Afghanistan has vast mineral resources that have long attracted interest from outside countries, but a lack of infrastructure and political instability means they’re unlikely to aid its economy now.
Questions about supplies of rare-earth elements, crucial in high-tech devices, pushed researchers to look to industrial waste for new sources of the key materials.
The world is made of tiny building blocks called ‘elements’. Scientists have worked out how fast some elements change into other elements. That gives us a very big clue about how old the Earth is.
A laser beam (yellow) causes a path of red fluorescence in a rare earth crystal.
Stuart Hay, ANU
Rare earth elements aren’t actually that rare - but they certainly are useful. Erbium is used right now in the internet’s optical fibre network, and could one day be applied in quantum networks.
Materials essential for technology products such as electric vehicles, wind turbines or hard disks, known as rare earth elements, aren’t becoming any less rare, or any less crucial. In fact, experts at…
Defence behemoth Lockheed Martin’s recent announcement of a venture into deep sea mining (DSM) reflects growing interest in exploiting virgin mining territory. In what is being described by some as a “deep…
Four times Australia’s GDP could be hiding in here.
AAP
Rare earth elements (REEs), for so long ignored by big mining companies, have recently become incredibly popular. But, contrary to what their names suggests, they are not particularly rare. They do, however…
The process of extracting REE from the ocean floor presents a Catch 22.
STR/AFP
News outlets recently reported a new paper in Nature Geoscience from a Japanese team documenting very large amounts of Rare Earth Elements (REE) in the mud at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. REE are essential…