Why ocean mud might matter to your future iPhone
Odds are, if you name any electronic device, it relies on a group of metals known as the rare earths. These metals (most are found on the periodic table in the Lanthanide group) have special properties useful for a wide range of things like magnets, batteries, lasers, lamps, X-ray scanners, and catalysts. Without them, you can’t make wind turbines or smart phones or hybrid cars, so global demand is high and getting higher.
Given that information, consider the following fact: China currently produces 97 percent of the world’s supply of rare earth elements. If ever a market has been cornered, it’s this one.
China isn’t the only nation with economic sources of rare earths, though. If you put together the former USSR states, Australia, and the US, you’ll find about one-third of global reserves—roughly the same amount that China possesses. China has dominated the supply because of its cheap labor and loose environmental regulations, but other sources will soon need to come online to meet rising demand (including from within China itself). Skyrocketing prices will only help stimulate production, but more accessible deposits would also be a boon.
. A group of Japanese researchers have identified a vast new source: the seafloor. Using sediment cores from 78 locations that cover a big chunk of the Pacific Ocean, they’ve found huge areas where the concentration of rare earths in the sediment is well above the level that makes mining worthwhile. In the eastern South Pacific and the central North Pacific, the concentrations are comparable to the deposits in China, except that the heavier of the rare earth elements—gadolinium on up—are twice as abundant in the seafloor deposits.In addition, the muds contain viable amounts of other metals—namely vanadium, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, molybdenum, and manganese. And like a late night infomercial, it seems to get even better! Thorium and uranium are much less abundant than in continental deposits, minimizing issues with radioactivity.
The icing on the cake is that rare earth extraction—liberating the metals from the compounds that they're part of—is also much easier for these deposits than for continental ones. The authors note that almost all the rare earths are easily extracted with just a few hours in dilute acid.
Thanks, hydrothermal activity!The seafloor deposits appear to be connected with hydrothermal activity. Iron compounds that precipitate out of hydrothermal fluids are thought to scavenge the rare earth elements from the surrounding seawater, taking them out of the water column and concentrating them in sediment.
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In the eastern South Pacific and the central North Pacific, the concentrations are comparable to the deposits in China, except that the heavier of the rare earth elements—gadolinium on up—are twice as abundant in the seafloor deposits.
The space shuttle Atlantis' payload bay is seen with the earth in the background in this photo provided by NASA and taken May 14, 2010. OAKLAND, Calif. - Way back last century,
They're key to a variety of everyday devices, from tablet computers and TVs to hybrid cars and wind turbines, so it may be encouraging to know several kinds are actually common. Cerium, for example, is the 25th most abundant element on Earth.
stores of rare earth elements, which can be accessed and extracted much more easily compared to mining on land. China, until now, has been the world's main source of rare elements. This has allowed it to control supply, most notably to Japan.
And the arrival of other new producers seeking to profit from price increases has led some analysts to predict that the world will have an oversupply of the most common rare-earth materials by 2015. Total global production last year was 114800 metric
How much Is Scrap Aluminum Worth?
Aluminum is a very common metallic chemical element that can be found in use across the globe in many various products. One of the most common places that you will find aluminum is within the kitchen.
This metal is classified as one of the poor metals, and just like tin and lead, the metal is very malleable. Diverse forms of this metal have been in use throughout history. Aluminum oxide may even be found in pottery and glazes as far back as Ancient Egypt. During the 1800s,Hans Christian Oersted was finally able to isolate an impure form of this element, and then in 1827, Friedrich Wohler was in a position to isolate the pure element.
Aluminum is the third most common element inside the Earth’s crust. It’s also the most common metallic element on the Earth. When the metal is pure, it will always be a silvery white and be very lightweight. It is easily bent, and it can be used in order to make strong alloys.
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