem Rest geschah: This is substitution by engineering rather than by chemistry — same performance, a fraction of the scarce element.
Warum hier: Grain-boundary diffusion is a process advantage held by a small number of manufacturers.
Germany · Traction motors and turbines gehalten von Motor manufacturers (Hersteller)
A motor that can get hot
Without dysprosium a neodymium magnet begins losing strength around 80 °C. A traction motor or a turbine nacelle routinely runs hotter than that. 15 kg is enough for several thousand car motors.
Warum hier: A few kilograms of a metal from a Chinese hillside is what lets an electric motor survive a summer traffic jam.
Dies ist ein ausgearbeitetes Beispiel. Es verfolgt eine angegebene Ausgangsmenge anhand veröffentlichter typischer Ausbeuten und Ausbringungsgrade, sodass die Verhältnisse nachprüfbar sind; es handelt sich nicht um den Nachweis einer bestimmten Lieferung. Routenfakten — welche Länder, welche Prozesse und warum das Material nicht einfach anderswo verarbeitet werden kann — sind aus öffentlichen Berichten zusammengestellt.