Rare Earth Elements: Now A Pawn In The US- China Trade War?

Given President Trump’s ill advised tariffs on Chinese exports now sends the world’s economy on the precipice of recession, will China be using its rare earth metals industry as a pawn in the ongoing US-China trade war?

By: Ringo Bones

The ongoing US-China trade war – what is it really good for? Absolutely nothing says most economists, but as it rages on, will rare earth elements be drafted as reliable pawns in this ongoing trade war?

Believe it or not, there was a time where the United States and the Soviet Union were the leading producers and users of rare earth elements at the height of the Cold War. Given that rare earth elements are close homologues of elements used in the manufacture of atomic weapons, the Cold War era stockpiling of nuclear weapons means that the mining and production of weapons grade uranium has produce a quite useful byproduct – i.e. rare earth elements. Since the end of the Cold War, Beijing has been busy making atomic reactors for the much needed energy demands in modernizing its industry and over the years, Mainland China now produces 37-percent of the global supply of rare earth elements.

Rare earth elements are currently being used in the manufacture of a wide range of devices that includes smartphones, unmanned military drones. Neodymium, for example, is used to make those compact and powerful magnets found in smartphone speakers and haptic feedback devices, while terbium is used to make solid-state hard drives. It seems that modern life is very dependent on the low cost availability of rare earth elements.

Mainland China gained a monopoly on the production of rare earth elements because extracting them from the ground entails a lot of radioactive byproducts that were previously relegated to atomic weapons production at the height of the Cold War - which means that rare earth element mining is not so environmentally friendly. And given Beijing’s rather lax environmental laws, Mainland China is now second to none when it comes to the global rare earth metal industry.

Cerium: The Most Abundant Rare Earth Element?

Though considered “rare” in name only but does cerium qualify as the most abundant rare earth element?

By: Ringo Bones

It is considered rare in name only given that cerium occurs in the Earth’s crust at a concentration of 44 parts per million. On a percentage basis of abundance in the Earth’s crust – cerium is more plentiful than either tin or lead. And cerium is also found dissolved in seawater at a concentration of 1.8 tons per cubic mile of seawater. By comparison, the rare earth element thulium – the scarcest of the family on a percentage basis in the Earth’s crust – is only slightly rarer than iodine.

Chemical symbol Ce, atomic number 58 and named after the asteroid Ceres, cerium was discovered in 1803 by Jöns Jakob Berzelius and Wilhelm Hisinger of Sweden. It is the chief ingredient – at just under 50 percent – of misch-metal alloy often used in the manufacture of lighter flints. Cerium is used in alloys to make heat-resistant jet engine parts; its oxide has been used as a de rigueur petroleum cracking catalyst since the 1960sand as a volumetric oxidizing agent in most important industrial chemical processes. 

The IUPAC: Too Rare Earth Friendly?

It might be too friendly in an academic sense, but given that 2011 is the UN International Year of Chemistry does the relation between the IUPAC and the Rare Earth elements deserve a more thorough and renewed discussion?


By: Ringo Bones


Unlike the International Astronomical Union - or IAU – which controversially dethroned Pluto as a bona fide planet of our Solar System back in 2006, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry or IUPAC has since its establishment managed to steer clear from such academically controversial maneuverings, namely re-evaluating the status of some supposedly true-blue rare earth elements. And given that 2011 has just been designated by UNESCO as the International Year of Chemistry, should the IUPAC at least try to look into the issue this year? But first, here’s an overview of the IUPAC and the 2011 International Year of Chemistry.

The declaration of the United Nation’s 2011 International Year of Chemistry was decided as far back as December 2008 I New York and Paris during the 63rd General Assembly of the United Nations when it adopted a resolution proclaiming 2011 as the International Year of Chemistry, placing UNESCO and the IUPAC at the helm of the event. Ethiopia submitted the UN Resolution calling the Year which would celebrate the achievements of the science of chemistry and its contributions to the well-being of humanity. The year will also draw attention to the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development 2005 – 2014. National and international activities carried out during 2011 will emphasize the importance of sustaining natural resources.

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry or IUPAC was formed back in 1919 by chemists from industry and academia. For over 90 years, the “Union” has succeeded in fostering worldwide communications in the chemical sciences and in uniting academic, industrial and public sector chemistry in a common language. Given that 2011 is the UN International Year of Chemistry could this inevitably “tempt” the IUPAC to do a somewhat questionable academic stunt – like what the IAU did with Pluto back in 2006 - by booting out lanthanum as a true-blue rare earth element?

Even though the Rare Earth family or kingdom of elements is also known as the Lanthanide Series named after lanthanum, lanthanum possessed enough anomalies that lanthanum’s inclusion in the rare earth series of elements could have been easily called into question. Ever since after thorough scientific analysis since its discovery, element number 57 lanthanum chemical symbol La, can be considered a maverick among the rare earth elements. In the strictest sense, it is not actually a member of the rare earth inner transition series since it does not have a 4f-electron. Lanthanum’s differentiating electron – from barium – is found in the 5d-orbital. Although lanthanum’s chemical properties does very so resemble those of the rare earth family of elements that the IUPAC had never considered booting it out.

And lanthanum is not the only atomically and chemically controversial member of the rare earth series of elements. The IUPAC has since placed scandium in the Group III B of the First Transition Metals portion of the Periodic Table even though scandium have chemical properties and an atomic structure that intriguely mimics that of the lanthanide series or rare earth elements. So too does yttrium which possesses chemical properties mimicking that of the rare earth elements even though yttrium possesses no 4f-electrons in common with the rare earth elements. Could the 2011 International Year of Chemistry trigger a “revolution” in the Rare Earth Kingdom?

Carl Auer von Welsbach: The Rare Earth Kingdom’s Royal Surveyor?

As a well-renowned chemist and a discoverer of a number of rare earth elements, is Carl Auer von Welsbch the Rare Earth Kingdom’s Royal Surveyor?


By: Ringo Bones


Born in Vienna back in September 1, 1858, little did the whole world knew that Carl Auer von Welsbach will in a few years time be almost single-handedly exploring and surveying the then relatively unknown “Rare Earth Kingdom” in Mendeleyev’s Periodic Table for the benefit of not just the world of chemistry, but for all mankind. The exploratory journey started when Welsbach first studied chemistry under Robert W. Bunsen at the University of Heidelberg, where Welsbach made investigations in the chemistry of rare-earth metals. Later, Welsbach attended the University of Vienna.

In his exploration of the Rare Earth Kingdom, Welsbach became the first chemist to isolate the elements neodymium, samarium and praseodymium back in 1885. he is also best known for his invention in 1885 of the Welsbach Mantle – a means for increasing the illumination given off by a gas jet – which soon after found world-wide use. The Welsbach Mantle consisted of a wad of cotton which had been dipped in a salt solution of zirconium or some other suitable element. The mantle was supported over a gas jet, which would burn away the cotton the first time it was lit., leaving a brittle network of filament which becomes incandescent at a much lower temperature – thus making gas jet illumination much more fuel efficient.

During the advent of electric lighting, Welsbach invented the osmium filament for electric lights. And in 1907, Welsbach managed to isolate another rare earth element called lutetium to a reasonable degree of chemical purity back in 1907 before the advent of the post-World War II zeolite ion-exchange techniques. For a number of years, Welsbach was a member of technical societies in Vienna, Stockholm and Berlin. He died in Carinthia on August 4, 1929. Before passing away, Carl Auer von Welsbach managed to map much of the rare earth portion of the periodic table for the ease and convenience of a generation of chemists following his footsteps.