实际流转的物质
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.
- 材料
- Dysprosium
- 品种
- Ion-adsorption clay, very low grade, unusually rich in heavy rare earths
- 起点
- China — Weathered granite hills in Jiangxi, Guangdong and Fujian
逐步追踪，逐境跨越
China · Jiangxi and Guangdong 持有方 State-consolidated producers (国有生产商)
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.
其余部分的去向: Older, uncontrolled in-situ leaching left serious groundwater and slope-stability damage, which is much of why the industry was consolidated under state control.
为何选择此地: 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 持有方 Producers (化学品)
Precipitating a mixed carbonate
The pregnant solution is precipitated into a mixed rare-earth carbonate — the intermediate everything downstream starts from.
为何选择此地: Concentrating before transport, as always.
China · Ganzhou, Jiangxi 持有方 China Rare Earth Group and affiliates (精炼商)
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.
其余部分的去向: 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.
为何选择此地: Heavy separation capacity is concentrated here to a degree unmatched by any other material in this atlas.
China · Magnet plants 持有方 Magnet manufacturers (制造商)
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.
其余部分的去向: This is substitution by engineering rather than by chemistry — same performance, a fraction of the scarce element.
为何选择此地: Grain-boundary diffusion is a process advantage held by a small number of manufacturers.
Germany · Traction motors and turbines 持有方 Motor manufacturers (制造商)
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.
为何选择此地: A few kilograms of a metal from a Chinese hillside is what lets an electric motor survive a summer traffic jam.
本文为示例演算，以公开的典型产率和回收率对既定起始量逐步推算，各比例可供核验；这不是某批具体货物的记录。路线事实——途经哪些国家、经历哪些工序，以及为何该材料不能在其他地方简单处理——均来源于公开报道。