A Malaysian Study Maps the Hardest Step in Rare Earth Processing—and Why China Still Holds the Leverage Midstream

[DOC]

Malaysian study reveals praseodymium neodymium separation requires 62 stages to reach 99.99% purity, explaining China's dominance in magnet materials. (read full article...)

 

[yusoff123]

Malaysian study reveals praseodymium neodymium separation requires 62 stages to reach 99.99% purity, explaining China's dominance in magnet materials. (

Hi, I’m Hafidz Yusoff, a lecturer from Universiti Malaysia Kelantan and one of the authors of this paper. The main author is Norazihan Zulkifli, who is also a member of our team, not Intan Norhani. Intan Norhani is not an author of this paper. It appears that the wrong name was cited. Please refer to and reflect the full and correct name (Norazihan Zulkifli) in the paper you referenced and make the necessary amendment.

 

[John]

Hi @yusoff123

I have asked the team to amend. If it hasn't been updated in the next 24 hours. Please email me direct at john@rareearthexchanges.com

Sorry for the mix up.

John

 

[Les Confer]

I opened the link provided and read the technical study itself. It made me recall the attached U. of Idaho 2016 Master's thesis by Kevin Lyon. Kevin actually tested his Matlab modeling with confirming SX extraction experiments (on Idaho National Laboratory's 32-stage bench scale mixer-settler system) and you will see they were very close. If you go to his Fig. 15, you will see that he also predicts 50 to 60+ stages to achieve the Nd-4N purification. But this Fig. 15 also shows that downstream users should be very sure they are not over specifying the purity that they require for their application (in order to avoid a premium price):
with just 12 stages the Nd was 99.04% pure
with 20 stages the Nd had improved to 99.53% pure
with 30 stages the Nd had purified to 99.93%
with 40 stages the Nd had purified to 99.89%
with 50 stages the Nd had purified to 99.94%