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Heavy rare earth dysprosium oxide, heavy rare earth terbium oxide and light rare earth praseodymium oxide neodymium oxide have recently risen 65%, 50% and 55% respectively, driven by strong demand for electric vehicles, wind power and photovoltaic, and A-share rare earth plate is booming. After the 1990s of private mining and the 2008 year of tight quota, has China's rare earth industry reached a new turning point.
[the spot prices of rare earth varieties continue to rise] today, the rare earth permanent magnet plate continues to rise. In the spot market, the rare earth market continues the previous market. In light rare earth, the prices of lanthanum cerium metal and oxide are stable; in heavy rare earth, the prices of praseodymium, neodymium, terbium and dysprosium continue to rise. Although the metal factory and magnetic material factory have active inquiries, there are few transactions. Praseodymium and neodymium daily report on February 3 was 560000 yuan / ton, the highest since October 2017.
Huabao Securities believes that the supply of downstream driving superposition is limited, and praseodymium neodymium oxide enters the rising cycle. The demand for high-performance NdFeB magnets driven by new energy vehicles, household appliances and consumer electronics is growing rapidly, while the supply side is growing at a low speed. It is estimated that the prdo and ndbo will enter the shortage cycle from 2021 to 2025, the price of prdo and ndbo will continue to rise, and the industry prosperity will continue to improve. NdFeB leading enterprises benefit from the rapid growth of downstream demand and the profit increase brought by the mild rise of rare earth price. The world ushers in a new energy vehicle policy period. Driven by the domestic favorable policies of "carbon peaking and carbon neutralization", it is expected that the prosperity of the rare earth permanent magnet industry will continue to improve from 2021 to 2025, and the main domestic enterprises of NdFeB magnetic materials will continue to benefit.
Time goes back to Beijing, the Great Hall of the people, just after new year's Day 2009.
A white haired old man with a mackerel's back took over the certificate of the highest national science and technology award known as "China Nobel Prize" from the then top leader, and received a prize of 5 million yuan.
Six years later, on the eve of the May Day holiday in 2015, this meritorious old scientist, unfortunately, died. He said goodbye to Peking University, which has worked for more than half a century. He and his beloved wife and alumni, who had been scientists for 17 years, met in heaven. The wind and rain they went through hand in hand has become a permanent legend of Yanyuan.
Four years later, when the trade dispute between the two sides of the Pacific became white hot, an economics professor on the West Bank declared publicly that there were three "Wang bombers" fighting back against the other side, and one of them was the result of decades of hard work of the old scientist. And how to fight this "Wang Bang" and how much effect it will have become a hot topic in the global market.
Not long after this expert threw out the theory of "Wang Bang", a Hong Kong listed company, which had been losing money for seven consecutive years and had been "immortal stock" for a long time, suddenly blossomed and its stock price doubled in one day. The actual controller of the company, the "Xijiao No.5" in Shanghai last year, paid a huge bill of 400000 yuan.
The company doubled on May 17
Whether it's the highest science and technology award or "Wang Bang", it all comes from the same thing - rare earth. This name sounds "rare" and "earthy", but its strategic significance is extraordinary: even the chief designer once said that "there is oil in the Middle East and rare earth in China", which shows that its strategic position is important.
However, it is a pity that in the past, rare earths, which are tied with oil, have brought China not only "Wang Bang", but also heartache again and again. The reasons for this heartache are not only the backwardness of science and technology, but also the closeness of ideology.
A history of rare earth industry reflects countless sad past events. Now, let's go into the past of rare earth and learn from it.
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How important is rare earth?
How many rare earths are there in China?
Rare earth is not only "rare" but also "earthy". However, just like "people can't judge their appearance", the position of rare earth in modern science and technology can't be underestimated. Whether it's aircraft, missiles or chips, it can't do without the contribution of rare earth. Even known as "industrial vitamins.".
So how can rare earth have so many uses?
The so-called rare earth is the general name of 17 elements in the periodic table, including La, CE, PR, Nd, PM, SM, EU, Gd, TB, Dy, Ho, er, TM, Yb, Lu, SC and y. The English name is rare earth, referred to as re or R.
The reason why these elements are called "rare earth" is a problem left over by history: in the early days, it was thought that these elements were very rare in nature, and because of the underdevelopment of production technology, only oxides like "Earth" could be produced, so they were named "rare earth". But modern science and technology tell us that the content of "rare earth" elements in nature is not small, and its content is even higher than some common elements: for example, the abundance of Cerium in the crust is close to that of copper, while lutetium is more than 200 times higher than that of gold. From this point of view, it makes sense that "sparse" soil is not "sparse".
First of all, the distribution of rare earth elements in the crust is quite scattered, and few deposits can be enriched to commercial mining value. Secondly, because of their similar chemical properties, they tend to form alloy ore or coexist with other elements, so it is not easy to separate the rare earth elements. From this point of view, rare earth is still "rare" soil.
Rare earth elements have three commonalities
1. Similar atomic structure; 2. Similar ionic radius; 3. Close symbiosis in nature.
However, the properties of different rare earth elements are still slightly different. This difference has also become the basis for the classification of rare earth elements. For example, seven elements of lanthanum, dysprosium, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium and europium before gadolinium are light rare earth elements, also known as cerium group rare earth elements; nine elements of terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, lutetium and yttrium after gadolinium and gadolinium are heavy rare earth elements, also known as yttrium group rare earth elements. In order to overcome this small difference and separate and purify these elements, countless pioneers of science and technology have worked hard.
Rare earth elements are widely used in glass, ceramics, metallurgy, military, agriculture, medical, petrochemical, electronic devices, aerospace, power battery and other industries.
[figure] distribution of rare earth application fields
98% of China's total rare earth resources are distributed in Inner Mongolia, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Sichuan, Shandong and other regions, forming a distribution pattern of North, South, East and West, with the distribution characteristics of light in the north and heavy in the south.
[picture] China's rare earth resources are light in the north and heavy in the South (photo source: Wikipedia)
Light rare earth resources are mainly distributed in Bayan Obo rare earth deposit in Inner Mongolia, Weishanhu rare earth deposit in Shandong, Maoniuping rare earth deposit in Mianning, Sichuan, etc.
Heavy rare earth resources are mainly distributed in southern China, in Jiangxi, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan and Fujian. Although its reserves are less than one percent of the light rare earth, the heavy rare earth is almost irreplaceable when it is used in cutting-edge military and other fields. China's heavy rare earth reserves, accounting for 90% of the world's total, have become the focus of world-class resources competition.
Because of the characteristics of easy mining and extraction, the ion adsorption medium rare earth and heavy rare earth ore in Nanling area has become an important production base of medium and heavy rare earth in China.
However, in the past few decades, so many rare earth resources have brought China not only wealth, but also a round of profound lessons. Behind this, the old scientist mentioned at the beginning of this article is inseparable. He is academician Xu Guangxian, known as "the father of rare earth in China".
He once led a team to make China's rare earth separation technology the first in the world, forming an absolute technical barrier. Since then, he has witnessed the illegal exploitation of rare earth resources in various places and deeply grieved. He has written to the Central Committee to require the mining order to be standardized as soon as possible, and finally reversed the disorderly development of rare earth resources. Today, when we review the development history of China's rare earth industry, we should not forget Xu's outstanding achievements.
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From exporting raw materials to exporting manufactured goods
As early as July 3, 1927, two young geologists Ding Daoheng and he zuolin discovered iron ore and rare earth minerals in Bayan Obo, Inner Mongolia. However, at that time, the great role of rare earth was not yet realized by human beings. In addition to the frequent wars in old China, this huge treasure was still sleeping underground.
The large-scale development and application of rare earth can be traced back to the post World War II era: in the 1950s and 1960s, the scientific community discovered the important application of rare earth materials in crude oil, electronics and other industrial sectors, which promoted the development of rare earth industry on a large scale, and rare earth refining factories around the world have sprung up. At that time, the world recognized that the U.S. rare earth reserves ranked first in the world, and its montingpass mine was known as the world's largest rare earth mine at that time.
By the 1970s, the annual production of bastnaesite in the United States has reached 40000 tons. The largest rare earth processing enterprise in the world is France's Rhone Planck company, which can process 8000t (REO, calculated by rare earth oxide) monazite every year. The advanced technology of global rare earth production is also in the hands of these developed countries.
In China in the 1950s, although it was an era of "rapid development", due to the extreme backwardness of science and technology, the application of rare earth was only limited in the laboratory. Talking about the "King bomb" of rare earth with Chinese people is like saying that human beings have colonized Mars. It was not until 1958, at the end of the first five year plan, that the separation and purification of rare earths were included in the national medium and long-term development plan.
In the same year, China and the Soviet Union set up a joint investigation team to visit Bayan Obo. At that time, he zuolin was appointed as the leader of the Chinese side. After arduous investigation activities, he finally found that this mine is not only a huge iron ore mountain, but also the largest rare earth mine in the world, thus confirming his prediction more than 30 years ago. Soon, Baotou Iron and steel company was established here
Although the reserves are very large, because the ore is a mixed type of rare earth minerals composed of bastnaesite and monazite, it is very difficult to beneficiate and smelt. At that time, there was no way to achieve high-precision rare earth smelting in China, so these ores could only be used as the residue after steel-making and could not play a greater value.
In that year, Xu Guangxian of Peking University was transferred from the Department of chemistry to the Department of Technical Physics, and began to engage in the research of nuclear fuel extraction, which is closely related to the manufacture of atomic bombs, but not so closely related to rare earth.
In 1960, Shanghai Yuelong chemical plant was established. It is the earliest, largest and most complete rare earth smelting and deep processing enterprise in China. It mainly uses monazite as raw material to produce all kinds of rare earth related products, including materials, metals and flints. In Bayan Obo, thousands of kilometers away, with the expansion of mining volume year by year, the comprehensive development and utilization of rare earth has become a top priority.
However, the accumulation of technology is not overnight. As mentioned above, the chemical properties of rare earth elements are very similar, which makes it very difficult to separate and purify different rare earth elements. Once the purity is not enough, its commercial value will be greatly reduced.
It is precisely because the domestic rare earth production process and technology are very backward that the French government takes the rare earth production technology as a top secret and blockades China. For example, France's Rhone Planck company has been able to use the extraction method to separate 16 elements from rare earths in the 1960s and 1970s, but the plant is very confidential about this technology, and no outsiders are allowed to visit the production process.
At the same time, China could only produce rare earth concentrate and rare earth mixture, so for a long time, China's export of rare earth was "cabbage price". When a single rare earth element with high purity is needed, it can only be purchased from abroad at a high price. The huge price difference makes the domestic related industries difficult. For example, the development of domestic solid-state lasers is slow due to the need for single rare earth element neodymium.
The severe reality forces China to speed up the development of rare earth separation and purification technology. However, the accumulation of technology is not overnight. After 1966, due to the constant internal fighting, the development of all kinds of work is more difficult.
Until 1972, due to the Western blockade, China was unable to import some important scientific and technological instruments and had to rely on itself. In this context, the research team led by Xu Guangxian received the military task of separating two rare earth elements praseodymium and neodymium.
Praseodymium and neodymium are a pair of twins, which are very difficult to separate. The separation effect is not good by using the general extraction system. If ion exchange method is used, although the separation purity is high, the yield is small and the cost is high. How to achieve a relatively high yield under the premise of ensuring the effect has become a difficult problem for the research team.
As for the separation of praseodymium and neodymium, the U.S. Atomic Energy Agency has done relevant research before, but finally found that although the single-stage separation efficiency is very high, the cascade extraction (continuous extraction) can not be realized, and the maximum separation can only reach about 80%, which can not reach 100%. Therefore, the relevant research data are decrypted and published.
On the basis of relevant information from the United States, the team found out the reason why the cascade extraction could not be realized through further research: the complexing agent used was too strong, which completely complexed praseodymium and neodymium in the aqueous phase and could not be transferred to the organic phase; on this basis, the team thought that there should be rare earth in the organic phase to exchange with the aqueous phase and continuously improve the purity of rare earth.
After two years of arduous experiments, the team finally achieved the separation of praseodymium and neodymium in the laboratory, with a purity of 99.9%. By using this method, the overstocked praseodymium and neodymium concentrate in Baotou Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. was treated, which not only successfully realized "turning waste into treasure", but also laid the foundation for rare earth research in China, which can be said to be a model of combination of industry, University and research.
The power of example is endless: on the basis of successful separation of praseodymium and neodymium, the team extracted high-purity yttrium oxide from the mixed rare earth system in Jiangxi Province in 1974 to provide raw materials for the preparation of red TV phosphor in Beijing chemical plant, and then solved the separation problem of nickel and cobalt in Jinchuan Nonferrous metals.
Although the extraction theory at this time has achieved great success, its limitations are also very obvious
First, it can only be applied to two-phase separation, and can not do anything about the separation of multiple elements; second, many key data in the separation process can not be obtained through theoretical derivation, but can only be obtained through manual experiments, commonly known as "shaking funnel", so it is difficult to achieve computer simulation, and the production naturally cannot be automated.
In the face of new problems, Xu Guangxian led the team to finally invent the "cascade extraction theory" after several years of research
It not only solves a series of problems in the separation, but also abandons the traditional operation idea of small-scale test, pilot test, large-scale test and actual production, directly from computer simulation to factory production, and ensures the success of a test run, which shortens the experimental process that originally took several years to several weeks, effectively saves time and cost, and realizes the full automation of production It belongs to "exchanging guns with birds".
By the end of 1980s and the beginning of 1990s, after this theory was widely applied in the whole country, China exported a large number of single high-purity rare earths, and the international price of rare earths was reduced to nearly 1 / 4 of the original. In the past, foreign rare earth manufacturers, who were high above the others, had to cut production or even stop production, successfully rewriting the pattern of the international rare earth industry, which they called "China impact".
As a result, Xu Guangxian is known as "Yuan Longping of rare earth". He is also known as "the father of China's rare earth". Up to now, his research achievements are still the foundation of China's rare earth industry and maintain a leading position in the world. It's 200