Review
Version 1
Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed
Potential Future Alternative Resources for Rare Earth Elements: Opportunities and Challenges
Version 1
: Received: 27 January 2023 / Approved: 28 January 2023 / Online: 28 January 2023 (08:38:38 CET)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Balaram, V. Potential Future Alternative Resources for Rare Earth Elements: Opportunities and Challenges. Minerals 2023, 13, 425. Balaram, V. Potential Future Alternative Resources for Rare Earth Elements: Opportunities and Challenges. Minerals 2023, 13, 425.
Abstract
Currently, there is increasing industrial demand for rare earth elements (REE) as these elements are now integral to the manufacture of many carbon-neutral technologies. The depleting REE ores and increasing mining costs are prompting to look for alternative sources for these valuable metals, particularly from waste streams. Although REE concentrations in most of the alternate resources are lower than current REE ores, some sources such as marine sediments, coal ash, and industrial wastes like red mud are looking promising with significant concentrations of REE in them. This review focuses on the alternative resources for REE such as ocean bottom sediments, continental shelf sediments, river sediments, stream sediments, lake sediments, phosphorites deposits, industrial waste products like red mud, and phosphogypsum, coal, coal fly ash, and related materials, waste rock sources from old and closed mines, acid mine drainage, and recycling of e-waste. Possible future Moon exploration and mining for REE and other valuable minerals are also discussed. It is evident that REE extractions from both primary and secondary ores alone are not adequate to meet the current demand, and sustainable REE recovery from the alternative resources described here is also necessary to meet the growing REE demand. An attempt is made to identify the potential of these alternative resources and sustainability challenges, benefits, and possible environmental hazards to meet the growing challenges in meeting the future REE requirements.
Keywords
rare earth elements; deposits; alternative sources; marine sediments; river sediments; phospho-rites; red mud; fly ash; acid mine drainage; e-waste; extra-terrestrial
Subject
Chemistry and Materials Science, Materials Science and Technology
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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